The Scout Report - August 11, 1995

August 11, 1995

A Service to the Internet Community
Provided by the Info Scout and the InterNIC

The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators, the InterNIC's primary audience. However everyone is welcome to subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML) or visit the Web version of the Scout Report on the InterNIC server:http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/sr/

Additional information and detailed access and subscription instructions are included at the end of each Scout Report.

Highlights In This Week's Report:

• China News page
• Hurricane Felix
• New Orleans, Louisiana - A Virtual Library
• Acrobat, Gentech, and MediaLib mailing lists
• Jerry Garcia Sites

World Wide Web:

• The China News page provides links to sources of political, social and economic news about mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet available free of charge on the Internet. Extensive information is provided on how to view Chinese characters on the Web, how to listen to Chinese, and where to go to see interesting Chinese language sites on the Web. There are also links to sources of Asian and world news which might contain information about recent developments in the Greater China area. The page is the work of a BBC correspondent living in Hong Kong.
  http://www.hk.net/~drummond/milesj/china.html
  [Note: When last checked by the Internet Scout team, this site URL was no longer available.]
• Hurricane Felix - watch it for yourself on the Web. Download options include a current GOES 8 color enhanced infrared image, current Atlantic Basin Tropical System Tracking Chart, NOWRAD Radar Composite, or NOWRAD Radar Summary which shows speed and direction. Also links to the public advisory, marine advisory, latitude & longitude pairs, and full-resolution IR satellite photo, NOAA's most recent report and the Disaster Information Network.
  http://www.netcreations.com/hurricane/
• The Media Online Yellow Pages is another good place (along with the Big List and Newslink mentioned last week) to find media sources on the Internet. Does not appear to be searchable but the index is well-organized for browsing.
  http://www.webcom.com/~nlnnet/yellowp.html
• The Web page titled "New Orleans, Louisiana - A Virtual Library," offers a comprehensive view of New Orleans for residents and visitors alike. Hundreds of photos are available, including a Library of Congress collection of photos of New Orleans at the turn of the century, current photos courtesy of other Web sites and photographers, and pictures taken from the Space Shuttle. Besides music, recreation, arts, and tourist listings, you can read Ann Rice's views on the film, "Interview with the Vampire."
  http://www.geopages.com/SunsetStrip/1202/
  [Note: When last checked by the Internet Scout team, this site URL was no longer available.]
• The Nomadic Research Labs is a small enterprise devoted to the pursuit of nomadness. It was created by Steve Roberts who has been a technomad for the past 11 years, wandering 17,000 miles around the U.S. on various versions of a computerized recumbent bicycle known first as the Winnebiko and then BEHEMOTH. The Web site offers extensive information about BEHEMOTH and its travels and the ongoing development of Microship which holds a satellite Internet connection, two Macs, onboard video production capability and more. You can also find extensive information about the growing field of technomadics -- the use of nomadic connectivity and autonomous power/control tools to render one's physical location irrelevant.
  http://www.microship.com/
• Teacher Talk is published by the Center for Adolescent Studies at the School of Education, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. It is a publication for preservice, secondary education teachers and exists on the Web documents in a print. Content is indexed by topic making it easy to find specific information.
  http://education.indiana.edu/cas/tt/tthmpg.html
• The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) provides a Web page covering "Basic Facts About Registering A Trademark." Topics include establishing trademark rights, applications, who may apply, searching for conflicting marks, and use of the "TM," "SM" and "circled R" symbols. The information presented here has been quoted on the 'Net often recently with respect to the relationship (or lack thereof) between domain names and trademarks.
  http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/
• The Vote Smart Web is a new service made available by Project Vote Smart, a non-profit organization that makes factual information about politicians available for free. Project Vote Smart's database is available in conjunction with other sources of political information found on the Internet, and is researcher assisted via an 800 number. Links include the '96 presidential campaign, issues, organizations, educational reference materials, and other directories of political information. Also useful is the political humor section, which makes wading through the rest a little easier. (!)
  http://www.vote-smart.org/
• WeatherNet, brought to us by The Weather Underground at University of Michigan, aims to be the premier site of weather links on the Internet. Besides the topical tropical storm page, you can view Accu-Weathers graphics including Nexrad imagery, satellite photos, surface maps, and forecast maps.
  http://cirrus.sprl.umich.edu/wxnet/

