Jack Vance Archive
URL: http://www.hw.nl/~remy/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Fans of award-winning Sci Fi and Fantasy author Jack Vance will be in the Web world of their dreams after a visit to this site. The archive's comprehensive bibliography of Vance's published novels, short stories and collections is a much-needed resource for anyone familiar with the extremely prolific writer. Looking for a first edition of The Languages of Pao? A marketplace for rare Vance artifacts is under construction on the site and will surely be a welcome resource for the dedicated Vance collector, earthbound or otherwise.
Overall Rating: 16
Pattern of Knowledge
URL: http://www.tiac.net/users/kba/pok.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Art Bardige of Cambridge, MA offers up an elaborate and thoughtful theory about the history of human invention. It's a noble attempt. Enter into Bardige's construction. The meta-chart is too tidy and clipped for me, but the text is interesting, if biased (remember, you've been warned). He feels that the years 1859-1865 "were the most extraordinary in all human knowledge," based on this output: Darwin's Origin of the Species and Marx's Das Kapital, among others. If you like this kind of thinking, come in for a read far removed from the daily grind.
Overall Rating: 16
Skeptics Society
URL: http://www.skeptic.com/skeptics-society.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them." The Skeptics Society has adopted these words of the Dutch philosopher Spinoza as their motto. The Society publishes a magazine and holds regular conferences to investigate cultural and scientific ideas on religion, conspiracy theories, life after death, urban myths, and paranormal events. Their page includes selected articles from the magazine, papers, interviews, and an excellent reference page of other skeptical sites. A thoughtful and low-key presentation is what you'll find here, as befits intelligent skeptics, which these folks seem to be.
Overall Rating: 15
The Bertrand Russell Page
URL: http://www.crl.com/~bpmac/russell.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Mathematician, philosopher, agnostic, libertarian socialist - Bertrand Russell was a larger than life character. Created by Russell admirer Bruce McLeod, the page contains the text of a number of Russell's speeches and essays. You have to dig through some links to find a bio of this controversial and considerable intellectual, but it's worth it if you don't know him. Russell, who was British, was actively prohibited from lecturing on US college campuses, vilified by the Catholic Church, and generally viewed as trouble by the establishment. You'll find several of his best-known pieces here, including "Why I Am Not a Christian," and "What Is the Soul?"
Overall Rating: 16
Spirit-WWW
URL: http://www.spiritweb.org/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you're curious about spiritual matters broadly defined, gravitate to Rene Muller's Spirit Web. This gent has built a thoughtful and useful site featuring articles, a useful glossary, and links to more info on topics like yoga, meditation, UFOs, reincarnation, and channeling. He has selected a number of articles and essays for each topic, so you get a variety of voices. And he includes a metaphysical bibliography, an event calendar, relevant e-mail contacts, and "spiritual web chat," where you can discuss spiritual beliefs and mysteries with others. An excellent stop for the open-minded spiritually inclined among us.
Overall Rating: 16
Intentional Communities
URL: http://www.well.com/user/cmty/index.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Intentional communities have an honorable history and a pretty good Web site. The notion of shared living today is brought to us by earnest folks who want to find better ways to live together, share resources, and create ecologically and environmentally smart living arrangements. These might include housing coops, land trusts, and eco-villages as well as actual communes. Here you'll find articles, listings and descriptions, events, and products from and for communitarians. As you might expect, the crew building this site, sponsored by the Fellowship for Intentional Community, keeps a regular diary (with links) of their Web updates.
Overall Rating: 16
The Millennium Matters
URL: http://www.newciv.org/millennium_matters/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Feeling anxious about global warming, virus outbreaks, or over-population? Run, do not walk to The Millennium Matters for a long perspective on these and other crises affecting Planet Earth. Millennialists come in all shapes and dogmas; it's safe to say they believe that virtually all our daily experiences point to the end of life as we know it. Many of these pages cover UFOs, New Age spirituality, and communalism and the links offer further reading, FAQs, newsgroups, and the like for a wide, wide array of subjects. If nothing else, dipping into these pages will give you a vivid taste of a culture in the making.
Overall Rating: 16
ABBAnatic
URL: http://www.dlc.com/funnyguy/abba.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
What's an ABBAnatic? A mental patient who slaves away on a web page about Scandanavia's finest pop quartet. Featuring primo graphics, lyrics to all their songs, track listings and cover art to all the albums (including a bunch of bootleg recordings), this site is overwhelmingly comprehensive. Catch up with post-ABBA solo projects including the Broadway flop CHESS which spawned the early 80's smash One Night In Bangkok. Even if you hate ABBA and all things Swedish, the site's worth visiting for the album art alone.
Overall Rating: 17
Bird on a Wire: The Leonard Cohen Home Page
URL: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/cpage/Leonard_Cohen/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Leonard Cohen Home Page looks terrific with Netscape. Like Mr. Cohen, it's got professional class in a morass of tired-looking nobodies hurriedly cobbled together. The discography and lyrics are listed by album, complete with scans of the original record's art. There are a few articles and interviews to be perused and pointers to choose Lenny-related resources. If you're a fan, it's an indispensable resource, and if you're not, the crooning shots may be worth the visit alone.
Overall Rating: 17
Street Justice
URL: http://www.oslonett.no/~gatasp/gpe.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Gatas Parliament is the Norwegian Communist rap group that makes up 67% of the funk in that country, and 100% of this Web site. Even though the bulk of it is in indecipherable Norwegian, there's enough English to understand what's going on. Read (what you can) of their bios. Don't they look cute? Sure, these young Red Shirts may want to overthrow their parents capitalist agenda, but that doesn't stop them from Rockin'!
Overall Rating: 16
Gordon Lightfoot
URL: http://www.mmlc.nwu.edu/~mfifer/lightfoot/index.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Hotfoot it over to the Gordon Lightfoot page where you can get a fanciful band biography, up-to-date tour information, a decent discography, guitar tab, and links-a-plenty to outside Gordon-sites. The "band" area contains separate pages for each band member detailing their vital stats and outside interests and hobbies. A sort of Rock & Roll resume. The "You and the Gord" area is filled with user-submitted pictures of Gordy and themselves throughout the ages. And age they have. While not the prettiest or most comprehensive fan resource, it functions and has funny pictures to boot.
Overall Rating: 16
The Byrds
URL: http://www.uark.edu/~kadler/rmcguinn/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Psychedelic, man! Even though I was through with the 60's in the late eighties, this brought me back. A trippy logo dominates this site featuring tons of band photos and album artwork, a few sound files, a giant unformatted USENET FAQ, guitar tab, and the latest news from the band members themselves. Also peruse "fan memories" of the great times and the concerts they were too drugged out to remember. Visit the "Folk Den" which has a new unreleased folk song every month available for the download. Maybe these Byrds can sing, but William Shatner still does a better Tambourine Man.
Overall Rating: 17
Duke Papyrus Archive
URL: http://odyssey.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/homepage.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
We're used to classical names for archival Web pages: But while Project Gutenberg isn't centered around that German bookmaker, Duke's Papyrus Archive is all about... drum roll, please... Egyptian papyrus! Over 1300 papyri (yes, that's the plural) are cataloged here, with descriptions, translations, and images of the documents in two resolutions. These pictures are the most exciting part of the site for me: seeing the actual scraps of linen from which scholars have reconstructed an entire world. Fully searchable, although there's not as much cross-linking as there could be.
Overall Rating: 16
Irish History
URL: http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~jdana/irehist.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Sometimes you come across a Web site that impresses with the depth of one person's passion and dedication. Such is the case for the Irish History on the Web site, managed by Jacqueline Dana. At first blush, it seems like the usual collection of links: but what makes this site unusual is that (a) the links are well-organized and relevant, and (b) a lot of the linked material is by Ms. Dana herself. There's an unquestionable bias toward Irish nationalism, but whether you're for or a'gin' it, the history alone makes this site worth a visit.
Overall Rating: 16
SPEED
URL: http://www.arts.ucsb.edu:80/~speed/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
SPEED is an online 'zine which, in its own words, "...provides a forum for the critical investigation of technology, media, and society." That's a tall order, but SPEED seems to be up to it. The young publication combines the critical writing of an academic journal with the hit-and-run graphic style of Wired, giving both immediate appeal to the eye and delayed gratification for the brain. As of February, they only had two issues up, so stay tuned. But how long can they keep this up? Better visit now before everyone there gets burned out.
Overall Rating: 17
Media History Project
URL: http://spot.colorado.edu/~rossk/history/histhome.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Marshall McLuhan alerted Americans to the intricacies of the media, and watching the watchmen has since become a popular sport. The Media History Project is a great place to learn the basic histories of the telephone, T.V., music, comics, and other methods humans have developed to get the word out. Colorful icons and sharp writing egg you on to further discovery, but some links are sadly broken, and the multicolored text is hard to read on some monitors. Teachers will wet themselves over the included syllabi, anal retentives will dig the site's organization, and all will be edified.
Overall Rating: 17
c|net Online
URL: http://www.cnet.com
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Shel Kimen
TITLE: C|NET ROCKS c|net has, beyond doubt, one of the best sites on the Web, and most certainly offers the best of media-related pages. It's an example of where online publishing can go, is going and should be. c|net online, a division of the television network, is easily as solid in content, and perhaps nicer because you get to choose if you want to "watch" the commercials. Get your technology-related news from work or home, or anywhere you happen to have a copy of Netscape 2.0. I highly recommend using Netscape: The site backs it's content with outstanding design, making full use of Netscape's enhanced features -- forms, tables, text formatting, multimedia goop, and should I go on? If it's possible, it's there. c|net should be read like a newspaper -- everyday. With a full time staff working hard to bring us the best of the best tech-related news, there's no chance you'll miss the hottest headlines. The site is constantly updated and also sports a wonderful, searchable, archive of past articles in case you *have* missed something. The features are, of course, well written and concise, offering a slew of hyperlinks to connect you to additional information, and as you might suspect, the site also has plenty of pictures that look high rez but take up minimal bandwidth. Sift through mounds of daily features, listen to reports via RealAudio, get personality profiles of the movers and shakers in the tech arena and whatever you do, check out the reviews section. If you're looking for good advise on products or Web sites, these cats will guide you to the action. c|net test drives modems, e-mail clients, Web authoring tools and picks a site of the day -- always cool and useful. More. More. MORE! c|net also has regular updates an how to find a job, resources for women online, a kids section and on and on it goes. While a site this full with so much serious content runs the risk of being too dry, boring or staid after a few repeated visits, make no mistake: c|net is interesting, insightful, intelligent and entertaining -- consistently. And in addition to all it's offerings about news and Web technology, c|net is also responsible for software.com (a mega-database for freeware and shareware), DREAM technology (for intelligent agent interactive advertising) and co-sponsors E!Online (the entertainment channel.) Don't miss this.
Overall Rating: 18
Long Grove Confectionery Company
URL: http://www.longgrove.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Forget Mom's birthday? Want to send that special someone from the chat room a chocolate computer? Never fear, Long Grove is ready to meet your needs 24 hours a day, and with a wide and quirky variety of mouthwatering chocolates to chose from, you should be able to find the perfect gift to bring a smile to any chocoholics face. You can order all their delicacies from a form, have them gift wrapped and delivered, and get a free box of chocolates for yourself. Despite all this, since the only payment option Long Grove gives you is plastic, and it's forms are insecure, I probably won't be ordering any luscious chocolate tackle boxes.
Overall Rating: 16
X-Large Inte(r)network
URL: http://www.cinenet.net/xlarge/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
For today's young suburban fashion plate, X-large brings it's entire clothing catalog to the web. Unfortunately, it just scanned in the catalog, viewable one bandwidth-eating page at a time. The site is much more than a catalog, though, developing an image of the company as a propagator of irreverent, angst-ridden, youth culture. From video game manuals to an essay praising the merits of liquor, X-Large runs down what's hip in sound bite sized chunks. It has a small archive of sounds and video, and a very active open forum which is mostly a discussion of Hip-Hop. The site is very cool, definitely worth a visit even if you are not interested in their catalog.
Overall Rating: 16
European Rail Travel Index
URL: http://www.starnetinc.com/eurorail/railindx.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
It is very sad to look at this site and reflect upon the sorry state of American railroads. If you are going to Europe, however, rail is the only way to travel, and this site will tell you everything you need to know to make your trip trouble free. It is an amazing resource, packed full of detailed, factual information about the European rail network, Eurail passes, rates, trip planning, and much more. Particularly noteworthy is the detailed information about differences in railroads and eurail pass coverage from country to country. Essential reading for anyone Europe bound.
Overall Rating: 13
Backpacker Guide
URL: http://www.irelands-web.ie/tourism/bpguide/bpguide.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
The Backpacker Guide is not about to replace the traditional travel guide, but if you're planning to travel Great Britain, New Zealand, or Australia on a shoe-string budget, this site will be an indispensable supplement to it. No paper guide can give you up-to-the-minute information on your destination, and what traditional guide would give you a list of cyber-cafes where you can take time out from your travels to sate your net addiction. The information is not so in-depth, and several links did not function, but there are a lot of tips and facts that you would be unlikely to find elsewhere.
Overall Rating: 16
ANZA Travel
URL: http://www.axionet.com/gday/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
I'm a sucker for unusual travel. That's why I like places like ANZA: instead of the silly and overdone tedium of Dickens' London and New York Theater tours, they offer The Vintage Car Club of New Zealand Anniversary Tour and "The Soccer Holiday of a Lifetime." You won't find those at your travel agent's! The tone of the writing is relaxed, in the budget travel style, but note: these trips ain't cheap. Still, visiting the site makes me feel that Oceania is accessible -- even if I can't afford it.
Overall Rating: 16
American Borders Index
URL: http://www.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/features/borders/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Travelogues are like voyages themselves: they can be brilliant, witty adventures into unknown places or they can be hell, and the difference is often made by the quality of your traveling companions. I'm pleased to report that Carla King, author of GNN's serial "American Borders," has created a distinct travelogue of North America, as original as it is well-written. Making her way around the continent on a Russian motorcycle, she reflects on the foreignness of our country and writes up a storm. Lots of photos spice up the tales, but there are virtually no links, even within the text itself.
Overall Rating: 15
InfoHub Travel Guide
URL: http://www.infohub.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Hoo boy... yet another site proclaiming itself the "most comprehensive travel guide on the World Wide Web." Unlike self-serving travel agency sites, this one just might qualify. It's a plain-vanilla set of pages which lists links to other travel-related sites: very little information is at infohub.com. The links are arranged by country, with colorful image maps to guide you as you bop from continent to continent. I wish I had access to this site while traveling: maybe a cellular modem connected to a PowerBook and hooked directly into my brain. Bliss.
Overall Rating: 16
BABEL A Glossary of Computer Related Abbreviations and Acronyms
URL: http://www.access.digex.net/~ikind/babel96a.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Impress friends and family by babbling with BABEL. This site is a glossary of computer-oriented abbreviations and acronyms that comes in handy when arguing with other geeky kids. Someone who has an ACE up his sleeve is either playing cards or has a big enough shirt to store an Advanced Computing Environment. Having a BLAST doesn't mean someone's having fun but instead receiving a Blocked Asynchronous Transmission. Print out the list and make an acronym trivia game for your next party.
Overall Rating: 15
Fisbee Freestyle
URL: http://www.users.interport.net/~rmeier/disc/disc.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Anyone can catch a frisbee, but not everyone can spin a plastic disk with style. See photos of pros such as Bob Coleman catching a frisbee with his leg draped over his arm or witness the grace of Gena Sample's leg split as she catches a low throw. Look up the rankings of the top frisbee players in the Freestyle Players Association section or follow your favorite players in the tournament schedule. Test your disk knowledge in the Frisbee Trivia section or let the links list take you to related sites as if you were a frisbee floating across the Web.
Overall Rating: 16
Rugby World Server
URL: http://www.libertynet.org/~djrugby/brfc.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Considered to be one of the roughest sports around, rugby has a safe and easy site to learn more about the game and its players. The Rugby World Server pays tribute to the sport with an extensive WWW directory of pages, a coach search, USARFU and MARFU news, rugby suppliers and publications, and more! Meet the Brandywine Rugby Football Club or find out how to join the Middle Atlantic Rugby Football Union. Some of the sections are still under heavy construction, so watch out for missing links and sparse content.
Overall Rating: 16
SoccerNews Online
URL: http://www.csn.net/~eid/soccer/sccrindx.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
What's white and black and kicked all over the globe? A soccer ball! On SoccerNews Online, fans can read who's kicking the ball all the way to the CONCACAF Gold Cup or which team will wow the world at the 1996 Summer Olympics. SoccerNews Online divides the reports by associations such as FIFA, CONMEBOL, UEFA, CAF, AFC, and OFC. Go to the USA section to see which college team is ranked highest in the league or follow the links to select sites each representing youth, amateur and professional teams. SoccerNews Online has reached its goal as a valuable sports resource.
