KSFO's Web Wanderer

The Links for November 20, 1999

Wall O' Links - Thom from Orangevale

Wall O' Links is just what it sounds like - a wall, with a bunch of links on it.

There's a real mix here. Would make for great browsing, if you had lots of time.

Worth a look. Thanks, Thom!

Poser Forum Online Contest Submissions - Ian / Solinas

Ian In Livermore (IanLM in the chat" is our resident 3D Rendering Guru. He's co-written a book on Poser - a killer program for doing the modeling for generating computer graphics.

Poser Forum Online is a support forum for 3D graphics. This is the second year they held a contest - people send in their best work, and it is judged by a panel, with $3,000+ in prizes. Your Web Wanderer has done some rendering in the past, and was asked to judge.

I did the judging late after work. There were some co-workers and friends still around, and they saw what I was doing. People were stunned at the images in the contest. Really beautiful stuff. Judging was difficult with so much good stuff.

The link above leads you to the submission page for the "rendering" contest. You'll see some stunning, and amazing, computer art there. Check it out.

Thanks, Ian, for allowing me the honor as judge. It was fun!

100 Years of Associated Press Images - Thom from Orangevale

Thom from Orangevale found an amazing site.

The Associated Press has been documenting our present for over 100 years. 100 years of reporting what was happening. That ads up to a lot of photos.

The members and subscribers of the Associated Press voted on which images were the best. This site has the top 150 photos. Some extremely memorable - some obscure. All worth viewing.

It's a great site. Thanks, Thom.

Win MD: Windows Registery Information - Taxi Mike

Taxi Mike found this killer Registry site. He says: "Here's a great site for information about the Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000 Registry. WinMD also links to a variety of registry tools and Windows sites. There's a great explanation of how to use the Window's Policy Editor which is a must read if you want to use this tool. The site also features "Tip of the Day" mailing lists and discussion lists."

From the site: "WinMD.com is the premiere information source for your questions about the Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000 Registry. All information on the site is free and is designed to give readers the opportunity to increase their knowledge and a better understanding of how to harness the Registry's power. New information is added daily, so come back often."

This site has a good FAQ section, a thorough Knowledge Base, and Registry software.

Well worth a bookmark. Thanks, Taxi Mike!

vBay - Solinas

Probably everybody knows an eBay auction junkie. Someone hooked on online auctions, and who spends far too much time checking them out. This site is perfect for this type. I'll admit I've been to the auction site quite a bit, and I really got a laugh out of this eBay parody page.

It's not a big site - just a very well done parody page. Worth a look, before the lawyers make 'em take it down.

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.

X:Drive: Easy to use free file transfer space - Stephen

Stephen found this one. My initial reaction when reading his email was "Ah, OK. More free web storage space. Isn't there anough already?" Then I read on, and checked it out.

25 meg free space. Web interface for transferring files. Now - the kicker - Xdrive has special software which allows you to MAP the web storage space as a hard drive on your computer. The software is for Win95 and Win98, Win NT is under development.

Within the past the "free web storage space" business has really evolved. First, you had to use clunky web interfaces. The next refinement was allowing FTP. Now, you don't need any of that - it looks just like a drive on your system. Store and retreive files by dragging and dropping - just like a hard drive.

Plus - if that ain't enough - your account has two areas: PUBLIC and PRIVATE. Just subdirectories on your Xdrive. Very nice.

I like this site very much, and it'll be great for people who need to transfer big files around, and don't want to mess with web interfaces or FTP.

DSL subscribers will really like this one. With fast trasfer speeds, it'll almost look like a read hard drive.

Thanks, Stephen - this is great.

T-mail.com: Free Translation Service - Dudley

Need to email someone in a different language which you don't speak? Before Dudley told me about T-mail, I thought there was only one way: fire up the web browser, log onto translate.altavista.com, enter the text in the text box, click the button to get the translation, highlight and copy the translated text. Open the email program, start a message to the person, paste the translated text in, and send it off. Not hard - just a lot of keystrokes. Dudley found a better way. T-mail

Just write a normal email to your friend, in whatever language you nromally speak. On the "Cc:" line, send a copy to the Universal T-Mail Translator. The translator translates the text, and sends the translated copy off to the original recipient. What could be easier?

As an example - sending a "Cc:" to "English-to-French@T-Mail.com" causes T-mail to translate your text into French, and send it off to the recipient of your email.

It's machine translation, so a little buggy. I sign my emails "Mike", which became translated to "Microphone". Funny.

Still - I'm sure it does a good enough job that you could be understood. Far more than I can say for my college French, anyway.

Cool stuff, Dudley! Thanks!

Dial Pad - Free internet to telephone phone calls - Bob the Old Fogey

Bob the Old Fogey found this, and Taxi Mike swears by it. People I've described it to are amazed. This is a killer app. Sign up immediately.

Internet phoning has been around for a long time. You run software, with a sound card, modem, microphone and ear piece. Your friend does as well. You can make free "phone calls" and talk to each other over the internet. If you're a regular long distance talker, this is great. But - there are some downsides:

you are both tied to the computer

you both must be online

if your friend doesn't have a computer, you ain't talking!

Dialpad takes care of all of this. You need the modem, soundcard, and internet connection. You go to the DailPad site with your browser. A Java applet pops up. It looks like a phone. Dial your friends PHONE NUMBER (not IP address!) and DialPad calls him on his PHONE. Or cell PHONE. He doesn't even need to know the Internet exists.

Taxi Mike said: "Well I just called a buddy in Oregon using DialPad.com and it worked like a charm. It was even call-forwarded to his cell phone....very kewl. Also the conversation was full-duplex. So if you have a full-duplex sound card make sure to enable it if it isn't already...you'll know if it isn't if you can't talk over each other. Also remember that this one comes from Bob, The Old Fogey. Very kewl!".

"System Requirements: Microsoft Windows 95/98/NT, MS IExplorer 4.0 or better/Netscape Navigator 4.5 or better, Any Internet connection, Sound card, Microphone/Speaker"

Great stuff. Thanks, Bob!

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