Gopher

• The Council of State Governments (CSG) is a non-profit organization which provides information on state government issues to both the legislators and the public. CSG is a nonpartisan organization that seeks to foster excellence in state government. Founded on the premise that the states are the best sources of insight and innovation, CSG provides a network for identifying and sharing ideas with state leaders. The gopher server provides information about CSG and innovative state programs plus links to state legislative gopher servers and federal gophers.
  http://www.statesnews.org/
  [Note: Originally reviewed as a gopher site; gopher site has been replaced by web site.]
• Voice of America Chinese radio scripts are now available on their gopher server. The Chinese texts are character-encoded according to the Chinese national standard (Guo Biao) and you must have software that recognizes Guo Biao characters installed on your browser, word-processor or other application program in order to read this text. Also see the Voice of America (VOA) News and English Broadcast Wire Service and the Worldnet television schedules and satellite downlink information. VOA Internet audio files are available in Sun AU format and Microsoft 8 bit and 16 bit WAVE format.
  gopher to: gopher.voa.gov

Electronic Mailing Lists

• send email to: acrobat-request@blueworld.com

  in the body of the message type: subscribe

  • The main purpose of GENTECH is to exchange information among concerned scientists, activists of grassroot groups and other organizations about the impacts of genetic engineering to environment and society. As there are several other lists and newsgroups backing scientists in biotechnology with academic information the focal point of GENTECH is to provide information and support for individuals and organizations whose are not necessarily familiar with biotechnological terms. The topics for discussion on GENTECH may include among others: food produced by genetic engineering (novel food); releases of GMO's (genetic manipulated organisms); genetic diagnosis in medicine and eugenic tendencies.
    http://www.gene.ch/gentech.txt

    send email to: gentech-request@gen.free.de

    in the body of the message type: subscribe

    • MEDIALIB has been formed to discuss issues surrounding audiovisual/media services in library. It serves, primarily, library professionals and paraprofessionals who provide media services in public, academic, and special libraries. These issues include the selection, acquisition, and cataloging of media software, purchase and maintenance of audiovisual equipment, distance education, instructional media production, film and video distribution, etc. The list is open and unmoderated.

      send mail to: LISTSERV@CFRVM.CFR.USF.EDU

      in the body of the message type:

      SUBSCRIBE MEDIALIB yourfirstname yourlastname

    NetBytes

    • Netscape Communications released its first offering of public stock last week, but if you were planning to get in early you're already too late. The initial plan to release 3.5 million shares at $11 was raised to 5 million shares at $28 but they all went to insiders. On opening day the demand was as high as 100,000,000 according to one broker who called Netscape the "rookie of the year." After 45 minutes on the market the price was $74.75. By the end of trading on Friday 8/11 it had settled at $52. All this before the company has earned a profit. A daily graph of Netscape stock on the most recent trading day is available at:
      http://www.secapl.com/secapl/quoteserver/nscp.html For more information and some quotes see Webster at:
      http://www.tgc.com/webster.html
    • NETSURFER TOOLS is a new e-zine bringing news about online technology to technical professionals and others interested in keeping current on network tools. The majority of the information is about the Web with a sprinkle of related utilities. Also available via email in either plain text or text with HTML versions.
      http://www.netsurf.com/nst/

      send email to: nstools-request@netsurf.com

      in the body of the message type: subscribe nstools-text

      or subscribe nstools-html

    Weekend Scouting

    • In honor of Jerry Garcia, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream will donate 50 cents to charity for every carton of their "Cherry Garcia" flavor (named after Jerry) sold. [I bought one on Wednesday before I even knew about the 50 cents, and I'm not even a Dead Head. It seemed like the thing to do.] Ben & Jerry's Web site calls us Web-heads.
      http://www.benjerry.com/
    • In honor of Jerry Garcia, here's two of many Jerry Garcia sites. Both link to many more.
      http://www.jagunet.com/ideal/garcia
      http://www.rockweb.com/rwi/jerry-tribute/
      [Note: Resource(s)/URL(s) mentioned above is no longer available.]
      