Overall Rating: 16
The Martial-Arts as Kent's Learned Them
URL: http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/fun5/martial.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan now have a Web site even THEY would bow down to honor. The "Martial-Arts as Kent's Learned Them" has information on Martial Arts in General/Self-Defense, Tang Soo Do, Aikido, Qigong, Jeet Kune Do, and a Martial Arts Doublespeak Guide. Read the hypertext version of the Art Of War by Sun Tzu or shop for equipment on the WWW Martial Arts Supply Catalog. Get advice on how to find a real Jeet Kune Do instructor. This is a stellar site for anyone interested in Kung Foo fighting.
Overall Rating: 16
CyberDojo
URL: http://www.ryu.com/CyberDojo/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The CyberDojo site represents a group of karateka interested in discussing Traditional Japanese or Okinawan Karate. The site features plenty of karate information including a FAQ, the CyberDojo mailing list, directory sorted by styles, a Karate terminology list, traditional Karate Kata list, a schedule of Karate-related events, Karate bibliography and suggested readings, and cute little Karate guy icons. Learn there's more to Karate than chopping wood with your feet!
Overall Rating: 15
Angels
URL: http://www.shebute.com/angels/angelshome.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"I believe in angels." Ok, Fine. The site is cute: the homepage offers two little angels madly flapping their wings, showcasing net-driven animation. True Believers can share tales of angel visitations, angel dreams and visions, and even full-fledged angel orchestrated miracles. Admittedly the subject matter may require a willful suspension of disbelief if you "don't believe in angels," but there is no doubt that this site does a fine job of presentation.
Overall Rating: 17
Church of the Bunny Bunican West
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vpd/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
I've long argued that harsh words and scorn are not the way to confront the dangerous and kooky. Ridicule and sarcasm are far more effective. Take note: The Church of the Bunny offers as plausible an explanation of this world and its workings as any religion I've ever encountered. An extensive site with loads of information on church doctrine and members make this one of the most amusing religious-themed sites on the Web.
Overall Rating: 16
Messiahs Inc
URL: http://www.iop.com/~thanedfane/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Deciding to fight fire with fire, this site offers an at-times hilarious primer on the evolution of a religious faith. Perhaps starting your own church is the most meaningful exercise of religious freedom; in any case, how can you argue with a Holy book entitled, ""Messiahs, Inc.," or "How Jeremiah L Hermastone Starts A Church of His Own, 'Beats' the IRS, Patents God, and Has More Sex Than Rush Limbaugh, But Less Than JFK!" I'm not sure if I understand it, but I know this site is good. Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates a good rant.
Overall Rating: 16
Dr. Bob's Home Page
URL: http://ny.frontiercomm.net/~bjenkin/science.htm
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Doctor Bob is a smart one. He'll tell you about the sun, in simple basic terms. He'll tell you about the space shuttle, break down the mysteries of "that amazing ice," and brief you on the facts about tsunamis (giant tidal waves). This is an extremely useful and entertaining Web site for science fans, I just wish he'd learn that dark, heavily patterned backgrounds make it difficult to read thin and light text. Even more the frustrating because the oft unreadable text is actually very interesting.
Overall Rating: 15
Seeds of Life
URL: http://www.next.com/~jmh/SeedsOfLife/home.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The Seeds of Life site is fun! Well, fun if you're interested in learning about seeds. Do you know the difference between a fleshy uniseminate fruit (mmm juicy) and a dry pluriseminate fruit? I bet you're curious now. The top level organization is aesthetically pleasing and technically smart, but the rest of the site isn't quite so design savvy -- don't go there looking for a Mona Lisa. It's science, kids: just facts, links and some neat-o diagrams.
Overall Rating: 16
Flora of China
URL: http://foc.harvard.edu:2048/
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It starts with a splash of color (though a bit slow). Clicking a little deeper will reveal some somewhat cheesy icons and standard layout techniques, though admittedly, it's done well. There lies mucho content here. Pictures, illustrations and maps lace the pages nicely -- all with size labels so you know how big an image is going to be *before* you click. The site also boasts a hefty search engine, and if that ain't enough, it provides links to other flora search engines at affiliated institutions. Overall, it's a botanist's dream.
Overall Rating: 16
Amber
URL: http://www.emporia.edu/S/www/earthsci/amber/amber.htm
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
While this site may not be the smoothest in layout, or spiffy HTML wizardry, I am thoroughly impressed to find a site on the net about amber that does not reference Jurassic Park or fossilized insects on the first page. Phew. Instead, what you'll find is a fairly comprehensive guide to all things amber; it's history, uses, and physical properties to name a few. The myths section is especially cool.
Overall Rating: 16
Internet Law Library
URL: http://www.pls.com:8001/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
I'm pretty certain that this site could in no way be duller or blander in appearance than it already is. We're talking the most basic of basic Netscape gray and hyperlink a la blue, which may be fine for a law library... You'll find 11 copies of the US constitution (one in Spanish), every other country on the planet's constitution, attorney and legal directory links, reviews of law books, and a few measly icons (mostly US flag variations). It's great as a stockpile of information, which is what it's all about. Outstanding for lawyers and legal wanna-be's.
Overall Rating: 15
The Discovery Museums
URL: http://www.ultranet.com/~discover/index.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Shel Kimen
Ahh, an example of how to promote a science museum -- effectively! The layout and top level organization is clean and looks swell enough. More than enough useful information about the logistics of the museum are readily available -- directions, hours of operation, phone numbers and special exhibit information. And the slide show tours offer a strong impression of what you might actually find if you visit the real-life museum. It's extremely well done and a good example of how people can use the Web to enhance local communities.
Overall Rating: 16
Gordon Hake's Basic HTML Tutorial
URL: http://hake.com/gordon/w3-index.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
If you don't like what you see online, you better be prepared to top it. And Gordon's put together a nice home for autodidactics itching to weave their own part of this Web. This site is a clear introduction to Web publishing, complete with links to other Web development resources online. Most of this tutorial is appropriated from other places, but the info is still all good. You won't find tips on how to include all the latest bells and whistles here, but that's of no matter for newbies. In the end, it's not glam and glitz but clear design and clean content that's the message of this new media. Start here.
Overall Rating: 16
The Page Generator v2.0
URL: http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/~jolson/generator/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Instant gratification! The Page Generator gives us what we want -- a home page of our own -- when we want it, which of course is right now! Enter in some basic design guidelines -- color of background, size of print, title of page, etc. The machine than cranks out a cookie-cutter page that can be mailed to you for placement on your server. I love it! Web pages on demand! Forget learning HTML in a week. That's for people with too much time on their hands, nerds, and those lucky enough to get paid for programming. Perhaps *now* I'll get around to creating home pages for my favorite candy bars.
Overall Rating: 17
Don't Spread that Hoax
URL: http://www.crew.umich.edu/~chymes/newusers/Think.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Don't send me anymore "Good Times Virus" e-mails or messages about some pitiful terminally ill kid trying to break the Guinness Book Record for receiving the most get-well cards! These net.memes, and others explained on this site, are not worth your time! They are hoaxes! Get it? Pranks! Thanks to Charles Hymes for devoting a page documenting this garbage and advising us to check our info before wasting bandwidth. This site is a must read for newbies susceptible to age old cons and Word viruses. Now remember, the Federal Government is not going to start charging for e-mail anytime soon! OK?
Overall Rating: 16
Macintosh WWW Resources
URL: http://www.comvista.com/net/www/WWWDirectory.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Look here for some good, and free, info from Com Vista, a net and Web consultant company. Their WWW Resource Directory is a one-stop shop for almost everything Mac-based surfers and designers need to explore to set up shop in Cyberspace. You'll get it all, from client-side audio apps and browsers to server software and CGI tools. Some of the tools are even reviewed to help you choose your apps wisely. A good bookmark to keep handy when lurking, or decorating.
Overall Rating: 16
GraphComp's VRML Tools Review
URL: http://www.graphcomp.com/vrml/review.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
As we wait for VRML to catch on, new browsers are popping up that claim to be the best for exploring 3D worlds on the Web. The VRML Tools Review from Graphcomp, a graphical software development company, is a clean and well-organized comparison chart of the latest VRML apps to hit the net. Snapshots of a site seen through each browser are a striking complement to the chart -- and there *is* a big difference between the presentations of VR Scout and the oft-hyped WebSpace. Look here first so you don't waste your downloading dollar on below-par VRML applications.
Overall Rating: 16
Fastball
URL: http://www.fastball.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
I have a vision of Fantasy Baseball addicts, spittle dripping from their mouths, pouring over the intense baseball minutiae on this site. Run by Cox newspapers, this site has access to tons of content -- professional reports, pictures, videos and Real Audio reports. It's got the latest baseball news fresh off the wire and organized by team, the latest team transactions, discussion areas, batter by batter stats, scores, schedules, photos, Official Rules, and even quotes by baseball's least funny spokesperson, Bob Ueker. The only limitation of this stat-loaded wonderland is it's Atlanta Braves bias. Good thing they won last year.
Overall Rating: 17
Golf Magazine
URL: http://www.golfonline.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Golf magazine has created a useful Web site that goes beyond the regular print version. It's got up-to-tee-off news, the latest weather report so you don't get hit by lightening, a database of the top golf instructors, the rules (in case you forgot), a database of courses and resorts, and a bulletin board on golf-y topics. My favorite feature is the Personal Profiler. Fill out a form that and the computer gives you a detailed plan on how you can improve your game. It told me to wait for the monkey to swing all the way over before teeing off at the mini-golf course.
Overall Rating: 18
On Hoops
URL: http://www.onhoops.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
On Hoops isn't just a collection of basketball scores and statistics, but also a collection of well-written commentary. Unafraid to express an opinion, these guys bat around the league, the players, and even the announcers with impunity. They cover all the major events with reviews on games, industry insider tidbits, and critical analysis on the state of the basketball itself. These guys live, breathe and eat basketballs. My only complaint with the site is that the graphics aren't so great -- but this should hardly get in the way of any fan looking for some cutting-edge coverage they won't find anywhere else.
Overall Rating: 12
SkiNet
URL: http://www.skinet.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Ski and Skiing magazine have teamed up to bring you a detailed Web resource on tennis. Not really. It's best feature is an incredible database of equipment reviews you access by filling out a form which will determine the best stuff for you and your ability. It's like a salesperson in your computer who isn't pushy. There's a regional snow report, a technical forum where you can quiz the experts, competition reports, news items, a resort finder database, and content from both magazines. The only way this site could be more complete is if it could make snow shoot out my monitor.
Overall Rating: 17
CSUWEB: RTFM Web Style
URL: http://csugrad.cs.vt.edu/manuals/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I didn't want to go in there. The glare from the gray standard browser background would burn my eyes, my throat would be parched from the dryness of the content, and, not knowing the terrain, I would be lost. Send me to the new Disney site I cried. But the story was in there, and I had to get it. Software manuals, a whole library of online software manuals. But these aren't your latest Microsoft products, these are the hardcore, the pure stuff: GNU programs for Unix. I feel faint.
Overall Rating: 15
Legal Information Institute
URL: http://www.law.cornell.edu/lii.table.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Another information dump on the over-used superhighway metaphor, this one contains articles on legal topics and the entire U.S. Code in HTML format. This digital-communication-age-wealth-of-information still amazes me, but the poor organization of these pages makes the amount seem overwhelming. One of the first paragraphs on the home page has some of the major resources linked within the text, such as the index of recent supreme court decisions, but these links aren't in the index at the bottom of the page, which looks like a table of contents for the site.
Overall Rating: 15
Dealmakers
URL: http://www.property.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Somewhere in the grayed out fringes of corporate America is a realm called commercial real estate. Those Taco Bells and Marshall's don't just come with prefabricated buildings, you know, an agent has to find store space to colonize. And if that agent is smart, they probably already subscribe to the print version of Dealmakers. The online version is just as massive a compendium of available commercial space as the print version, plus it has the best list of links to real estate related sites on the Web. While an attempt has been made at graphics, I found them ugly, and all these listings could use a little computerized database wizardry.
Overall Rating: 16
PCL Map Collection
URL: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Map devotees know that the charting of any terrae incognitae is much more than simple diagramming: it's art. The Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection Online is an incredible resource for those seeking practical guidance (like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood maps) to the aesthetically inspiring (the early 20th century city map of Antakya in the Levant). With more than 230,000 maps covering every area of the world -- including some nine thousand city street maps, as well as current road maps for each US state and Canadian province -- this site's URL is sure to remain at the top of just about everybody's bookmark list.
Overall Rating: 17
Journal of Biological Chemistry
URL: http://www-jbc.stanford.edu/jbc/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Casual passers-by and armchair scientists will be thoroughly mystified by the boldly obscure nomenclature at this site, which only proves its worth to the bona fide bio chemist. If, for instance, you're into carbohydrates, lipids, and other natural products, you can peruse full articles or abstracts on topics like "Investigation of the Calcium-mediated Association between the Carbohydrate Head Groups of Galactosylceramide and Galactosylceramide...." And, as even the most brilliant science maven might sometimes have trouble navigating the Web, a convenient online handbook helps you waltz through everything at the site, from keyword searches to downloading related charts.
Overall Rating: 17
Court TV Home Page
URL: http://www.courttv.com/index.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
You can't be serious. A television-related site chosen as Professional Site of the Month? We Internet-users are far superior to television watchers, right? We can't denigrate the interactive and information packed Internet by judging it on the basis of a television product that happens to have a Web site. Television is the opiate of the masses! The Internet will save the world! (And we all know that the Internet was really invented by dolphins using extraterrestrial technology.) Court TV's Internet entrant, the Court TV Law Center, is not only a good source of law information, it also manages to redeem television, as much as that is possible. The site's basic utilities are a search engine and a glossary of legal terms. The glossary isn't comprehensive, but it does cover enough ground to clarify any of the cases presented here. The search engine is a good shortcut for finding a particular case without going through any indexes. The home page, like any good table of contents, organizes the site by departments and features. When I was there, O.J.'s face adorned the feature section, with a hyper-link to his deposition in the civil suit brought against him by the Goldmans. Can we ever escape O.J.? Also featured was a special area on the Telecom bill which had recently passed, containing many articles about various aspects of the legislation and what it would mean to Internet users. The 20-plus articles here provided more depth and clarification than you would get from reading the actual text of the bill. The departments include case files, a library, games, a kids section, and a store. Of course, Court TV's idea of games isn't the typical puzzle or maze a lot of other sites offer. It has various historical cases in which you are invited to identify the facts, make arguments, and decide the case. This is the kind of stuff that law students live for. The library section isn't Harvard Law, you couldn't use it as a substitute for Lexis, but it does have articles and files on cases that would be of interest to casual users. Under the Newsmakers reference, you can find out the legal gossip on your favorite stars. Call it pop law, but it is good for really understanding the big cases in the papers, and looking really smart at cocktail parties as you offer your informed commentary.
Overall Rating: 17
ESPNet
URL: http://espnet.sportszone.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Jon Phillips
What do you want? You want highlight films? Boom. It's got highlight films. You want play-by-play? Boom. It's got play-by-play. You want player interviews? Stats and box scores? Sports talk? That's right. Boom. You betcha. ESPNET SportsZone has it all -- on your computer, right there, and in your face. Bet your Bulls' tickets on it. SportsZone offers the best, most comprehensive, multimedia sports coverage on the Web today. From video clips to sound files to link after logically placed link, you won't find a more gigantic resource of up-to-the-minute professional sports information. The array and timeliness of the content sets a benchmark to which other news organizations should aspire. Indeed, in one form or another, SportsZone offers all one may find on ESPN's cable TV network. The site is rife with impressive, innovative features. In no particular order: Video clips of amazing plays. You're watching the 5 p.m. news and see Shaq hit the first three-pointer of his career. You book on over to SportsZone, and -- *yes* -- it's the Video Play of the Day. Download the QuickTime or AVI clip, and you've saved Shaqidocious for posterity. Game flow graphics. At this point, SportsZone begins to compete with TV. If your favorite games aren't televised, you can use your computer for real-time statistical accounts of games in progress. You say pretty, constantly updated graphics aren't enough? Then check out the play-by-play descriptions. Celebrity Q&A. SportsZone gets you closer to the competitors by letting you submit questions to select players. And we're not talking back-up tight ends and the third-round picks who play garbage minutes. We're talking legitimate blue-chip names like Ken Norton Jr., Sean Elliott and Greg Lemond. Ride'em if you have to -- these guys are tough, and they'll answer tough questions. Sports chat. Why call up talk radio shows and wait on hold when you can instantly argue about sports with fans worldwide. SportsZone's chat function is quick and reliable, and the level of debate tops America Online. OK. Enough said. SportsZone is the ticket. Pass those Beer Nuts, and quit blocking the computer screen.
