KSFO's Web Wanderer

The Links for June 5, 2004

Venus Transit 2004 - Ron in San Bruno

Ron in San Bruno says: "Eclipse, schmeclipse, they're a dime a dozen; but a transit of Venus has occurred only six times since the invention of the telescope in the 1600's! On Tuesday, June 8, we have the chance to see one of the rarest of planetary alignments and thanks to the Internet we don't have to leave our computers to see it. Actually, the transit will NOT be visible from the West Coast, so you have to tune in on the web to see it."

"I've found several sites that cover this event, but I favor Goddard's site because of the emphasis on the historical background of this event (plus all the live webcasts the other sites have)."

"The folks at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have put this site for one of the rarest of heavenly events -- the transit of Venus, which occurs on 'Tuesday'. Starting at about 10PM Monday night you can watch as the planet Venus passes between the earth and the sun via a live webcast from participating observatories around the world."

"The last transit of Venus occurred in 1882, so no one alive today has ever witnessed it. Additional information about transit can be found on here: 147 period photographs have been converted into a movie to illustrate the event, NASA's detailed data on the event are provided (explaining why we won't be able to see any of it from the West Coast), the influence of the 1882 transit on culture is also provided. If you would like to hear John Phillip Sousa's Transit of Venus march, you either follow the link or print out the piano score and play it yourself."

"This is a once in a lifetime event, but the next one is in 2012. Why not count on seeing it twice?"

Very cool - thanks Ron!

SF Bay Traffic Info - Solinas

One morning this week, I heard of several very nasty accidents at rush hour. I wanted to get an up-to-the-minute status, and looked for a web page. I found the SF Bay Traffic Info page.

This is a killer page, covering more than what I could consider the SF Bay. It covers these counties:

Results on the main page are sorted by county. You get the following information:

This is a great site - well worth a bookmark. Check it out.

Blue Web'n - Dudley

Dudley says: "This is an extensive informative site. It is a searchable library of 1800+ outstanding Internet learning sites categorized by subject area, audience, and type (lessons, activities, projects, resources, references, & tools). At each site you can check your educational level to choose the correct sites. The levels are Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle and High School and College and Adult/Professional."

Blue Web'n is a cross between "Blue Ribbon", and the Web. It's a huge library of educational sites.

This site is well worth a good, long browse. You'll quickly find some VERY interesting sites. There's something for everyone. I quickly found some interesting lectures in probability.

I'll be coming back often. It's a great site.

Thanks, Dudley!

Year by Year: 1900-2004 - Thom from Orangevale

Thom from Orangevale says: "This site is a keeper. It has all the stats for each year from 1900 to 2004. I saved it just for those qustions that always come up about "what year did that happen?" etc."

Pick a year, and you get information about World Events, U.S. Events, Economics, Sports, Entertainment, Science, and Deaths.

Decade by Decade, there's quizzes and history. You can also check out the interesting timelines.

A nice plus - a "year in review" for last year.

And - it's searchable. Check it out.

Thanks, Thom!

Free For All!

"Free For All" picks are hot, FREE items or services. It can be software, online services, you name it - but it's got to be free, with no strings attached.

YahooPOPs - sifi_guy

sifi_guy says: "I have found The program! I sent you info a while back about a program that allowed you to get your e-mail from Yahoo without going there, but it didn't work on graphics.. Here is one that works on graphics. It has lots of how-to info, and is simple to set up. Multiple settings are also available."

From the site: "YPOPs! is an application that provides POP3 access to Yahoo! Mail. It is available o­n the Windows, Linux, Solaris and Mac platforms."

"Yahoo! Mail disabled free access to its POP3 service o­n 24th April, 2002. This application emulates a POP3 server and enables popular email clients like Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, Mozilla, etc., to download email from Yahoo! accounts. We do not go against the license agreements of Yahoo! Mail. This application is completely legitimate and well within the realms of legal software."

This is a "must-use" for Yahoo Mail people. Check it out.

Thanks, Sifi_guy!

Doc Scrubber - Santa Rosa Steve

Santa Rosa Steve found Doc Scrubber 1.1 for Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.

"Doc Scrubber allows you to view and optionally remove the hidden information contained in Microsoft .doc files. The information contains your registered name, editing time, revision information with names of users that have edited the file and more. While this information can be very useful for internal purpose, it may not be appropriate for distribution, so this little program allows you to scrub the file(s) and output a clean copy, or overwrite the originals."

I'll bet most people have no idea that information is there.

I'll be using this often. Thanks, Steve!

Delete Doctor - Santa Rosa Steve

Santa Rosa Steve also found Delete Doctor v. 1.1 for Windows 9x/ME/2000/NT/XP.

"Delete files that are difficult to delete, such as some files left by viruses and trojans, or files with corrupted file names. This program can also delete files like the "index.dat" files, which store Internet history, by scheduling them for deletion upon system restart. Select a file to delete from a built-in file browser or drag a file to the program window from Explorer."

This is a very cool tool. Check it out.

Thanks, Steve!

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This page, and all contents, are Copyright (C) 2004 by Michael A. Solinas.