    • The 37 year-old Music Week magazine from the UK is now available on the Web with daily updates of news items. Its slogan is 'for everyone in the business of music'. The major content changes weekly.
      http://www.dotmusic.com/MWhome.html

    About the Scout Report

    The Scout Report is a weekly publication offered by the InterNIC to the Internet community as a fast, convenient way to stay informed about network activities. Its purpose is to combine in one place selected new (and newly-discovered) Internet resources.

    A wide range of topics are included in the Report with an emphasis on resources thought to be of interest to the InterNIC's primary audience, the research and education community. Each resource has been verified for substantial content and accessibility within a day of the release of the Report.

    The Scout Report is provided in multiple formats -- mailing lists for both a plain text and HTML version, and World Wide Web. The World Wide Web version of the Report includes links to all listed resources. The report is released every weekend.

    In addition to the plain text version, the Scout Report is distributed in HTML format allowing sites to post the Scout Report on local WorldWideWeb servers each week. The result is faster access for local users. You are welcome and encouraged to re-post and re-distribute the report. Note that copyright statements appear on all versions of the Scout Report, and we ask that these be included when re-posting or re-distributing.

    If you haven't yet subscribed or told your friends and colleagues, now is the time. Spread the news by word-of-net. Join 20,000 of your colleagues already using the Scout Report as a painless tool for tracking what's new on the 'Net!

    Comments and contributions to the Scout Report are encouraged and can be sent to scout@cs.wisc.edu

    -- Susan Calcari
    InterNIC Info Scout

    Scout Report Access Methods

    • To receive the electronic mail version of the Scout Report each Friday, join the scout-report mailing list. You will receive one message a week -- the Scout Report every weekend.

      send email to: majordomo@dsmail.internic.net in the body of the message, type:
      

      subscribe scout-report
      to unsubscribe to the list, repeat this procedure substituting the word "unsubscribe" for subscribe.

      • To receive the Scout Report in HTML format for local posting, subscribe to the scout-report-html mailing list, used exclusively to distribute the Scout Report in HTML format once a week.

        send mail to: majordomo@dsmail.internic.net in the body of the message, type:
        

        subscribe scout-report-html

        • To access the hypertext version of the Report, point your WWW client to:
          http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/sr/

        Resource Addressing Conventions

        After each resource in the Scout Report one or more network addresses are listed. Every attempt is made to use the same convention in each listing for the network address of each resource. It is assumed that users recognize the type of address and know how to use it. However, for those users unfamiliar with the Internet we provide here the order in which addresses are listed (by network tool.) A brief explanation of one tool, WWW is included below.

        The four network tools referenced most often in the Scout Report are World Wide Web, gopher, email, and FTP. Occasionally WAIS and Telnet addresses are also listed.

        After each resource at least one address is listed, and sometimes more. This is because some resources are available using multiple network tools. The network tool addresses are always listed in the same order after each resource:

        • World Wide Web (WWW)
        • Gopher
        • FTP
        • Email
        • Telnet
        • WAIS

        A WWW address is called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and always begins with a string of characters followed by a colon and two forward slashes. For example:

        http://www.internic.net/
        gopher://gibbs.oit.unc.edu:70/11/research.d/grants.d
        ftp://ftp.digex.net/pub/access/hecker/internet/slip-ppp.txt

        To access the resource through the WWW you can use a WWW browser installed on your desktop computer, or a "command-line" WWW client on your local Internet host computer. Web browsers are available for all major computer platforms, including Macintosh, PC, and UNIX. Check with your local support center or your Internet Service Provider for more information about Web browsers.

        ---

        Copyright Susan Calcari, 1995.

        Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the Scout Report provided the copyright notice, this permission notice, and the two paragraphs below are preserved on all copies.

        The InterNIC provides information about the Internet and the resources on the Internet to the US research and education community under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation: NCR-9218742. The Government has certain rights in this material.

        Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, AT&T, or Network Solutions, Inc.