Overall Rating: 18
The Travel Channel
URL: http://www.travelchannel.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Shel Kimen
Whether you travel like Paul Bowles or Lady Di, the travel Channel Online is certain to satiate your needs. To begin, the site, an extension of the Cable TV channel, is a pleasure to look at. Sweep through organized, clean pages with beautiful pictures (that are easy on the bandwidth) or rest a while in one of the sites many flavorful sections. The travel Channel has it all; vacation ideas and recommendations, online chat forums, photo galleries, hot topics and of course links to other esteemed travel-related sites. I checked the site at the peak of Mardi Gras, and the special focus on the New Orleans festival ranked as an exceptional treat. First, the Travel Channel makes use of all the latest Netscape tricks -- and it offers a choice: Frames or No Frames. As one who believes Frames are akin to the Anti-Christ, I was pleased with the option. Outstanding. And the info wrapped up in those pages could easily stand on it's own as a respectable Web site. It's fat with details about Mardi Gras history, customs, recipes and travel tips. Plenty of photos, and again, wonderful design. The site offers TWO chat options, in case you wanna exchange woes about a bumpy cruise or get insight on your future travel plans from someone who's already been there. The first chat area is set up as a traditional BBS (bulletin board) in which users post messages to a "topic board" and other users post messages to the same board to reply. It's very much like a Usenet thing. But the travel channel also offers a Frames based Web chat, in real time. Very much like an IRC thing, for those who want more of an immediate dialog. (Warning: It's not terribly fast.) The posting board seemed considerably more active than the Frames chat, but again, it's always nice to have choices. The photo gallery is by far the most exceptional and entertaining aspect of the site though. Not only do we get to look at stunning photographs from around the world, broken into categories -- Asia, Western Europe, Africa, but the photographs are submitted by viewers of the Travel Channel and visitors to the Web site. Tres Cool! Overall The travel Channel should amuse, entertain, and at times, enlighten with advise and interesting articles. It's a definite must for anyone who considers themselves a "traveler."
Overall Rating: 18
Red's Toyland
URL: http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~mizraith/index.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Here at The Net, choosing a site of the month isn't easy. A lot of factors have to be taken into account, and we've assembled some massive spreadsheets to handle all the data and calculations. Then again, sometimes a site has something that we just like. In the case of Red's Toyland, we have found The Official Wicked Hair Dyeing Page not only to be well designed, but full of essential information for our editorial staff style. Mark "Red" Byer and his sister Evi-Lynn put together this wonderful set of instructions, so you get male and female perspectives about taking your hair from its natural blandness to new heights of colorful individualism. The instructions and advice offered go way beyond the quick, back-of-the-bottle blurbs printed on various color products to nuggets of hard-learned practical hints such as "double the maximum time written on the package" that you are going to leave the dye in your hair. As for color choice, "Dark blue and purples last the longest." The discussion gets a little philosophical in the paragraphs debating permanent versus non-permanent hair dyes, and some shocking secrets are revealed about so-called "permanent" hair dyes. 14 popular hair dye products are reviewed on this page, with the authors acting as their own test subjects. It's a little spurious to honor these pages as a site of the month on the basis of one thing that we at The Net can relate to, but wait, there's more. Red is a self confessed LegoManiac, and we can appreciate that (just see the graphics in our April issue). Red has a whole page where he begs anybody that works for Lego that sees it to hire him to do product design. Besides that, there are links to other great Lego sites on the Web. Now, Red does mention the Renaissance Fair on his home page, and we at The Net are not united in our opinion about that, but the link actually went to his sister's RenFair page, so that doesn't count. Finally, one interesting project featured on the introductory page is "The Line Around The World." The goal of this association is to bring people closer together by having people put links on their Web pages to other people's pages in the society. Each person has two links on their page (two points forming a line), so that anyone can follow the links along this line and see many new and interesting people, or, at least, their Web pages.
Overall Rating: 17
Virtual Chaos: A Theory of Everything
URL: http://www.virtualchaos.org/
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
More X-files than science, the authors of the virtual chaos theory, who wish to remain anonymous, propose that the simple statement "1+2=3" permeates all phenomenon, and from this, they have concluded that time begins in the middle heads towards the beginning and the end simultaneously, the former being a red shift, and the latter being a blue shift. Maybe I'm stupid, maybe the Web isn't the right medium to promote such far-flung theory, but reading this hasn't changed my life significantly. Can you solve this puzzle?
Overall Rating: 16
Earth and Universe
URL: http://www.eia.brad.ac.uk/btl/
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
For the astronomy aficionado or hobbyist, the Internet is a great place. There are thousands of NASA pages, and you don't have to be outside in the middle of the night getting eyestrain peering through a telescope. Earth and Universe adds a lot of astronomical visual content to the Web, with pictures of stars in various stages of formation, plus many other cosmic formations. There is also a Telescope Documentation Index with all sorts of articles on telescope systems. Unfortunately, the whole thing is slow as a rock, and the organization is poor.
Overall Rating: 15
Picture Palace
URL: http://www.ids.net/picpal/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
There are hundreds of film and video specific sites on the Web. Most offer sharp graphics, catty insider gossip and the shmoozy feeling we all crave -- so why visit this site? Picture Palace offers all of the above and more: purchase film and music videos online, search an extensive database, and track the latest releases from obscure one-person video production companies. Daily updates, numerous rants, and profiles of must-see, but frequently overlooked, works are all here. This page does a fine job of capturing the excitement unleashed by the video revolution; film fans will find this an titillating site to revisit frequently.
Overall Rating: 16
Black Panther Coloring Book
URL: http://www.cybergate.com:80/~jonco/bpcb.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Despite what some say, there are a few good Web sites that take print content and just scan it in, simple and clean. No typing. No code. This coloring book from the Black Panthers is one such example, offering an activity and good insight into the philosophy of the group. A Frames version of the site makes it easy to navigate through the site, and you could always download the images if you feel like coloring...
Overall Rating: 17
The Camelot Project
URL: http://rodent.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Dedicated to Arthurian culture (King Arthur and his crew to those in the know), this site is a growing repository of mostly text and images about the subject. It's pretty vast right now but could stand a little aesthetic improvement. This site shares a problem that many text repositories have -- the dreaded gray background. The images are nifty enough, many over 150 years old, so go here to get free clip art for any Arthurian projects you might have.
Overall Rating: 18
Algy's Herb Page
URL: http://frank.mtsu.edu/~sward/herb/herbpic.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
This is the main drag on the Web to find out about herbs. Both as spices with flavor for cooking and for medicinal purposes. Catalogs allow you to purchase the plentiful, life giving seeds, plants and spices that you read about on the site, and the design is first rate, featuring cool scans of plant drawings from old science books. There's even a pretty tasteful use of frames.
Overall Rating: 17
American Academy of Ophthalmology
URL: http://www.eyenet.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Rest your eyes here. A nicely designed page which simulates a newspaper, the American Academy of Ophthalmology has loads of information both for Ophthalmologists and regular people (non-ophthalmologists). The site has a dual purpose of serving professionals and those with questions about this subject with considerable information about common problems and ailments. The coolest part of the site, however, is the history of cataract surgery, with pictures of the delicate surgery performed in the 1500s -- ouch.
Overall Rating: 17
Behavior Online
URL: http://www.behavior.net/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Simple, tasteful (if a bit on the pastel side) design, and straightforward content make this site a pleasant place to visit. Interviews with mental health professionals, articles on behavioral theory, and links to all things to do with the brain and behavior (including some cool games) make this site interesting, especially if you need to check your head.
Overall Rating: 18
Labyrinth
URL: http://www.georgetown.edu:80/labyrinth/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Georgetown coughs up some deep history with this one, specifically notes from the Medieval annals. This is a well-designed guide to electronic Medieval studies resources from around the globe. Follow the links to Medieval art exhibits, academic journals, and raw texts available online for study. There's even a magical thread to help you find your way back from the depths of the Labyrinth. Heaven for a Medieval Studies scholar, or a Dungeons and Dragons geek.
Overall Rating: 17
Everything Postmodern
URL: http://helios.augustana.edu/~gmb/postmodern/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Guzzle that fifth cappuccino, grab another pack of Gitanes and dive into this amazingly comprehensive resource of all things PoMo. The trendiest of French Intellectuals are represented here -- Baudrillard, Foucault, etc. -- with plenty of links to keep even the most critical critical theorist occupied for years. (There is *plenty* of postmodern verbiage being spewed throughout the net--on Web sites, FAQs, zines, academic journals, and the requisite alt.postmodern newsgroup.) Be ready for some serious deconstructions when launching off from this Web construction. Bring yer hard hat!
Overall Rating: 18
An Illuminati Outline of History
URL: http://www.impropaganda.com/illuminati.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Finally! The secret history of the greatest secret society in the world is unveiled! Follow the occult practices of this political and mystical sect from the days ruling Atlantis, through the sly doings in the US in 1776, and into the last few decades of turmoil. Find out who put the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill, and who really assassinated JFK! LSD, UFOs, CIA, all the greatest acronyms are explored in this must-read historical reference to what's really going on! Remember, stay clear of those Masonic lodges. Robert Anton Wilson must be proud.
Overall Rating: 15
Dead Man Talkin by Dean
URL: http://monkey.hooked.net/m/hut/deadman/deadman.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
As you read this, Dean is currently hanging out at San Quentin Prison in California waiting to die. For real. Find out what New Year's is like in Prison, and learn why lethal injection may not be the best way to encourage those on death row to keep fighting the system for their lives. " The idea of going to sleep and not having to be in this place any longer is too seductive," Dean says. You can even e-mail your questions to Dean via infamous Bay Area talk-show host Alex Bennett and he'll answer them in future columns. This is hardcore, not the People's Court.
Overall Rating: 15
Wilkins Outdoor Network
URL: http://www.outdoor-ad.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This brilliantly conceived site walks you step by step through the convoluted world of outdoor advertising. In an hour you will talk like an expert on out-of-home media and Wilkins will practically write your marketing report for you. The pages elaborate on how to plan intelligent advertising decisions, what outdoor media would be best for you, and how to get the most for your marketing dollar. You will also be quite familiar with Wilkins, its departments, and the Wilkins services. The whole site is extremely well organized and attractive -- a must for anyone considering outdoor advertising. Blue Light
Overall Rating: 17
Bucknell Russian Studies Department
URL: http://www.bucknell.edu/departments/russian/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Curious about Russia? Start your search here, where eager Bucknell students of all things Russian have compiled links for everything from the '96 elections (don't miss the schematic of who is considered left, right and center in the old country), to Russian jokes (in Russian!), cartoons (in English), Russian folklore, and music. You can even jump to Cyrillic fonts while you're at it, or listen to the Voice of Russia Daily News using RealAudio. There's also course and faculty information and news on Russian major alums.
Overall Rating: 18
@tlas
URL: http://www.atlasmag.com
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Just about every artist and writer dreams about having their own publication, a journal they have control of where they can publish work of fellow artists based on its merits rather than how well its been accepted by art critics and reviewers. Unfortunately, publishing requires a good deal of capital, which mostly goes for printing and distribution, and that means advertiser support, with all the inherent loss of content control that that implies. But the relatively inexpensive publishing medium of the Web has allowed Olivier Laude to achieve that dream of a true artists' publication. @tlas is dedicated to publishing various visual arts works in the categories of photography, illustration, design, and multimedia. According to Olivier, "I have always dreamed of publishing a paper magazine that would be beautifully printed, cover stories (photo-journalistic and documentary) in depth and be designed by the best in the business." And with a number of artists already on the fledgling site whose work has appeared in publications such as National Geographic and The New York Times Magazine, @tlas is shaping up will into Laude's vision. "These kinds of ideas do not really emerge from publishing conglomerates because they are afraid of hybrids that do not fit niches within the market." says Olivier in explanation of why he has chosen to become a publisher. The concept and content are great, but it wouldn't be a site of the month if it wasn't for the excellent graphic design of Amy Franceschini and Michael Macrone. Amy's work has also included a special site for the last San Francisco mayoral elections entitled Electomatic (http://www.electomatic.com), while Michael is a very experienced graphic designer in the print medium and has also authored six books. Olivier has worked as a professional photo-journalist for the last three years, and has some of his work in the photography section of @tlas. But while publishing a Web site is inexpensive, it is not free, and Olivier is already hitching up his capitalist train. @tlas recently gained Organic Online (http://www.organic.com) as an official sponsor to provide server space for the site. And, according to Olivier, "We want to turn commercial and sell advertising." Okay, Olivier, we all know that making money can be a nice thing, but keep your hands on those editorial controls.
Overall Rating: 17
The Official French Fries Page
URL: http://www.select-ware.com/fries/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I'm not really sure why this site is classified as bizarre. As it points out, French fries are found all over the world. What could be more common than that bag of fries you get from the McDonald's drive-thru? Well, these pages have an ideal balance of information on the supposedly "bizarre" French fry, including humorous sections, recipe's, international information, and the complete text of the U.S. government regulations concerning French fries. A special section also covers the Quebec treat "Poutine." Bizarre? No. Tasty? Yes!
Overall Rating: 16
The Toro Company
URL: http://www.toro.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
An unlikely candidate for the high-tech world of the Web, but Toro has put together an excellent site. All of you tech heads out there may be thinking, "Toro? Don't they make ide controllers?" Sorry kids, but Toro is the yard care specialist, making equipment for all kinds of outdoor environmental management. And by management I mean riding lawn mowers! Even though the lawn we had when I was growing up was only about 30 by 20 feet, I had always wanted a riding lawn mower. And even now that I have a car (and no lawn at all), I still think a riding lawn mower would be great. Toro's home page really shows where its heart is, too. When it launched it had an "under construction" sign on the corporate info link, but the sections for the consumer product line and yard care questions were up and running. The consumer product area is a well-designed candyland for anyone that occasionally likes to work in the earth, but with a lot of horsepower. The browser is met by an index of products that range from tractors to outdoor lighting. While some of this may seem overwhelming to the landscaping dilletante, the folks at Toro are real friendly. The section with the more serious equipment (tractors and snowblowers) have a utility that will suggest the right tool for you, based on your answers to a questionnaire (although I would just go for the most power you can afford). The lighting section shows the many different styles of outdoors lights, and has a whole section on how to design a lighting plan. The yard care section features a virtual expert named Earl who you can offer advice about lawn maintenance. Earl's "vocabulary" is somewhat limited, though, since you can only type one word queries into the search form, and if they aren't specifically about lawn care, Earl will be stumped (so save your ide controller questions for Gina Smith). Or you can use the browse function to find answers to lawn care problems. A number of documents, in official FAQ format, deal with grass, weeds, leaves, and pests. Rock on, backyard warrior!
Overall Rating: 17
Alexander Palace Time Machine
URL: http://www.travelogix.com/emp/batchison/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Shel Kimen
In the fashion that follows all royal history from Czars to kings, Alexander's palace is a fine example of soap opera a la hypertext with valuable historical insight. The site was originally constructed as a monument to the palace that Catherine the Great commissioned for her grandson Alexander Pavlovich in the late 1700's. But in the process of explaining all the rooms with maps and photographs, and digital images of the treasures that lied within the stucco and brick masterpiece, comes an outstanding historical tour through the lives of Russian Royalty from 1800 to the Second World War. The site creator, Bob Atchison says he became obsessed with the palace when he read about Anastasia in the second grade. The site, miles thick in every direction, is concrete proof of this obsession. Visitors will find themselves transported through the lives of everyone who dwelled in the palace -- servants and royalty, guests and war commanders. He is almost obnoxiously descriptive as he tells us about "golden strands" in Rasputin's beard and Anastasia's "blue eyes, light brown hair and a fine thin nose like her mother's." At times there is an overall kitchiness feel, like that of an online role playing game; "Do you want to go inside the palace?" or "If you look up to the right you'll see a frame laced in gold." But it seems to work well here in creating a mood and has a general effectiveness which is compelling enough to keep visitors "in the palace" clicking and learning away. While the site is not without fault -- numerous typos, a few poor HTML editing skills and even a some grammar errors that make some of the reading a bit choppy -- given the breadth of content covered (in a well organized fashion I might add!) it's very well done. It is certainly one of the most sincerest of HTML efforts I've seen from a part time page creator. As a matter of fact, this project is Mr. Atchison's first HTML creation, and he's managed to make fine use of Tables and images; it's readable and has several well constructed out pages. Russian history buffs should definitely take note of this one.
