KSFO's Web Wanderer

The Links for November 6, 1999

National Geographic Map Machine - Thom from Orangevale, Wine Country Larry

From the press release: "Combining more than a century of traditional mapping with modern technology, the National Geographic Society is issuing a massive new world atlas and making its maps available on the Internet."

It continues: "It's a great day for maps," the society's chief cartographer, Allen Carroll, said in announcing the steps Wednesday at a news conference at 38 degrees 54 minutes 18 seconds north latitude, 77 degrees 2 minutes 18 seconds west longitude. "Not too many years ago, maps were pretty passive things. Back then, maps were kind of like nouns, now they've become active verbs," Carroll said of the book-Internet combination."

This was a three-year, $3 million project to computerize all society maps. The book costs $125; the Internet is free (supported by advertising and sponsors).

When I first tried to connect to the site a few days ago, I couldn't connect. Shades of the "Encyclopedia Britanica site", which is FINALLY working (within the last few days).

Well, I got in this morning, and got some sort of script error. Not good. I might need to update my software, or it might be a bug. Close other applications before trying.

Thanks, Thom and Larry!

Ehow: Lessons in Everything - Taxi Stan

Taxi STAN found this site. He emailed me: "I don't know if your looked at ehow.com but it is really worth a look.They have thousands of tutorials on just about everything..It's only a few months old and its getting better all the time."

He continues: "I needed some information on installing a scsi card for my zip drive and it had concise and easy to understand information. They had a ton of info I could use for my car and it too was well written.."

This site is incredible. Bookmark it.

There's a TON of information here on pretty much any topic you can think of.

They have a "Thanksgiving page", with a countdown to Thanksgiving, how to pick a turkey, how to make stuffing and lots more recipes, teaching children the meaning of Thanksgiving, "quickly baby proofing Grandma's house", how to wrap a gift, how to choose a good wine for poultry, holiday airline travel exercises, etc. You get the idea. Thorough!!

This will be my #1 site for checking for "How To" information.

Great site, Stan. Thanks!

Interview with the Web's Creator: Tim Berners-Lee - Andantino

Andantino found this interesting site for Net Historians. If you're over 10 years old, you've lived the entire history of the World Wide Web.

Tim Berners-Lee first proposed a "global hypertext project" now known as the World Wide Web. This was back in 1989, at the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. He wanted researchers like himself to be able to easily and automatically combine their knowledge in a Web of hypertext documents.

Who would have guessed how it would change the world? Now, people hop in it to get information, taking it completely for granted. You can find pretty much anything on the web. A friend of mine at work - Michele, just got a major order for her nail care product (side business) from Raleys. Big order. But - they need her UPC code so they can enter it into inventory. Those product bar code thingies. Within 3 minutes, I found out who issues them, and found the online application to get one. Now - how could I have done this in 1990? How many man hours - how much total time, would it have taken?

Andantino found a page online where Tim Berners-Lee had a recent interview. He has a new book, "Weaving the Web", which chronicles how the Web really happened and where its creator thinks it should go from here. This interview touches on some of the subjects.

Interesting reading, and listening, due to the audio track. Thanks, Andantino!

The Ultimate Directory of Cooking Sites - Solinas

Well, the Tudogs people are at it again. This time it's Tudocs - The Ultimate Directory of Cooking Sites.

It's a "lots of links" sites. Instead of the Tucows' Cows rating system, and the Tudogs' dogs, TuDocs rates the sites from one to five pots.

There's a bunch of categories on the site, and each site has a ton of listings., with lots of listings.

It's a MUST BOOK site for all chefs out there.

Check it out.

Deal of the Day - Thom from Orangevale

Thom from Orangevale found Deal of the Day - a site which has DAILY updates of special discounts.

The main page has a bunch of money saving offers. But - poking around the site showed me the real value of this site. Say you want to buy a couple of new movies. Wanna see what online coupons are available? Click on movies. You'll find:

$5 off at Amazon

$10 off at Barnes and Noble

$15 off at BigStar

A free movie with a $25 dollar purchase at BigStar

A free copy of The Wizard of Oz with a $25 purchase at BigStar

And the list goes on - most of the major online companies have special offers here. It's a MUST VISIT before you buy!

Great site, Thom. Thanks!

Free For All!

"Free For All" on the Web Wanderer Report used to mean "just freeware - software which is useful, cool, or interesting, and ALWAYS free. No shareware. Well, there's a ton of other real valuable stuff on the web besides software - everything from Internet Access, to email, to web space. From now on, I'll be spotlighting these things as part of the "Free for All" as well.

Cartogra: Free online digital photo album - Dyno Don

Dyno Don says: "Here's another freebie from Hewlett Packard. You have to join but the only "cost" is you have to have cookies turned on. This is a cool site which allows you to post photos for exchange with anyone; private, public and for yourself only. And of course the operative; "And More!""

From the site: "Welcome to HP Cartogra -- the FREE and easy way to share your digital photos! Now you can:

Send a photo or e-Postcard

Create your own personal photo album

Let family & friends view your photos online -- and view theirs, too!

Place a photo on an auction site

Make a photo gift

Print your photos

...and much, much more!"

I tried the site, and had major problems uploading a picture through Internet Explorer. I kept getting errors. Poking around the site, I found a free download for a software program which handles the upload, without your browser. That worked for me.

Worth a visit, and a browse through some of the public photo albums.

Check it out. Thanks, Don!

Image Spy - Solinas

I got this one from a TuDogs mailing. The mailing said: "Often, it's the little apps. which make life easy. Here's a quick download which makes life easy for web developers. Click on an image file and bingo - the HTML "img src=" tag is created complete with width and height attributes. Simply copy and paste."

This is a great little tool for web site developers. Very simple and fast to use.

Grab a copy.

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This page, and all contents, are Copyright (C) 1999 by Michael A. Solinas.