Overall Rating: 18
SPIV
URL: http://www.spiv.com/spiv.html
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Shel Kimen
If Spiv is any indication of what mainstream Web-publishing is headed for, we're in for an outstanding future! Spiv, Ted Turners twenty-something e-zine, is prepared and packaged for the urban hipster a la cyber culture. My first inclination is to lash out at yet another media king's attempt to buy out, chew up, and spit back at us our own ideas at an inflated price. But in this case, I am glad to say, I just don't think that's true. It seems Ted and the white collar boys are giving Spiv considerable editorial control and creative freedom to make the zine what it needs to be -- a fresh, intelligent, idea space that speaks Web to the people who know it best. Spiv has collected an outstanding group of editors who are in fact very involved in the wired community, from David Pescovitz of *Wired*, *Boing Boing* and *The Net* freelance fame, to Rebecca Paoletti who has written for *MIGHT* and edited *SOMA Magazine*. Spiv hits fashion, sports, lifestyle, music, and tech culture full force with smashing wit, knock-out graphics and an all around cool attitude that is never ever "too cool." Spiv is always fun and always accessible. Check out the latest in skater wear or read music scene reports from across the country. Chat with X-Girl model Cara Friedrichs or read a scathing rant about Pat Buchanon. Personality to politiks, it's all there. Editor of Spiv, Rebecca Paoletti, started the site with the creation of Shiitake. Not so far from a mushroom trip, the Shiitake section will dazzle you with games, quotes, a hot hot hot pink background, and the most clever use of a Web chat I've seen so far. But, perhaps the amusement flavor is best represented in Zooey, the section for fashion, urbanism, and attitude. "Zooey was my second site creation when I got to Spiv," said Paoletti. "The fun and scary thing about it is the number of people who really believe that she exists, that this NYC high school senior we created is real, and wants to go on dates with any number of college guys who write to her! I adore answering her email..." (Wink. Wink.) In plain English: Spiv Rocks! BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
Casady & Greene
URL: http://205.179.133.2/C&G/Welcome.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Casady & Greene are among the last of "Mac-only" developers. Their stuff is known for high quality, great value and excellent functionality, and their web-site features this same quality. It's well organized, looks great, has a perfect mix of art to content, and features the fascinating home page of John Calhoun, one of the best Mac programmers around. Even if you have a PC and can't download one of the fully operative demos of Casady & Greene's software, you should check this out to see the way a corporate web page should be done. Awesome. ***blue light
Overall Rating: 16
War and Strategy Games
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/POde/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This is the business. If you care at all about war games and strategy games, from a passing interest in Command & Conquer to a dedication to old-school strategy board games, you should already know about this site. The webmaster is obviously dedicated beyond all expectation, and this site includes daily updates and more content than you could possibly digest at one sitting. It's all done with a minimum of graphics to keep things fast, too. Overall, the keywords for this site are information and enthusiasm, both of which are in abundant quantities.
Overall Rating: 16
Hank's News
URL: http://www.happypuppy.com/hleukart/news.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Hank's news is a page devoted to providing links to hot new shareware demo's of PC games, along with some extremely short commentary by Hank himself (sometimes original, sometimes lifted from some other source). It's a great one-stop shopping site for someone who just picked up their PC and is looking to load up on the latest shareware masterpieces. Doom freaks should also check out Hank's homepage; he is the author of the "official" Doom FAQ v6.66 as well as a book on hacking Doom. ***blue light
Overall Rating: 16
Greek Mythology
URL: http://www.intergate.net/uhtml/.jhunt/greek_myth/greek_myth.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Having trouble remembering whether Cupid is the Greek or Roman name for the god of love? Don't fret. The Greek Mythology website is a hyperlink to all gods. It covers Greek and Roman mythology, heroes, stories and family trees. It also links to MIT's managed translations of the Greek The Iliad and The Odyssey (translated by Samuel Butler) by Homer, and the Roman The Aneid (translated by John Dryden) by Virgil. As site manager, John M. Hunt's goal is to distinguish the differences between Greek and Roman mythology. He does so with fine organizational skills and clarity, despite a few spelling errors. One significant difference between the Greeks and Romans that Hunt cites is "The Greeks were earlier."
Overall Rating: 17
Hal Hartley
URL: http://www.best.com/~drumz/Hartley/
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
Hal Hartley may write and direct the most obscure of sleepers (*Amateur, Trust,* and *The Unbelievable Truth*, to name just a few), but his work is highly regarded and his fan base is unflappable in its devotion. If you're a Hartley fan -- and you know who you are -- this is a must-visit site. You'll find filmography, critical reviews, image files, and a table of the actors who've made repeat appearances in Hartley movies -- the "Hartley Family Tree." An off-beat site paying homage to an off-beat artist. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
The Cabinet of Dr. Casey:
URL: http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~caseyh/horror/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
Doc Casey's spooky cabinet focuses on cinematic horror, but also pays careful attention to willies-inducing literature and visual arts. You'll find a movie poster archive, audio files from film classics, and movie information cross-referenced from here to hell. But wait -- It gets even scarier. The bad doctor has compiled an incredible timeline of horror history that spans from 1235, the beginning of the Inquisition, to the advent of TV's *X-Files* in the 1990s. The site suffers from a single drawback -- text that borders on illegibility. Watch those fancy colors, Doc! BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 17
Heartless Bitches International
URL: http://infoweb.magi.com/~nataliep/heartless.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I dig these bitches. And I mean that only in the kindest sense of the word. The grrrls behind this site are fed up with sexist boys who not only harass women in the workplace, but high-five each other yelling "Sa-weet!" Filled with lists of other offensive acts, real-life heartless bitches, and anti-whining rants, this site is a rad "how's it going" from post-feminist modernist women tired of your (and my) "I'm not sexist, but..." bullshit. Unfortunately, I'm a straight male which means I can't join this organization. But I'd definitely submit myself to these modem grrrls if they would have me. After all, I hate feminine deodorants too!
Overall Rating: 17
OUT.com
URL: http://www.out.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
A finely designed and easily navigated site from one of the premier gay and lesbian lifestyle magazines in the US. These pages overflow with news, arts, health, gossip, politics, and dozens of other subjects all tackled with Out's signature hip and intelligent reporting style. The point-and-click US map is really nifty, giving information on cool events, bars and clubs. Content from Out is also available for your viewing pleasure, but this site is anything but shovelware. A one-stop online shop for Queer culture.
Overall Rating: 18
Cafe Los Negroes
URL: http://www.losnegroes.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Billed as the net's Black and Latino hangout, Cafe' Los Negroes is flowing with cultural cred. Dig the frequent special events in the Cafe', like an online panel discussion with Ntzoke Shange, Vernon Reid, and Lisa Jones, or groove on the Cybirdland live jazz broadcasts. You can also check out regular features like art in the Bedstuy virtual gallery, currently show casing New York including Daniel Simmons and Michael Chambers, and download beats from singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon or spoken word from poet Adrian Castro. Cleanly designer and rich with the flavor of the New York Underground.
Overall Rating: 16
2.0.1.3 Transmissions from Quantum Time
URL: http://www.speakeasy.org/~z2013/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
From the Intergalactic Dream Convergence Project comes this exquisitely designed subcultural launch pad to interdimensional travels. "Information is light is information," is their maxim for the next step in the evolution of our consciousness. Once we've experienced hyperlinked hyperthought, we can open the dialogue with other worldly minds to exchange our multi-dimensional memes. Time's a waistin'. Better hop on the neural networked bus to a higher level of space-time. Getting there is half the fun.
Overall Rating: 18
The Terrorist Profile Weekly
URL: http://www.site.gmu.edu/~cdibona/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Chris DiBona, a college student and employee of the US Department of State's Office of Information Management in the Bureau of Administration, has provided us a collection of profiles surveying more than twenty terrorist organizations around the globe. Learn about all the baddies from the 15 May Organization to the Popular Struggle Front. Each profile includes a general description, activities, strength, ideals, and location of the group all taken from the US State Department's journal "The Profiles of Global Terrorism." The site banner reads "Your 100% recommended daily allowance of global terror," and I personally wouldn't want to overdose.
Overall Rating: 16
Welcome to Fashion Internet
URL: http://www.finy.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Fashion Internet is one of the most informative and exciting fashion locales online. Elegantly designed, content rich (and slow to download), FI gives the word from the New York runways and features articles like the "Clueless Guy's Guide to Buying a Suit," and the bios and biz information in the virtual showrooms from big name designers like Bill Blass and Donna Karen are useful for insight into hot couture. But most fun on FI is "Yak," where you can rant to your heart's content about trends, anti-trends, and platform shoes. Deep discourse for real designers, and fashion fun for the rest of us in jeans and t-shirts.
Overall Rating: 18
William Faulkner on the Web
URL: http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Yoknapatawpha County comes alive in John B. Padgett's tribute to one of America's greatest writers. The design is tasteful and clean, the links work, and the content is there -- lots of it. If you have any interest in Faulkner, this site will make your week. There could still be more text from the books, but a pretty thorough bibliogrpahy is included, with art to boot. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 17
Book Lovers Fine Books and Literature
URL: http://www.xs4all.nl/~pwessel/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A basic, but comprehensive set of links for the antiquarian book dealer, book collector, avid reader, et al., this site should be bookmarked by all those serious about their literature, arcane or otherwise. Assembled by a bibliophile from the Netherlands, it points to sites in both English and Dutch. As with browsing the shelves at your favorite bookstore, you are likely to while away hours and hours here in that peculiar dream state with the contemplation of all the books you'll never find time to read -- not if you live two hundred years. A splendid, if melancholy, pastime, that.
Overall Rating: 16
Into the Wardrobe The C S Lewis WWW Page
URL: http://www.cache.net/~john/cslewis/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
For all the folks who cut their teeth on the Narnia Chronicles and just can't get enough of C.S. Lewis's quasi-Christian fantasy lit, here it is: a site devoted to the Master. There's a daily Lewis quote -- updated religiously at 12 AM GMT -- plus downloadable images of Lewis, sound clips of Lewis, and well,...Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, everywhere you look. To paraphrase the creator of the site, this isn't just a place for fans, but a repository for all C.S. Lewis scholarship and marginalia. No surprise then that I was able to quickly satisfy my only curiousity; the "C.S." is for Clive Staples, nickname, Jack.
Overall Rating: 17
Welcome to the 19CWWW
URL: http://www.clever.net/19cwww/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The nineteenth century online seems kinda oxymoronic -- or should I say anachronistic? Nevertheless, this is what the Victorian Women Writer's site shoulda coulda woulda been but ain't. Slick of interface and deep of content, this one is more than just an electronic library. It also features art exhibits, graphics and a surprisingly active bulletin board where students of American Studies can post queries and comments. So while I'm still dubious as to the usefulness of great chunks of text online (I might feel differently if I could search the text easily, via key word or somesuch) others apparently appreciate it and take advantage of it.
Overall Rating: 17
About USA TODAY
URL: http://www.usatoday.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
USA Today has revolutionized the daily newspaper industry. Its characteristic style--slick graphics, tight layout, and almost too-terse stories--is widely criticized and even more widely emulated. Updated frequently, the Webspace features the latest news of the day. Each story is accompanied by extensive crosslinks, background information, and related pieces. The graphics are great and the layout is top-notch. This is one of the finest sites on the Web, an active and engaging space which seamlessly blends contents and presentation into a definitive example of what the Web can be. This page should be visited frequently.
Overall Rating: 18
Campaign for Broadcast Competition
URL: http://campaign.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is a single-issue site dedicated to stopping the 'corporate welfare' nature of the televised airway giveaways. Major broadcasters are lobbying Congress seeking to have the spectrum allotment for TV doubled and the new space given away. Consumer advocates are understandably upset by this proposal, and are pushing for an auction of the new spectrum space--an auction guaranteed to raise billions for the government. This page clearly outlines the issue and what you, the taxpayer, can do to voice an opinion. If you are outraged by the broadcasters' proposal, do check this site out.
Overall Rating: 16
Simon Wiesenthal Center
URL: http://www.wiesenthal.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Located in Los Angeles, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is an international center for Holocaust remembrance and human rights. Visitors to this page find an extensive introduction to the museum and its mission. In addition to on-line tours, museum schedules and such, extensive information is available on such relevant topics as Holocaust revisionism. Excellent layout and interesting content, in addition to the historical significance of its subject matter, make this site well-worth visiting. Much of the site is available in a variety of languages besides English, making this a truly international space as befits one with so grim an inspiration.
Overall Rating: 16
NewsPage Home Page
URL: http://www.newspage.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Pick up the daily business news from over 600 information sources without having to pull a big truck up to the corner newsstand. NewsPage has the latest news on computer hardware, software, data communications, telecommunications, energy, media, travel, insurance, environmental services, business management and more. Taking articles direct from wire services, this subscription-based service is excellent for text-only news, but don,t expect any bells and whistles. Check out the funny/hard-to-believe news section for the interesting stuff.
Overall Rating: 17
SALVO 12 8 13
URL: http://www.salvo.com/index.cgi
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Dubbed as an "American Survival Guide," Salvo salutes freedom of expression with a double-barreled shotgun verbal attack. Read Daily News Bite for an unabashed analysis of hourly happenings from news on Midwestern vampire children to convicted government officials. If you have Shockwave, SALVO abuses it fully with an interesting an Simon Says Electronic Game graphic. Read rants on ozone depletion, over population, land use, homelessness, domestic violence, Internet censorship, militia madness and more. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
Welcome to EXTRA
URL: http://www.extratv.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Extra! Extra! Get your daily dose of entertainment news and gossip here! Based on the entertainment television news show of the same name, the EXTRA site has multimedia sections on everything from discussions with male models from Miami (hear in their own words what they look for in a lass) to exclusive interviews with hip movie stars such as Jackie Chan. Look up the release date of new movies or read gossip off the online newsletter. The site is table-happy and has cute push-pull animation boxes to add glitz to the grapevine.
Overall Rating: 18
MUSICIAN.COM
URL: http://www.musician.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Missing a tuba player for your punk band? MUSICIAN.COM has a free musician search for traditional and not-so-typical artists. The real attraction here is the Hollywood Rock Walk Museum online archive where visitors can see photos of B.B King,s favorite guitar "Lucille" and the famous Star Boots from leader singer of KISS, Paul Stanley. Most of the site contains advertisements selling vintage guitars and equipment. Read articles on the featured artist of the month in Cyber Folio. For additional music-related site surfing, go to the Music Link Central section.
Overall Rating: 16
The Official Lenny Kravitz Site
URL: http://www.lennykravitz.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Rock and Roll is not dead on the Web and The Official Lenny Kravitz site proves it. Groove to his latest songs or watch snippets of videos and television interviews. Lenny talks about his music, style and family. (His mom was Helen on the television show, The Jeffersons.) The same folks responsible for the Megadeth Arizona site wow Web heads again with the similar eye-boggling graphics and design. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
Peeps
URL: http://www.peeps.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The Peeps site has nothing to do with those sugar-coated, pastel marshmallow chicks only sold around Easter. Cool, smooth urban sounds are the focus of this Hip-Hop nation spot on the Web. Get get-up-to-date info on BMG artists such as Deborah Cox, R. Kelly, Monica, Notorious B.I.G., Omar, Chantay Savage, Chef Raekwon and TLC. Bios, photos, audio and video files are available on all the bands for a complete multimedia experience.
Overall Rating: 17
PBS
URL: http://www.pbs.org/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Kathy Tafel
You'd expect PBS to have an information-rich site. It does -- every national show that PBS distributes has a page with descriptions of upcoming episodes. Many shows, including Nova, Hometime, and the Newshour with Jim Lehrer not only have this one page, but also sections of their own with more dynamic content. The Newshour, for instance, has real audio versions of especially interesting segments. You rarely have to scroll to find what you need, and information is presented with pleasant -- sometimes even cool -- graphics. PBS has done an excellent job translating its content to a new medium. BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL
Overall Rating: 18
THE FLAT EARTH SOCIETY
URL: http://www.tdolby.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
When an artist has personal involvement in the creation of their site the results can be truly magnificent, as in the case of The Flat Earth Society. The paradigm is an exclusive gentlemen's club (although anyone can join The Flat Earth Society) with wood paneled walls, big leather chairs, and cigars. The Library section has Thomas Dolby's discography, clips from his albums, videos, and song lyrics. The Club Room has an online discussion area, and there's a form for sending comments to Thomas Dolby himself.
Overall Rating: 17
Virgin Records
URL: http://www.vmg.co.uk/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
How can a big corporation be as cool as Virgin Records? I thought there was some kind of natural law that makes any large organization impersonal. Sure, a company can start out small, and be really cool, but when it gets successful, and starts to grow, then the money people take over and it loses its soul. I mean, Starbuck's probably started out as a funky little neighborhood cafe' devoted to serving really tasty coffee, and now it wants world domination. Maybe it has something to do with its British base, but Virgin is different. A long time well respected record producer, it also started an airline that from all reports is one of the most enjoyable on which to travel. And the Virgin Web site is just further proof that this company has a soul. The fact that we categorized the site under music as opposed to corporate says quite a bit. The most complete area of the site is called "The Raft," which I guess is supposed to be metaphorically complementary to "surfin' the Internet." And to get right to the creamy center, the section titled "Artists on the Raft" is the place to go. 22 bands are hanging out on the "Raft" with some of the most interesting Web sites I've seen. These are not your standard here are six sound clips and a bio kind of promotional sites. Well a couple of them are, but most show some real creativity, and it looks as if the bands actually got involved in the concept behind the site. For example, the Massive Attack area defies any sort of linear process, being organized on a stream of consciousness principle where your left brain is useless but your right brain is swimming in familiar waters. Images and words with no definite purpose fill the pages, interspersed with links that only take you further into the labyrinth. On the other hand, The Chemical Brothers have strange narratives that tell how they came up with their records. One story, called "The Chemical Brothers vs. The Boring Brothers" tells how The Chemical Brothers were taken in by a talking daisy that influenced them to stop making cool music. The Smashing Pumpkins area only has links to independently created fan sites because the Virgin site creator thinks the independent's did such a great job. That is definitely not typical corporate thinking.
Overall Rating: 17
Today's Calendar and Clock Page
URL: http://www.panix.com/~wlinden/calendar.shtml
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Jon Phillips
Computers can't give us back rubs, or blend perfect vodka martinis, but they can free us from the drudgery of methodical number-crunching. Are you prepared to compute the countdown to the new millennium in years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds? That's right, friend, you've got better things to do; swigging vodka martinis immediately comes to mind. But now computers can do busy work for busy people, and that's where Today's Calendar and Clock Page comes in. This site is nearly graphically barren, but infinitely compelling. As soon as you enter, you're hit with a barrage of numerical data to help you set your bearings across the space-time-history continuum. For example: "Today is Sunday, March 17,1996... Eastern Standard Time is 4:43 PM... This is the 11 week of the year... This is the 77th day of the year... Year 221 of American independence... 45th year of H.M. Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada... 3rd year of the 693rd Olympiad... Buddhist Year 2539... Atomic Era 55... Modified Julian Day 50159 ... Solar Cycle 17..." And so on and so on until you're so terrified by your own universal insignificance, you decide to blend another vodka martini. Once you digest all of these date stamps -- 25 of them roll out as soon as you load the page -- you can move downward to 62 different links designed to put time into historical, cultural, religious, and even astronomical perspective. Some links serve purely utilitarian purposes. For example, IslamicTimer 2.1 is designed to help the Muslim faithful plan their days around times of prayer. Another link, The Moon Phase Page, provides you with an image of how the moon will look from earth based on time coordinates of your choice. Other links predict impending doom. The National Debt Clock keeps a running tally of the depth of our monetary mire. At press time, the number reached into 13 figures. Let's not get into specific dollar amounts, or once again you may be reaching for that martini shaker. The World Population Clock tells us that the globe is burgeoning to the tune of 6 billion souls, and by 2050, 9.5 billion earthlings may be jockeying for elbow room. Whether you're interested in utility or entertainment, the Clock Page is a fascinating resource. Now let's look forward to the day when "wrist browsers" hit market.
Overall Rating: 16
Cyber Seuss
URL: http://www.afn.org/~afn15301/drseuss.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Jon Phillips
Chances are, sometime around age four or five, you begged your mom for a heaping plate of green eggs and ham. You had no idea what turned the eggs green, and you weren't too hip to the concept of pork products, but you wanted your green eggs and ham, gosh-darned it, because one Mr. Sam I Am didn't want his, and you knew he was missing out on some fancy eats. So your mom fried up some ham, and threw some spinach into some scrambled eggs, and served them to you on an enchanted platter. And then your mom tried food coloring in the eggs after your spinach sensors went off, and you ran screaming from the breakfast table. The object lesson behind *Green Eggs and Ham* is just one of many espoused by the late Ted Geisel, Dr. Seuss. Geisel died in 1991 at the age of 87, but his rhyming morality tales continue to influence kids worldwide. Geisel won a Pulitzer prize in 1984, and his 47 books are published in 18 languages. The entire Seussian phenomenon can be found at Cyber-Seuss, a site that offers hoospiferic helpings of Seuphonius triptitude. The site's main draw is its 15 online story books. You'll find standards like *How the Grinch Stole Christmas* and *Yertle the Turtle*, as well as more obscure tales like *The King's Stilts* and *Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose*. After you envelope yourself in nonsense words and delightful rhyming schemes, you can skip on over to obscure curios like Seuss-oriented ASCII art; a contest asking you to choose your favorite among The Grinch, his indefatigable doggie Max, and little Cindy Loo Who. There's also a sound file of the Grinch theme song ("You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch..."). The site deals in the type of minutiae one finds only on the Internet; to wit, in 1972, pundit Art Buchwald borrowed from Geisel the following sentiment: "Richard M. Nixon, will you please go now! The time has come. The time is now. Just go. Go. Go! I don't care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Richard M. Nixon, will you please go now!" Indeed, Geisel was a man of moral and political conviction. Both children and adults will find much to learn from this endearing, whimsical and burgeoning Web site.
Overall Rating: 18
z Publishing Welcome
URL: http://www.zpub.com/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
See San Francisco z-style. z Publishing, an extensive Web directory of places to visit in San Francisco could make both a raver and a grandma smile with glee. Read the history behind the United States' only self-proclaimed emperor or the devastating Pt. Reyes National Seashore Fire. Other San Francisco topics include the Burning Man archives, San Francisco Cacophony Society, and media z (a resource for media folks.) Other sections on z Publishing include unofficial pages for Pope John Paul II, Bill Gates, and Bill Clinton. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
Typo.Com
URL: http://www.typo.com/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Any Net grrl who was once Miss Vermont Photogenic and a writer/editor for a multitude of magazines including MacHome Journal, Computer Life,...and yes, The Net...has to be cool. Read some of her articles about Tupperware parties, domain names and heterosexual relationships. Crystal also lends newbies a hypertext hand in designing their own Web site, with advice and links to useful shareware. Dip into Water's site for a refreshing look at the Web. Blue Light
Overall Rating: 18
AutoSite
URL: http://www.autosite.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Browsing through AutoSite is an enticing way for car fanatics to shoot the day. You must join (at $9.95 for 30 days) to get the full impact of this home for buyers and auto-philes. But even if you don't want to subscribe, come here to learn more about symptoms of car trouble and suggested solutions, get the specs on new cars by manufacturer or country, and even see good-sized photos of most models. Those who register also get access to current base prices for new cars, comprehensive standard and optional feature lists, financing info, and blue-book value for used cars. Lots here.
Overall Rating: 16
Auto-By-Tel
URL: http://www.autobytel.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Auto-By-Tel on the Web really means "Auto by e-mail and phone." It's geared to serious car buyers who already know the make, model, and options they want on a new car, and want a quote from a dealer. Submit your query (along with your name, contact info, address, and how you'll finance the car) via e-mail, and one of the qualified ABT dealers will call you back shortly with a quote. Not unreasonably, ABT takes pains to say that it is not a price-quoting service, and prefers queries from immediate (this week), serious (1-2 weeks), or future (1-2 months) buyers. Very cool.
Overall Rating: 16
Sower's Seed Christian Reprints
URL: http://members.aol.com/SowersSeed/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
These Sower's are busy disseminating reprints of classic Christian documents and books like "Pilgrim's Progress" to the masses. They feel that Christianity has strayed from the true path and that salvation lay in these historical texts. They may seem pretty hardcore today, but in the 1600's these guys would have been on the cutting edge. The formatting of the page, too, appears to be mired in the 17th century, as the site is all text documents with minimal formatting. It might not be pretty, but if you want to peruse an old treatise on why women should wear headgear at all times, this is a good place.
Overall Rating: 14
The Prayer Room
URL: http://hpserv.utulsa.edu/~rlr/PrayerRoom.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Thank God for places like the Prayer Room. Simply submit a name, an e-mail address, and what troubles you have, and it gets posted at the bottom of the page. Then read through the list of requests and pray for everyone on it. You can even e-mail them some spiritual encouragement. If God does answer your prayer, post it on the page so everyone can celebrate His greatness. The site's clunky organization and simplistic graphics don't hamper the pure functionality of this divinely inspired bit of HTML. Many of these people may need all the help they can get.
Overall Rating: 17
Mennonite Brethren Herald
URL: http://www.cdnmbconf.ca/mb/mbherald.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Brethren Herald is the online edition of a biweekly Mennonite newsletter based out of Canada. The issue I read deals with what it means to be a Mennonite in cyberspace. It intelligently explained the Internet to the novice and how it can bring far-flung church groups together. While they dwell on some of the evils of the technology, they also explain how networks and computers help translate the Bible into new languages in record time. Here I thought that Mennonites dressed in black and worked in the fields all day! If every issue is like this one it's well worth the read, Mennonite or not.
Overall Rating: 16
Islam Page
URL: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~ibrahim/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
If there is no god but Allah, then Mohammed might just be the Webmaster of this fine Islamic resource. Read the Koran and link to a database that lets you search through the book by word. Then peruse any of the other multitude of documents on everything from the Islamic holidays to the steps needed to become a Muslim. The main pages feature a crisp layout utilizing Tables and Frames to good effect. The graphics leave something to be desired, but seeing how Islam's not big on representational art, I guess I can make an allowance. If it's Islam, it's probably here.
Overall Rating: 17
Paul Ferland
URL: http://www.loa.com/~kilgrtrt/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Paul Ferland puts his cartoons online to entertain, to seek employment, and to encourage others to peruse his chosen vocation. Each day he adds a new one-panel cartoon to an ever-growing archive of humor. Many are as mediocre as what you'd find in the paper, but some stand out. Two aliens are drinking at a bar. One leans over and whispers, "I love you" while the other looks on concerned. The caption reads, "Aliens don't let aliens drive drunk." Hey, I laughed. Paul also dispenses valuable advice to aspiring illustrators. Get a good pen, draw, and get rejected. Hell, I don't need a pen for that.
Overall Rating: 16
The Infection Connection
URL: http://www.compusmart.ab.ca/gdebenha/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Infection Connection is the brainchild of a junior high school student who loves that which most computer users fear: The virus. Catch his Virus of the Week where he posts a new devious little critter to download and dissect. If that's not enough, a gigantic batch of viruses are available for your deviant pleasure. I wish he could have collected a bit more documentation about each virus and maybe some specimens from an operating system other than Microsoft's, but there's definitely enough here to cause your Windows machine "mysterious problems" for ages to come.
Overall Rating: 16
Svelte
URL: http://users.aimnet.com/~solanna/svelte.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Svelte is a well-crafted portfolio piece by a recent UC San Diego graduate majoring in digital design, and it shows. The site is filled with professional-quality graphics which include some pulsating link buttons which twirl about (viewable with Netscape 2.0 only). In addition to an interesting picture and movie portfolio, there's an article section featuring an entertaining story about a goat-herding parade in Idaho and some mid-range poetry. The site also contains a links list you might want to emulate. Each one has a matching picture and personal explanation of the site's content. They didn't teach this stuff when I was in school.
Overall Rating: 18
Phyllis Light's Healing
URL: http://www.ccsi.com/~phylight/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
I have a bias, and that bias is against pastel rainbow backgrounds with cosmological undertones. This is mind, Phyllis's Healing Page is not recommended for the new age skeptic. Phyllis is author to many a mystical book, including *Prince Charming Lives*, and *The Light Realization Process*. Read essays about her "telepathic healing gift" or check out her "Latest Cosmic Insights." There's a lot here, though more of the site, unfortunately, is about self promotion than spirituality.
Overall Rating: 16
Cosmic Consciousness
URL: http://www.infi.net/~thobbs/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
While primarily a journey though the spiritual, this site also offers links to online HTML tutorials, pointers to freeware and shareware, and a link to Netscape (as this site uses Netscape extensions, and well I might add.) The spiritual component is indeed rich and content and well designed, with plenty of links to a slew of additional resources. Tim will tell you all about who he is, how he found spirituality, show you his mystical book list, and guide you through a gallery of fine religious images. Quite an accomplishment.
Overall Rating: 18
BrowserWatch
URL: http://www.browserwatch.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
For all your browser needs, go here. This is an outstanding resource for up to date info on tools to help you maximize browsing the Web. Learn about the latest VRML viewers, get reviews comparing and contrasting Netscape Vs. Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and what ever you do, visit the Plug-In corner. BrowserWatch will point you to the best plug-in's available for your Mac or PC. This site kicks ass. My only complaint is that sometimes the server is a little slow; but if you are patient, you will reap great rewards.
Overall Rating: 17
BioTech
URL: http://biotech.chem.indiana.edu/
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
BioTech is the premier source for information on genetic engineering, the ability to alter nature at a very basic level. The glossary of biotechnology terms is an inspiring launching point to gain literacy about this astounding branch of science. Annotated links, searchable databases, and pointers to other biotech professional resources make this site a one-stop shop for information. In addition, clean design and keen use of search engines help to ease the strain of information overload. Forget about virtual reality, let's design our own natural world. Stop here to explore what it means to play god.
Overall Rating: 18
EPA & Ozone Depletion
URL: http://www.epa.gov/docs/ozone/index.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
New technology obviously won't do us much good if there's no ozone layer to prevent us from being burnt to a crisp. This site offers information running the gamut from overviews and layman's explanations to detailed scientific studies on ozone depletion and related US regulations. Worthy of a read is the tips on how to protect yourself and your children from UV radiation. Sunglasses help, but just aren't enough anymore. Help save yourself and the atmosphere: Stay away from those tanning beds (they're cheesy anyway) and just say no to hair spray in a can!
Overall Rating: 16
Smithsonian Natural History
URL: http://nmnhwww.si.edu/nmnhweb.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
If you've ever been to Washington DC, you know better than to "drop in" to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. A day is the minimum requirement for this historical tour de force. But if you can't go to the mountain... This site, like the museum, overflows with news and notes about all that is natural. Anthropology, Botany, Mineral Sciences, and other scientific branches have sections here. The Entomology Monthly Newsletter is a real joy. Bugs galore, people! The Mammal Species of the World offers a multimedia taxonomic database of all 4,629 recognized species of mammals. Guess what -- Humans aren't nearly the most interesting.
Overall Rating: 18
HST Greatest Hits Gallery
URL: http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/BestOfHST95.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This collection of dozens of beautiful images shot from the Hubble Space Telescope is a must-see for anyone interested in a better view of a starry, starry night. The red luminescent gas "hula hoops" framing the debris of a 1987 supernova explosion put 2001: A Space Odyssey to shame. Truly mystifying. Snapshots of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet bombarding Jupiter or the suspected black hole in Galaxy NGC 4261 make me wish I'd followed my childhood dream -- Astronaut Pesco reporting for duty.
Overall Rating: 17
Unit Conversion Calculators in JavaScript
URL: http://www.cyberstation.net/~jweesner/conv.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
While not a groundbreaking achievement in the world of Java, this page of unit conversion calculators is a nifty bookmark if you need to convert quarts to gallons, kilograms to troy pounds (don't ask), or inches to nautical miles, for example. Enter the number you have and the Java script quickly converts for you. Very useful if you never could remember how many centimeters are in an inch. (I was absent that day.) But why do the calculators have a calibration feature? As if atmospheric pressure will alter the conversions?
Overall Rating: 17
Java Applet Rating
URL: http://www.jars.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
With the Web's high noise factor, good rating systems are a god-send. And now with new Web technologies surfacing, the technique has been applied to Java applets. This site rates applets in categories based on Top 1%, 5%, etc., including a list of the Top 100 Java applets floating about online. The expert judges are Java developers, writers on the subject, and leaders of Web users groups. Many genres of Java apps are covered here, from an Atlas, to technical programs, to games, and I'm in agreement with most of the reviews so far. For example, the Java Pac Man applet does, in fact, rule.
Overall Rating: 17
Biotechnology Information Center BIC
URL: http://www.inform.umd.edu:8080/EdRes/Topic/AgrEnv/Biotech
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is the homepage for the Biotechnology Information Center. In fact, this is probably the most comprehensive single-topic site you will ever come across on the Web. A huge collection of related links, loads of files for downloading and perusal, and an enormous searchable index make this site of use to any biotech researcher or fan. Information of every sort is collected here, even patent information for the latest creations to crawl out of the lab. Be sure to check out the up-close-and-person profiles of your favorite bacteria!
Overall Rating: 16
Embassy Suites
URL: http://www.embassy-suites.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is a fantastic site demonstrating the commercial application of the Web. Anyone planning a vacation should definitely check this out: reserving a room at an Embassy Suites hotel is just a few mouse-clicks away. In addition to a reservation system, availability, and rate information are also on-line. The entire system is cleanly presented and simple in construction, easy enough for the net-novice but with enough functionality to prove useful. One question: how much longer must we wait for an integrated system which will book all of the hotel chains, much like SABRE does for the airlines?
Overall Rating: 17
French Travel Gallery
URL: http://www.bonjour.com/wta/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Anyone considering a trip to France should visit this site first. This page may very well be the definitive source of information for the tourist-to-be. In addition to an on-line hotel reservation system, visitors find a huge collection of resources: a comprehensive listing of French-related links, maps, vacation suggestions, and other materials for the traveler. The especially curious can even download sound files of common French phrases! If every nation's Web resources were arranged in such a pleasant fashion, life would be much simpler -- and more enjoyable -- for anyone researching a foreign land.
Overall Rating: 18
The Brasil Page
URL: http://charlotte.acns.nwu.edu/rio/brasil.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Here it is, Brasil through the phone line: Brazilian sounds, Brazilian sights, the Portuguese language, Capoeira, and scantily clad women with skin like hot coffee. I just have one question: What ever happened to the Lambada? You know, the Forbidden Dance? Judging from this site -- which is just Samba all day long -- that other craze went the way of all things. But Samba! They're even doing it in Finland. The Finns! What a world.
Overall Rating: 16
Cockroach World
URL: http://www.nj.com/yucky/roaches/index.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Jon Phillips
Witness the noble cockroach. Six legs, sturdy, determined. Soul of a warrior, heart of a tiger. Eternally maligned but so often misunderstood. Have you hugged your cockroach today? Cockroaches ain't bad folk, they're just the victims of bad press. For the real skinny on these lovable garbage-eating vermin, scurry straight on over to Cockroach World. Dr. Betty "Bug Lady" Faber, an entomologist with the Liberty Science Center, presents roach-oriented information with such levity and spirit, you'll hardly notice that you're being schooled in serious science. The site hits you from a variety of angles to impart just about every niblet of cockroach information one could imagine. The Around the World game provides you with a full dossier on a particular breed of cockroach, and challenges you to correctly pick the roach's geographical point of origin. A Day in the Life of Rodney Roach provides a wry chronology of a cockroach's typical day: "10 pm. Rodney waves his antennae, picking up wonderfully icky food odors from the garbage and the delicious smell of rancid milk. He ventures from his hiding place. His eyes tell him that it's dark and safe, but he is guided by his sense of smell. He joins his family and friends already at work on the garbage can. They eat gobs of fat, takes sips of old beer, and finish off with rotting peach skins -- a five-star, gourmet meal." Poor Rodney. Life is tough. If you have unusually urgent cockroach concerns -- and who doesn't? -- you can send the Bug Lady specific questions (she answers one query each week), or go straight to the Roach Facts page. Betcha didn't know that powdered Oriental cockroaches make a dandy diuretic? Or how about the scrappy, unflappable Headless Cockroach? Decapitated cockroaches can continue doing their essential cockroach business for about a week. They only die because they can't consume water. Video, sound and image files augment this wonderful site, but a simple text catalog of urban roach folklore may be the main attraction for macabre visitors. Even titles like "Roach Toasties," "Horror In Pearland" and "Why You Should Brush Your Teeth" cannot adequately describe the terror dished up by the alarming department. Giddy up, Rodney.
Overall Rating: 17
Escape Artist Mathew Cooper
URL: http://www.loop.com/~straitjacket/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Jon Phillips
The typical vanity site doesn't offer an excessive amount of... oh, shall we say... intrigue. Some woman owns a cat named Motorboat; she writes about her cat named Motorboat. Some kid plays third tuba for the Portland Youth Symphony; he writes about playing third tuba for the Portland Youth Symphony. Some guy's favorite food is Nutella on wheat bread; he writes about the joys of eating Nutella on wheat bread. Simple. Easy. No frills. No pressure. Just tell us who you are. We're in, we're out. But Mathew Cooper throws a knuckleball into the whole vanity site phenomenon. Cooper is an escape artist of all things -- that's right, like Harry Houdini -- and a fine oil painter to boot. What's more, his grasp of site design is exemplary. Cooper's pages are top-notch both in content and aesthetics, and his site can be digested in its entirety in less than 25 minutes -- a time limit that should be considered a requisite for inherently self-serving pages devoted to a single individual. Using Netscape's Frames feature, Cooper presents a vertical array of hot buttons on the left side of his display. Click on a button, and a new theme pops up in the main window. The Dislocation button sends you an explanation of the physical process behind Cooper's particular brand of escape artistry: "My shoulders do come out of the socket area but do not really go to the point of dislocation." Scary stuff, Mat. You'll also find photos of Cooper shackled in chains, images of his oil paintings, and links to handcuff collections, a lock-picking guide, and a Houdini page. Of course all this isn't to say that Mat's site, despite all of its chi-chi accouterments, isn't still just a vanity site. Witness this biographical account: "I woke up the next morning in my own vomit. It was everywhere. I have the same birthday as Jimi Hendrix. I believe he died this way but I guess it wasn't my time. I spent a couple of hours apologizing to my Mother in between dry heaves." Scarier stuff, Mat. In the main, Cooper's pages are well-crafted, wonderfully illustrated, and fun to read. Escape from the doldrums of the 9-to-5 rat race, and lose yourself in this confident expression of self.
Overall Rating: 18
TimLand
URL: http://www.educ.drake.edu/ext/Tim/tim.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Tim, he's 38, working at Drake University, has two kids, wants to get more involved in computers, and has a nifty logo of Hawaiian hula dancers on his front page. He's sincere enough and seems to genuinely enjoy HTML. But besides the self promotion as found on all vanity sites, he's got jokes (not just links, but actual content folks), Mac info, music, and juggling goop, neatly displayed in a nice little Table. Woo Woo!
Overall Rating: 17
Hot 100 Web sites Updated Weekly
URL: http://www.web21.com/services/hot100/index.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Itchin to know what's hot on the Web? This is an interesting little resource that may not sport the fancy graphics of Lycos, but who cares, so long as it's useful! And that it is. Every week the site updates surfers on the top 100 Web sites -- the sites with the most hits. While there are no descriptions, and minimal editorial content here, it's a good place to get a feel for what has been successful in Web space.
Overall Rating: 16
IFIC Foundation
URL: http://ificinfo.health.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Looking for the latest on pesticides and food safety? Curious about nutionally related Gallup surveys results? The International Food Information Council is ready to serve you a mountain of facts, breaking that info into byte size chunks organized by who wants the data; reporters, medical professionals, consumers, educators and parents -- innovative and effective. Of course you'll also find member info, links, the newsletter, and a big FAQ. Expect to learn something here.
Overall Rating: 17
Travelocity
URL: http://www.travelocity.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
One of the first steps in planning a vacation is the fantasy stage. A friend mentions a destination, you see a picture of a place, or maybe you read an article about some distant city or country. Once the destination has captivated your mind, every little piece of information about that place you come across will add to your mental database of all the things you will do there. Then you start to imagine the arrival, when you disembark from whatever mode of transportation you've used and get your first real impressions. You imagine walking down the various streets, seeing the monuments, art, parks, or other significant landmarks. Maybe you dream of becoming friends with the natives, of being more than just a tourist, and getting to see the real treasures that only the locals know about. In this first stage it is difficult to do any serious planning because calling a travel agent is such a commitment. You ask a travel agent what it will cost for such and such round trip, and then they will ask you if you want to book that now. Heavens no! You're not at the nuts and bolts stage. But a good way to feel like you are putting the trip together when you are only in the fantasy stage is to become your own travel agent. A number of travel reservation systems are available on the Internet, but the one with the best interface I've seen so far is at Travelocity. There are 8 fields for entering destinations, so you can put together a fairly complicated trip, and the results page it comes back with seemed to give a lot of options and prices for flights. Clicking on any particular flight will display all the information that a travel agent would have. The reservation section of Travelocity also has functions for browsing flight information so you really don't have to feel like you're beyond the fantasy stage of travel. But if you haven't caught that bug to go to a particular place, and you feel you need to go somewhere, the Travelocity site also has a section called Destinations with information on various cities around the world. A large part of the focus of this section is on activities, so if you have an interest in theater, Travelocity can recommend a good play to go see in Vienna. An obligatory Merchandise section offers items of use to travelers, such as power adapters and toiletries, which can all be bought online. Travelocity is a great all around travel resource.
Overall Rating: 18
The Bathrooms of Madison County
URL: http://www.rust.net/~fluxus/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Here's a story about a trip to the God-kissed acres known as Madison County, Iowa, with no concern for the quaint bridges they have there. Well, okay... there are links to souvenir shops ("I covered the bridges in Madison County" t-shirts and the like), but this site is really about a man's trip back home to see his mother, about the woman he takes with him, and how Diet Coke seems to go right through you. With lots of pictures, it's a good show. Enjoy it.
Overall Rating: 16
House of Sacred Squirrels
URL: http://msuvx2.memphis.edu/~ujmshrader/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
(Note: In keeping with The Net's "Sympathy for the Devil's Home Page Designer" policy, this review is written in the style of the page it reviews.) Do college students have too much time on their hands? People Do. U-G-L-Y spells yooglee: so say I, with panache, and at random. Surrealist? Nyet. Dada? Nyetnyet. Just plain weird, and so are your friends (Fox Homepage, Dirtquest). You're looking the very picture of xpliq! It makes me happy: means nothing, tastes great. You don't need drugs to fish in my stream of consciousness, but it couldn't hurt.
Overall Rating: 15
Princeton Review
URL: http://www.review.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The Princeton Review has gained a dedicated following by helping students exploit weaknesses in badly-designed standardized tests. Their iconoclastic methods translate well in this Web site, where you'll find information about standardized tests, college entry requirements, and potential careers. While the content and technical presentation -- including search engines and alphabetical indices -- is first-rate, the scant graphics aren't, nor will you find all the information that's available in the books. But then, they have to get your money somehow, don't they?
Overall Rating: 17
Doty's Education Page
URL: http://www.netaxs.com/people/rdoty/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
There are two extremes in WWW catalogs: huge lists of links with no commentary (a la Webcrawler) and annotated lists with too few links (a la most personal pages). Educator, Robert Doty, has found the middle ground in this site, a page dedicated to education links (separated by grade-school subject) with some original content, i.e. articles he's written on education and technology. There are a few minor technical problems: no "back to home page" buttons, for instance. Still, not bad for someone who says he got into public education for the free Internet access!
Overall Rating: 16
THE LIBRARY OF QUESTIONABLE SCHOLARSHIP
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~dkossy/librqsch.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
This site describes the work and life of Alfred W. Lawson, the inventor of 'Lawsonomy'", the Knowledge of Life and a desire to learn TRUTH by studying the forces of "Zig-Zag" and "Swirl". Uhh...Okay. From here it's off to the Kooks museum lobby to find a beautiful image of a neon entrance; Open 24-7, the place looks packed! The Schizophrenic Wing, Conspiracy Corridor, Gallery of the Gods and Monuments of Kookdom are all here. This site is extremely well-laid out, with several sets of possible link sets; some are text-only and others are laid out by title, color image and explanation.
Overall Rating: 16
ROX
URL: http://www.rox.com/quarry/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The subliminal stone wall background sets the theme of the ROX site: Stoniness! A series of photos lead to features; Bartender shows us how to mix a Zima Slimeball, Tech-Worshipper gives a guide to campus info-kiosks, the Anarchic Clown defaces a bathroom wall in a Taco Bell, and bald headed Wisdom torches a teddy bear. The adventures of the creators of the ROX cable access TV show are chronic-led here, with a search engine and archive of downloadable video files, (including entire 30 minute episodes!). The zany antics and tight tech format make you wonder how they do it!
Overall Rating: 17
Arts Edge
URL: http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Targeting students, teachers, and artists, ARTSEDGE is the Kennedy Center's Web presence. The site is packed with links for those wishing to network with others, those looking for work, those looking for art-related web sites, and those interested in all aspects of the arts ---- music, dance, theater, film, TV, the fine arts, literature, poetry, education, etc. A surfer could get lost for hours in this hyperlink metropolis. And there are as many links for adults as there are for children.
Overall Rating: 17
NCRVE Home Page
URL: http://vocserve.berkeley.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
While The National Center for Research in Vocational Education's (NCRVE) Web site could stand some good editing and a dose of spirit, it nevertheless provides useful information and progress reports on an alternative form of secondary education. Based at the University of California, the NCRVE Web site is linked to documents on the history and the future of vocational education, all organized like a standard high school report and about as interesting.
Overall Rating: 14
STUDIE'
URL: http://205.118.0.33/oes.html/studie'.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
It's so cute, with its rainbow colors, and to the point! Officially called School Teachers Using & Developing Internet Expertise or STUDIE' (pronounced Stoo'-dee-ay), the web site gives local educational information for the Alpine School District in Utah as well as general information for all educators seeking to learn about the Internet. STUDIE' provides links to HTML lessons, email emoticons and acronyms, and a growing list of educational hyperlinks. Links lead to sites on the core subjects, the arts, foreign language, health, government, religion, weather, shopping, newspapers and newsgroups.
Overall Rating: 17
Technology and Learning: A Planning and Implementation Resource
URL: http://www.ncrel.org/ncrel/tandl/techandlearn.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
This is a guide for learning technology, taking readers from the goal setting and initial research stages to the implementation and revision for improvement stages. It is not light reading. It offers diagrams and provides information in an outline format.
Overall Rating: 14
THE STUDY PLACE
URL: http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/academic/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
A budding philosopher's mecca, The Study Place is an online academic resource managed by the Institute for Learning Technologies of Columbia University. The college's faculty and doctoral candidates provide good critiques of ancient and modern philosophy. The site also includes links to brief biographies on ancient and modern philosophers including Aristotle, Dante, Descartes, et al.
Overall Rating: 16
Selvia's Art Cave
URL: http://www.dnaco.net/~ivanjs/jshp.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Aside from touring the computer art gallery featuring portraits of skulls, fractals and nudes, visitors to Selvia's Art Cave can also watch a random alien fashion show or have a look at bad starship designs rejected by the Federation. Read true science stories about ham radio and integrated circuits. The art isn't worthy of any Dali award, but the hodgepodge of content and graphics make this Cave a site fit for any bat fixin' to byte into a digital gallery.
Overall Rating: 17
6168
URL: http://mindlink.net/ph/
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Canadian artists Peter Horvath and Sharon Matarazzo pool their talents and birth dates to form the site, 6168. From the very first page, you can tell designers were in charge of the site with its object-orientated, almost textless index. Take a journey into the mind of an immigrant and lost lover in two non-linear photo essays. 6168 incorporates both new media and old-fashioned snapshots to create an unique art form.
Overall Rating: 17
Ken Christian's Photo Gallery
URL: http://www.ebicom.net/~kenchr/gallery/homepage.htm
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Give a guy a camera and twenty years later he's bound to have a few good pictures. Kenneth Christian served as a photographer, editor and publisher for The Banner-Independent, a small weekly in Booneville, Mississippi, from 1975 to 1995. The photo subjects range from cute little kids to not-so-sweet car wrecks. Photojournalists and art lovers alike will appreciate Ken Christian's concentration on detail as he focuses in on real life with only a camera in hand.
Overall Rating: 17
Nizkor
URL: http://nizkor.almanac.bc.ca/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This is a site with a mission: Confronting and debunking the myths and misinformation propagated by the revisionists who would suggest that Hitler's pogrom never occurred. Nizkor actively engages--or attempts to engage--the persons who espouse such nonsense online and provides a plethora of information (see the Shofar FTP archive, which will soon be available in hypertext) to counter their claims. Dedicated not just to the six million Jewish Holocaust victims, but to the estimated twelve million Jews, gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, et al, murdered by the Third Reich, this site deserves attention.
Overall Rating: 15
Hoop Dreams Page
URL: http://www.mnonline.org/ktca/hoopdreams/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
If you haven't seen the film, see it. If you did see it, you'll like this site, a collaborative effort by PBS Online and KCTA's The Tube. Here you can catch up on the lives of the film's two heroes, William Gates and Arthur Agee, read about the controversy surrounding the documentary's exclusion from Academy Award recognition, see production notes from the seven-year project, and even download Quicktime clips. It's a well-designed site, worthy of the film.
Overall Rating: 16
The Making of Citizen Kane
URL: http://www.voyagerco.com/CC/gh/welles/p.makingkane.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Get this: Orson Welles was only 24 in 1939, the year he contracted to direct the landmark film, *Citizen Kane*, for RKO Radio Pictures. And did you know that Welles wore foam-cast noses for the part in order to improve the appearance of his face on camera? This site gives a straightforward, concise synopsis of the making of the classic picture with excellent images and many more facts of the sort I've just cited. Part of the Voyager company's Web presence, the site is nothing fancy, but film fanatics will doubtless find a lot to like here.
Overall Rating: 16
Adaweb
URL: http://adaweb.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Heidi Swanson
The instant I ventured into the Adaweb realm my sensory overload meter hit the red line. This site establishes a much needed platform for Web specific content in which contemporary artists can discourse with the Internet community. As platforms go, it's a rather lofty one, so you may want to don your highbrow reading specs and grab an encyclopedia of obscure references before climbing aboard. Adaweb currently serves up six segments featuring an impressive variety of heavy-hitting content. The first level, *Project * houses works created specifically for the site, while *Influx* becomes the digital display case for works that exist in real space. Not only does Adaweb feature a vast array of artists, but it presents their work in a clean, even elegant, manner. Navigate seamlessly from Julia Scher's coldly voyeuristic *Securityland*, right into a warm, peppy, Armani-models-visit-the-Emerald City-type of piece about love as perceived by Group Z, for instance. The clean design and site architecture of Adaweb help make the site more hospitable to an ever changing guest register and the site designers have used HTML to visually optimize the layout without crowding in too many bells and whistles or overshadowing the content. And for those browsing with slower connections, the creators have made a conscious effort to keep their page sizes down to a minimum. Hot and cold, soft and hard, glaring and subtle, Adaweb encompasses the entire spectrum in one cohesive design providing an electronic forum for experimental artists to display the fruits of their labor. It's a dynamic achievement not only worth the first visit, but, as with all the best zines, one to bookmark for future visits.
Overall Rating: 18
College Money Matters
URL: http://www.infi.net/collegemoney/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
I know it's crass to speak of education in strictly financial terms, but sooner or later you got to admit: It all comes down to money. There's no guarantee that a college degree improves your financial worth, but one thing's for certain: You have to ante up just to get in the game. This site from Signet Bank provides a pretty extensive overview of the whole higher education money game. Especially useful is the book *Don't Miss Out: The Ambitious Student's Guide to Financial Aid* , which lays out the basics of finding funding and planning your finances over the long haul. Not only is the entire text presented online here (read "free"), but it's updated for to coincide with the coming academic year. You can browse the chapter contents quickly, gleaning the information you need and disregarding the rest. Simple as that; no outdated book left moldering on the shelf, no trees sacrificed to your momentary needs, just the info you need now, on your monitor. Of course, this being a corporate site as well, the bank has its own interests. Electronic forms are provided for ordering student loan applications and the like; there is no pressure to do so however. The biggest benefit for Signet is probably just the good reputation the largess garners, not to mention the dollars the publicity could mean farther down the road. A square enough deal, seems to me. Also useful to the college hopeful is the Financial Aid Time Line, which gives a prescribed chronology for securing tuition dollars, a concise budgeting worksheet , some tips on managing your cash flow, and a brief tutorial on building credit (tread carefully over that one, kids). When you've exhausted the resources here, there's a page of associated links to keep your surfing on track. There'll be plenty of time for distraction when you're basking in the cool shade of the ivory tower.
Overall Rating: 16
PlayStation Nation
URL: http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~toenail/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
From its introduction in September till the end of 1995, Sony's PlayStation sold an estimated 500,000 units, proving itself a wildly successful gaming platform. Given half a million people and an estimated 1.73 friends per PlayStation owner, that makes,...let's see,...1,365,000 people who are regularly playing PlayStation games! By contrast, Belize only has a population of 214,058. By that calculation PlayStation devotees -- the PlayStation Nation, if you will -- could easily take over that sunny Central American country; PlayStation Nation, after all, comprises mostly young people with honed reflexes, while the citizenry of Belize is handicapped by all those infants and elderly. Think of it: A whole country full of PlayStation gamers, it would be the biggest test market in the world. Well, the PlayStation Nation Web site is not advocating anything like that; the site's creator and contributors -- Toenail, Shroom, and Scarecrow -- are too busy playing and reviewing PlayStation games to plan any large-scale invasions. The core of this site is devoted to very qualitative game reviews based on the simple criterion of whether a game is worth buying. The content is kept focused, with an area for hints and a news section covering the latest games and developments regarding PlayStation. While some gaming purists refuse to ever look at hints or cheats, the majority of players will find this section useful. The news section is worthwhile for more than just the latest video games, as it also covers business topics in the industry. Toenail, the Web master, has designed two versions of the site to accommodate both Navigator and Internet Explorer users. The Navigator version takes advantage of VRML plug-ins with a 3D logo, while The Internet Explorer rendition employs Microsoft specialties like marquees and embedded wave files, giving each page an audio introduction. The different versions of the site make it a great way for discerning surfers to compare browsers.
Overall Rating: 18
King Link & Games
URL: http://www.whiterock.com/kinglink/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This site is wicked confusing, slow, and hard to navigate. That said, it does have an extensive mirrored library of easily searchable games (with descriptions) for many systems as well as links to just about every search engine on the Internet. So, I guess its worth checking out, just be prepared for a little confusion at the outset. What ever happened to "about [this site]" pages??
Overall Rating: 15
The Duke Nukem 3D Arsenal
URL: http://rat.org/duke3d/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
FAQ's, codes, links and maps for the hottest new Doom-esque multi-player game. There's a chat room too. Cool.
Overall Rating: 16
The McCannical Pinball Page
URL: http://pilot.msu.edu/user/mccannr1/pinball/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Yowza. This is the most complete pinball site I have ever seen, with plenty of FAQs, tip sheets, rule cards for various games, links to other sites and a bunch more. If you like pinball, you'll dig this site. That noted, if you're looking for hip, hi-tech web sites, this isn't one of them. It has only a modicum of graphics and is mostly text. Some scans of promo sell sheets, etc., would have been cool. Oh well. This is rad just for the info.
Overall Rating: 16
Mississippi Review Web Edition
URL: http://sushi.st.usm.edu/~barthelm/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Sometimes simple is better. Mississippi Review uses shaded rectangular boxes and a few diagonal lines to draw onlookers into its horizontal list of established writers. Set off by year and month of online publication, works consist of poetry, fiction, interviews and essays, just like the print version of the Mississippi Review. But unlike the magazine, which is a biyearly publication, the web site is a monthly. MRW promises to incorporate graphics, sound and video into the format soon. Features authors include Jamaica Kincaid, Dinty Moore, Leon Rooke, and Ian McEwan
Overall Rating: 17
The Master Works of Western Civilization
URL: http://www.eskimo.com/~masonw/gwwc.htm
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Are you civilized? Are you sure? Well, for a crash course in the liberal arts without the tuition and fees, visit Mason West's home page. His is the mother of all syllabi! There are 31 printed pages worth of authors and their works here, many of which connect you via hyperlink to the content. Unfortunately, the site could use better organization. The lists, of which there are two, mainly feature ancient Greek, ancient Roman, European, and American works.
Overall Rating: 16
Scrivenery Literary Awards
URL: http://www.hti.net/www/hwilliam/awards.htm
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Here's one for English Lit. majors and prospective Jeopardy contestants. The Literary Awards section is part of Scrivenery's larger web site, which offers resources for fiction writers. The awards' site lists the winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Awards for Fiction, The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Booker Prize. Answer: He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1965. Question: Who is Michail A. Sholokhov, Alex?
Overall Rating: 17
Gabriel Garcia Marquez-Macondo
URL: http://www.microserve.net/~thequail/libyrinth/garcia.marquez.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
In 1982, Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez won the Nobel Prize for literature. A native of Colombia, he now lives in Mexico City and is considered a pioneer of style known as "magical realism." The site provides background information on the history of Colombia and examines how that history has influenced Marquez's fiction. It also includes notes on Marquez, a bibliography of his works, Marquez-related images and links to other Marquez Web sites.
Overall Rating: 16
SALON
URL: http://www.salon1999.com/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
A dynamic e-zine with headlines like "Bikers for Jesus," "X-rated: Agents Mulder and Scully bare all," and "Montana standoff: Coddling the kooks," SALON features non-fictional and fictional pieces. Aside from its features, SALON has a mailing list and an interactive Table Talk section. It is published every two weeks. SALON is entertaining, graphically pleasing, and informative. Where else could one find neurologist Oliver Sacks, author of "Awakenings," clad in a leather jacket and striking a *GQ* pose?
Overall Rating: 17
SOMA-web
URL: http://www.primenet.com/~matthew/huxmain.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Matthew, the site's manager, makes one mistake in his web site on English novelist Aldous Huxley (1894-1963): He reverses the print, making the background color black and most of the text white. Unfortunately, when the information is sent to the printer, the machine interprets everything as white, thereby making the print invisible. Nevertheless, Matthew provides an entertaining look at the novelist best known for Brave New World, the 1932 satirical work about a society controlled by technology. Also, it contains a hypnotic photo of Huxley and links to other Huxley-related sites.
Overall Rating: 15
Life is a Joke
URL: http://www.netreach.net/people/bishop/lifejoke.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
It's a large mail-order list of bizarre or comical literature. The title is a bit misleading. It is not a site of one-liners. One can find Your Revenge is in the Mail, a book about making someone's life hell by mail, for $10. Also, there are noted writers like William Vollman, author of *Whores for Gloria*, which is available in hard-cover for six dollars. There are even fan magazines on bouncing caskets and artwork dealing with "black blood," otherwise known as coffee. Nearly all items are under $20, and most items are under $10.
Overall Rating: 16
WPA Life Histories
URL: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Originally a government-sponsored Folklore Project of the Federal Writers' Project for the U.S. Works Progress (later Work Projects) Administration (WPA) from 1936-40, this web site gives the history of the WPA and provides an excellent search engine to scour the some 2,900 works from that era. In the late '30s, more than 10,000 writers from across the country wrote biographies on Americans, of various ethnic and religious groups, occupations, and regions. The result is a first-hand glimpse of 1930's Americana.
Overall Rating: 16
Toni Morrison
URL: http://www.en.utexas.edu/~mmaynard/Morrison/home.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Toni Morrison, a visually pleasing web site, focuses largely on *Beloved*, the author's 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. However, there are also links to Morrison's biography, photographs, and short narratives on all of her works. It includes quotes from the author, speaking about her art and should provide a rich experience for both avid Morrison fans and newcomers alike.
Overall Rating: 17
The Fourth World Documentation Project
URL: http://www.halcyon.com/FWDP/fwdp.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Q: There are about 200 states in the world. How many nations are there? A: Over 5,000, according to this site, which uses the term "Fourth World" to describe groups which have been forcibly acculturated into more-powerful governments. While the Chippewa and Aleuts may be familiar (and comparatively easy to track), the FWDP carries extensive archives on lesser-known native peoples of the world as well. There's a slight emphasis on indigenous peoples of the U.S., but you'll also find plenty on tribes in such places as Sweden and Peru. Includes a search engine.
Overall Rating: 16
Center for Public Integrity
URL: http://www.essential.org/cpi/
Category: Political
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
It's hard to examine politics without being partisan, but the Center for Public Integrity -- dedicated to documenting the influences weighing on presidential candidates -- does a pretty good job of it. They primarily release findings in books and newsletters, but unlike most publishers' Web sites, the CPI's documents are available here in toto. Read about the hundreds of campaign advisors (and their hidden agendas) in the 1996 presidential race, or download a database of candidates' assets. Unfortunately, the designer's love of graphics makes for long waits, and navigation can get a bit tricky in places.
Overall Rating: 16
Government is Not God
URL: http://www.govnotgod.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Did you know that prayer is banned in public schools? It isn't, actually, but that erroneous belief is the basis for the "Government is Not God" political action committee led by born-again Christian, William Murray, son of famed atheist leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair (!). Accuracy aside, the Web site is well-organized, although the writing has the same propagandist flavor that taints most political cant. Buttons are unclear in some places, and there are few links to the outside world. Still, if you have $25 or more burning a hole in your pocket and want to help elect "godly men," this may be your oasis.
Overall Rating: 15
Jazz Online
URL: http://www.jazzonln.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Since its emergence over 50 years ago, jazz has been perennially hip. Jazz Online is the Web's premier entryway into the genre, featuring interviews, biographies, CD Reviews, Xing-streamed radio, and insightful profiles. A recent gem, for example, is a conversation with Ravi Coltrane, who does not want to be known as his father's son. Elegantly designed and knee-deep in information, Jazz Online is the coolest virtual jazz bar on the net.
Overall Rating: 18
10 Things Jesus Wants You to Know
URL: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~ten/
Category: Music
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Not a bible-bouncer's home page, but a rad Washington-based punk 'zine. The list of upcoming shows in the Pacific Northwest, including basement and garage gigs, makes me yearn for the pit, while interviews with the Jesus Lizard, The Melvins, and Ward beckon me to the record store. With 10 Things' fresh design, clear navigation, and fine 'zine-quality writing, hardcore indie music fans couldn't ask for more. As punk continues to be pulled into the mainstream, this 'zine is one to watch.
Overall Rating: 16
Sonic State
URL: http://www.sonicstate.com
Category: Music
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
With a fine British sense of streetwise humor a la the New Music Express, Sonic State is something of a cross between a hip music fan 'zine and an irreverent industry resource. Much fun is the directory to rock and roll hotels, from the Chelsea to the Chateau Marmont and across the world. Big Wig wanna-bes will also enjoy determining the fate of rising (or falling) acts in the "Let's Play A & R Game." MTV Online should take a look at this site. A close look.
Overall Rating: 16
Res Rocket Surfer
URL: http://www.resrocket.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Res Rocket is the perfect illustration of why the Web excites creative minds; namely, the potential for collaboration between artists around the world. Res Rocket's ingenious software enables users all over the world to jam in real-time as part of the Res Rocket Surfer virtual band. Via real-time MIDI signals, synthesized soundscapes from London can be overlaid on jungle drums from San Francisco, for example, to create true World Music in the Moo-based virtual worlds of RRS. It's free to join, and the only requirement is a desire to be another neuron in this evolving performance of the Third Mind.
Overall Rating: 18
Dance To The Sound Of A Suicide
URL: http://hamp.hampshire.edu/~temS95/gothic.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Yes, we're talking Goths here--black eyeliner, Bauhaus, black hair, Bela Lugosi (is dead), black clothes, etc. But I grew up on the Sisters of Mercy and Christian Death, so there's always a place in my heart for children of the night. Especially this one! Tara Morrison has a sense of humor, something lacking in most gloom and doom types. "I don't drink blood. And I don't want to," she writes in one of many stabs at the hyper-pretentiousness and absurd fantasization so typical in goth culture. This page is primarily an annotated list of goth sites on the Net--Bauhaus pages, Anne Rice resources, etc. But Tara's wry, no-bullshit attitude makes this site more interesting than almost anything she links to. Tara, will you meet me in the cemetery some night?
Overall Rating: 16
Pun Yin Metaphysics
URL: http://plaza.interport.net/pymetaphysics/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This site is dedicated to the ancient study of Feng Shui, the historic Chinese discipline of "manipulating the invisible and subtle energies of the cosmos, or 'Chi,' to create harmony between man and his environment." This is some heavy stuff actually, dealing with the placement of objects and buildings in their "most auspicious positions" and the use of specific colors for "balance." (Example: Seeing your stove when you first walk inside creates bad energy). For a few hundred dollars, Master Pun Yin will look at blueprints and photos of your home or office (if it's in New York), and give a Feng Shui analysis. Maybe true, maybe hoax or superstition, but damned interesting.
Overall Rating: 16
8-Track Heaven
URL: http://pobox.com/~abbot/8track
Category: Music
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Browsing the Web can be a personally broadening experience, exposing one to art, literature, and cultures. Sometimes it just gets weird. Not many people realize that a sizable group in the U.S. is devoted to collecting 8-track tapes, but at the 8-Track Heaven Web site, the extent of this mania becomes apparent. There are tips on maintaining tapes and players, articles about the history of the 8-track, and the special relationship between cars and 8-tracks. The site is organized along the same principle as an 8-track tape index, demonstrating excellent consistency with the subject matter.
Overall Rating: 16
Platypus Family's Playroom
URL: http://www.orst.edu/~dickt/playroom/playroom.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It's full, thick with stories (that read themselves "with a properly configured Mac"), songs to sing, games to play, and activities for families. And as a super bonus, the site also has some sections translated into Spanish. Que Bueno! If you like the content, there's a CD ROM on the way. Just add your name to a list to receive notification. The only drawback-- Children's Playroom was created as one *very* long scroll down page, instead of multiple pages with hyperlinks, so the download can be a long wait.
Overall Rating: 16
Phi Delta Theta
URL: http://www.PhiDelt-GHQ.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It may be hard to imagine that the kegger at the Phi Delt house comes from a fraternity with a long, upstanding tradition of brotherhood, academic achievement, and political activism (The Phi Delts at Miami University, 1848, were in part responsible for getting a bad seed university president expelled). But for those in doubt, take note of the Phi Delt Web site. It's very well designed with a comprehensive section on history, a chapter locator, resources for alumni, and of course, a merchandise mart for all your branded needs. It's a good one.
Overall Rating: 18
Pinkboard
URL: http://www.pinkboard.com.au/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Living queer in Australia? Make sure to check out the Pinkboard! The site is packed with info about where to go (clubs, theaters, etc.), who to go with (an extensive personals area), and what to do once you get there (safe sex info). While some of the sections are a little slow, with content generated from CGI scripts, the icons are clever, and the info is regularly updated. There is also a slick Frames interface, but you get the option as to whether or not you want to use it. Tres cool!
Overall Rating: 17
Vegan Action
URL: http://www.vegan.org/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Just say no MILK. No meat. No eggs. No animal or dairy of any kind! That includes any clothing or products made from animals -- no leather, silk, or hair conditioner made with animal enzymes. The Web site will keep vegans clued in to current news items, political rally's, and the spectrum of all that is vegan in this omnivore world. There's also a catalog in case you want a "Live Simply" or "Just Go Vegan" t-shirt. The links to the cookbooks are super cool.
Overall Rating: 16
Medicine Online
URL: http://www.meds.com/mol/welcome.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Medicine Online could be the start of something useful. It's a commercial resource which offers medical articles and links for both professionals and consumers. Since its launch in May '95 the available files - articles, FAQs and links to relevant newsgroups - have focused on cancer (albeit only certain forms of the disease), but the makers claim that they'll soon include similar resources on other diseases as well as treatments and how-to's on treating depression and headaches, pain management, and infant care. There's also a link to the National Library of Medicine's searchable database.
Overall Rating: 16
Design Sphere Online
URL: http://www.dsphere.net/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Design Sphere is a pretty good resource for those working in communications or the graphic arts. There's a glossary, HTML and web page design tutorials, a business-to-business directory, and the, by now, traditional resume and want ad postings. Less successful are the Community and Way Hot areas, which don't offer many contacts or enough information. A design firm/web site is showcased monthly, and you can see the portfolios of numerous firms and consultants here. There are useful links to tips for Quark XPress, and the like.
Overall Rating: 18
Psychlink Professional
URL: http://www.psychlink.com
Category: Professional
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
For those who follow "behavioral healthcare," including psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience, Psychlink has some useful aspects. The site provides links to a good number of medical journals and publications, and a wide variety of related professional associations. The conferences and news links are less useful: no contact info for any of the upcoming meetings, and the news is just compiled from newsletters, without dates. Instead, check out the Articles, Organizations and Resources pages: those are the high points of Psychlink.
Overall Rating: 17
Law Journal Extra!
URL: http://www.ljextra.com/nlj/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Using the magazine model for organizing info, LJE, puvlisshed by the National Law Journal, is an excellent bookmark for legal professionals. The Table of Contents is really a meta-page of links to legal business development resources, legal technology tools, firm management, legal classifieds, pertinent newsgroups, and more. Even better, LJE seems to be regularly maintained and updated. LJE also provides extensive links to decisions and court rulings, relevant government documents, and the EDGAR and THOMAS databases, as well as as a humor page called "Non-Billable Hours" This is one of the best legal sites out there.
Overall Rating: 16
American Association of Zoo Keepers
URL: http://aazk.ind.net/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
No self-respecting zoo lover should miss this page. It has lots of wild animal and bird GIFs (collect `em all!), links to animal sanctuaries as well as pointers to zoological and conservation resources. If you want to contact a zoo keeper, there's even a searchable database of professionals that you can browse. When you've learned all about zoo keeping, just head on over to the Elephant Manager's Association (yes, really).
Overall Rating: 16
The Air Crew Home Page
URL: http://vanbc.wimsey.com/~gordona/aircrew.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The wild blue yonder calling? For flying enthusiasts - especially those who want to make a profession of it - here's a meta-page of links to aviation, aerospace, weather and travel pages, as well as a few newsgroups and a flight attendants' site. You can head out from here to NASA, the FAA, and other aviation sites. These folks don't just bring you the fun stuff, either -- you can get to the Aviation Accident Summary page from here, or the High Altitude Radiation Measurement Study.
Overall Rating: 16
American Institute of Biological Sciences
URL: http://www.reston.com/aibs/aibs.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
AIBS is a membership organization of some 5000 professionals working in the life sciences, and, as you might expect, their site covers their publications, programs and meetings. Issues such as biodiversity, biological research, medicine, agriculture, and the environment are all within the purview of *BioSciences*, the AIBS journal. The publication provides a few sample articles and tables of contents from the most recent issues. With links to the "member societies" of AIBS, such as the Poultry Science Association, this is a good start for someone interested in the field of biology.
Overall Rating: 16
Footwear Industries of America
URL: http://www.fia.org/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Footwear: we gotta have it! The FIA page touts its services to members ranging from small family-owned operations to large scale manufacturing conglomerates -- the people who make your shoes. FIA is an established trade organization and as such has certain public policy interests and lobbying efforts which you can look into here. There's an industry resource directory, called Solesource, and information pertaining to importing and exporting. If you're in shoe biz already, or just interested in a what a pervasive industry offers to its professionals, ankle over to the FIA page.
Overall Rating: 16
Nolo Press Self-Help Law Center
URL: http://gnn.com/gnn/bus/nolo/index.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
God bless the folks at Nolo, an organization devoted to providing legal info on the cheap. A straightforward site with FAQ's that are pointed and informative, it allows you to zoom in on your problem via the index, and if the information there doesn't cover all the bases, you can order the book on the subject (printable order forms are available online). While NOLO is in the publishing business, there's still beau coup info here for free as well as some pointers to books and products from other publishers. It's an enlightened approach to business. May their tribe increase.
Overall Rating: 16
Cat Fanciers
URL: http://www.fanciers.com/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Cats love me. Every time I come into the room, they purr and rub up against me. Of course, I hate cats. But I liked this site. Since 1993, this page has been providing ailurophiles (cat lovers) with an exhaustive amount of information on every aspect of feline-fancying, from breed descriptions, to general info (a big section with about 200 entries), cat shows, info on shelters, veterinary medicine and tons more. If you like cats, come here; it's that simple.
Overall Rating: 17
Art Cars
URL: http://www.artcars.com/home.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Art Cars. You've probably seen one or two; a VW bug done up to resemble a giant pumpkin, an old Dodge Dart covered with buttons and lights and whirligigs, an unidentified chassis supporting a giant plastic shark. Anyway, this is the fan zine for them. Tons of pictures, info on specific cars, events and more. Tres Cool.
Overall Rating: 18
R/C Pilot's Lounge
URL: http://www.ntrnet.net/~dwright/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This site is well maintained, or at least it was before the web master got married, (the site is in stasis during the honeymoon). Geared for radio-controlled plane fanatics, it has a guest book, plenty of pictures of models (some with specs) as well as a wealth of other R/C links.
Overall Rating: 17
CraftWeb Project
URL: http://www.craftweb.com/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
The ultimate arts and craft site on the Web, it's fast, filled with resources, and there's a ton of stuff to see and buy. For artisans themselves, there are lots of links to resources, books, help, etc, as well as chance (for a fee) to display your own work. If you're a craftsperson looking for a cheap way to get your wares on the web, this is probably it. They get upwards of 6,000 visitors a day, which is awesome for such a specialty site. A little commercial, but overall, great.
Overall Rating: 18
Baudeville
URL: http://exp1.mobius.net/baudeville/
Category: Media
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
This commentary-as-comedy site is humorous from the get-go. Featuring the Troubletown comic by Dangle and Too Much Coffee Man by Shannon Wheeler, the site boasts some very funny material! And the layouts and design are tasty! This one is sure to give up a laugh.
Overall Rating: 16
ruse
URL: http://www.ruse.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
See Hypermode. More of the same here, (though not quite as slick yet): alluring images of models doing what they do best and links to other outposts in the fashion galaxy. Like Hypermode it takes full advantage of frames, but hasn't yet incorporated Java. Some departments are still under construction, but there's no shortage of things to see. Still playing catchup with Hypermode, but a top notch entry all the same. Oh, and I like the title, but the subtitle: "Aesthetics over ethics" has echoes of fascism.
Overall Rating: 18
The Main Quad
URL: http://www.mainquad.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Bremser
When it comes to get-rich-quick-off-the-Web schemes, I've seen enough con games aimed at naive college kids to make my stomach turn. Frankly, not far from college age myself, the usual attempts are characterized by ridiculous "be hip like me" poses, horrible *Wired* magazine-type graphics, and pathetic jargon like "kewl" and "killer." The quad is better, significantly so. It's simply a no-nonsense resource for college students. The images are well tailored and smooth, not jarring, in-your-face, neon things-- no blinks, no silly scrolling Java script. It's all so straightforward. "Student Services," is in fact student services. The "U-Wire," is exactly what one would suppose it to be (a news wire for college newspapers), and the "Dean's List of Web Distinction" is, yes, the cool links tenant of the site. And while the opening page takes the form of a giant image map, it loads quickly and offers a text based menu system at the top for those of us with slower modems or browsers that don't support image maps in the first place. Thank you! Perhaps this site doesn't need to add contrived flavor and style a la MTV because there is actually a *reason* to visit. High content, low fluff. The student services area, flagged with a big banner that says "free" is packed with great goods. Stay atop current issues affecting campuses, check out the ride share board, get tips and a template to compose a resume, then send it off to over 150 companies (with a single click). Or just create a multimedia love note for that boy in your English class. Wink wink. Most impressive is the "make a Web site and store it here" section. Yup, their gonna house your home page, for free! With options for easy and advanced Web mavens, anyone can do it. Select "easy," answer a series of questions, and wait for your content to run through a template and output a Web site. Unlike other Web-maker templates, you get the option to pick fonts, colors, sizes, etc. The advanced area is merely a form ready for code that you can either type online or cut and paste from your desktop editor. They've also arranged an FTP site to upload images if you want pictures on your new page. Unfortunately, the maximum space allowance is 150K-- not a whole lot -- but it's great for resumes and general personal information. I'd say, if you're in college you'll probably find much of use here. And, uh, it's killer, dude.
Overall Rating: 18
GOP In-Fighting Updates
URL: http://www.webcom.com/~albany/infight.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
In Parliamentary systems, party solidarity is rudimentary. In the US, party factionalism is de rigueur. The GOP In-Fighting Updates began a few days after the Republican sweep of the 1994 elections and received so much support and interest that it has become an "on-going commentary on the GOP Civil War." It's a collection of some 100 essays, covering the volatile GOP coalition of religious extremists, social reactionaries, fiscal conservatives, and moderates. With titles like "Dissent and Dissentability" and "Rank-and-File Also Rejects GOP's Pandering to the Religious Reich" this is good grist for the mill.
Overall Rating: 16
InfoHub Travel Guide
URL: http://www.infohub.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Hoo boy... yet another site proclaiming itself the "most comprehensive travel guide on the World Wide Web." Unlike self-serving travel agency sites, this one just might qualify. It's a plain-vanilla set of pages which lists links to other travel-related sites: very little information is at infohub.com. The links are arranged by country, with colorful image maps to guide you as you bop from continent to continent. I wish I had access to this site while traveling: maybe a cellular modem connected to a PowerBook and hooked directly into my brain. Bliss.
Overall Rating: 16
Angels
URL: http://www.shebute.com/angels/angelshome.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"I believe in angels." Ok, Fine. The site is cute: the homepage offers two little angels madly flapping their wings, showcasing net-driven animation. True Believers can share tales of angel visitations, angel dreams and visions, and even full-fledged angel orchestrated miracles. Admittedly the subject matter may require a willful suspension of disbelief if you "don't believe in angels," but there is no doubt that this site does a fine job of presentation.
Overall Rating: 17
Amber
URL: http://www.emporia.edu/S/www/earthsci/amber/amber.htm
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
While this site may not be the smoothest in layout, or spiffy HTML wizardry, I am thoroughly impressed to find a site on the net about amber that does not reference Jurassic Park or fossilized insects on the first page. Phew. Instead, what you'll find is a fairly comprehensive guide to all things amber; it's history, uses, and physical properties to name a few. The myths section is especially cool.
Overall Rating: 16
SkiNet
URL: http://www.skinet.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Ski and Skiing magazine have teamed up to bring you a detailed Web resource on tennis. Not really. It's best feature is an incredible database of equipment reviews you access by filling out a form which will determine the best stuff for you and your ability. It's like a salesperson in your computer who isn't pushy. There's a regional snow report, a technical forum where you can quiz the experts, competition reports, news items, a resort finder database, and content from both magazines. The only way this site could be more complete is if it could make snow shoot out my monitor.
Overall Rating: 17
Picture Palace
URL: http://www.ids.net/picpal/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
There are hundreds of film and video specific sites on the Web. Most offer sharp graphics, catty insider gossip and the shmoozy feeling we all crave -- so why visit this site? Picture Palace offers all of the above and more: purchase film and music videos online, search an extensive database, and track the latest releases from obscure one-person video production companies. Daily updates, numerous rants, and profiles of must-see, but frequently overlooked, works are all here. This page does a fine job of capturing the excitement unleashed by the video revolution; film fans will find this an titillating site to revisit frequently.
Overall Rating: 16
Black Panther Coloring Book
URL: http://www.cybergate.com:80/~jonco/bpcb.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Despite what some say, there are a few good Web sites that take print content and just scan it in, simple and clean. No typing. No code. This coloring book from the Black Panthers is one such example, offering an activity and good insight into the philosophy of the group. A Frames version of the site makes it easy to navigate through the site, and you could always download the images if you feel like coloring...
Overall Rating: 15
The Camelot Project
URL: http://rodent.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cphome.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Dedicated to Arthurian culture (King Arthur and his crew to those in the know), this site is a growing repository of mostly text and images about the subject. It's pretty vast right now but could stand a little aesthetic improvement. This site shares a problem that many text repositories have -- the dreaded gray background. The images are nifty enough, many over 150 years old, so go here to get free clip art for any Arthurian projects you might have.
Overall Rating: 18
Algy's Herb Page
URL: http://frank.mtsu.edu/~sward/herb/herbpic.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
This is the main drag on the Web to find out about herbs. Both as spices with flavor for cooking and for medicinal purposes. Catalogs allow you to purchase the plentiful, life giving seeds, plants and spices that you read about on the site, and the design is first rate, featuring cool scans of plant drawings from old science books. There's even a pretty tasteful use of frames.
Overall Rating: 17
American Academy of Ophthalmology
URL: http://www.eyenet.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Rest your eyes here. A nicely designed page which simulates a newspaper, the American Academy of Ophthalmology has loads of information both for Ophthalmologists and regular people (non-ophthalmologists). The site has a dual purpose of serving professionals and those with questions about this subject with considerable information about common problems and ailments. The coolest part of the site, however, is the history of cataract surgery, with pictures of the delicate surgery performed in the 1500s -- ouch.
Overall Rating: 17
Behavior Online
URL: http://www.behavior.net/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Simple, tasteful (if a bit on the pastel side) design, and straightforward content make this site a pleasant place to visit. Interviews with mental health professionals, articles on behavioral theory, and links to all things to do with the brain and behavior (including some cool games) make this site interesting, especially if you need to check your head.
Overall Rating: 18
Labyrinth
URL: http://www.georgetown.edu:80/labyrinth/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Georgetown coughs up some deep history with this one, specifically notes from the Medieval annals. This is a well-designed guide to electronic Medieval studies resources from around the globe. Follow the links to Medieval art exhibits, academic journals, and raw texts available online for study. There's even a magical thread to help you find your way back from the depths of the Labyrinth. Heaven for a Medieval Studies scholar, or a Dungeons and Dragons geek.
Overall Rating: 17
An Illuminati Outline of History
URL: http://www.impropaganda.com/illuminati.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Finally! The secret history of the greatest secret society in the world is unveiled! Follow the occult practices of this political and mystical sect from the days ruling Atlantis, through the sly doings in the US in 1776, and into the last few decades of turmoil. Find out who put the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill, and who really assassinated JFK! LSD, UFOs, CIA, all the greatest acronyms are explored in this must-read historical reference to what's really going on! Remember, stay clear of those Masonic lodges. Robert Anton Wilson must be proud.
Overall Rating: 15
Dead Man Talkin by Dean
URL: http://monkey.hooked.net/m/hut/deadman/deadman.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
As you read this, Dean is currently hanging out at San Quentin Prison in California waiting to die. For real. Find out what New Year's is like in Prison, and learn why lethal injection may not be the best way to encourage those on death row to keep fighting the system for their lives. " The idea of going to sleep and not having to be in this place any longer is too seductive," Dean says. You can even e-mail your questions to Dean via infamous Bay Area talk-show host Alex Bennett and he'll answer them in future columns. This is hardcore, not the People's Court.
Overall Rating: 15
Wilkins Outdoor Network
URL: http://www.outdoor-ad.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This brilliantly conceived site walks you step by step through the convoluted world of outdoor advertising. In an hour you will talk like an expert on out-of-home media and Wilkins will practically write your marketing report for you. The pages elaborate on how to plan intelligent advertising decisions, what outdoor media would be best for you, and how to get the most for your marketing dollar. You will also be quite familiar with Wilkins, its departments, and the Wilkins services. The whole site is extremely well organized and attractive -- a must for anyone considering outdoor advertising. Blue Light
Overall Rating: 17
Bucknell Russian Studies Department
URL: http://www.bucknell.edu/departments/russian/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Curious about Russia? Start your search here, where eager Bucknell students of all things Russian have compiled links for everything from the '96 elections (don't miss the schematic of who is considered left, right and center in the old country), to Russian jokes (in Russian!), cartoons (in English), Russian folklore, and music. You can even jump to Cyrillic fonts while you're at it, or listen to the Voice of Russia Daily News using RealAudio. There's also course and faculty information and news on Russian major alums.
Overall Rating: 18
@tlas
URL: http://www.atlasmag.com
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Just about every artist and writer dreams about having their own publication, a journal they have control of where they can publish work of fellow artists based on its merits rather than how well its been accepted by art critics and reviewers. Unfortunately, publishing requires a good deal of capital, which mostly goes for printing and distribution, and that means advertiser support, with all the inherent loss of content control that that implies. But the relatively inexpensive publishing medium of the Web has allowed Olivier Laude to achieve that dream of a true artists' publication. @tlas is dedicated to publishing various visual arts works in the categories of photography, illustration, design, and multimedia. According to Olivier, "I have always dreamed of publishing a paper magazine that would be beautifully printed, cover stories (photo-journalistic and documentary) in depth and be designed by the best in the business." And with a number of artists already on the fledgling site whose work has appeared in publications such as National Geographic and The New York Times Magazine, @tlas is shaping up will into Laude's vision. "These kinds of ideas do not really emerge from publishing conglomerates because they are afraid of hybrids that do not fit niches within the market." says Olivier in explanation of why he has chosen to become a publisher. The concept and content are great, but it wouldn't be a site of the month if it wasn't for the excellent graphic design of Amy Franceschini and Michael Macrone. Amy's work has also included a special site for the last San Francisco mayoral elections entitled Electomatic (http://www.electomatic.com), while Michael is a very experienced graphic designer in the print medium and has also authored six books. Olivier has worked as a professional photo-journalist for the last three years, and has some of his work in the photography section of @tlas. But while publishing a Web site is inexpensive, it is not free, and Olivier is already hitching up his capitalist train. @tlas recently gained Organic Online (http://www.organic.com) as an official sponsor to provide server space for the site. And, according to Olivier, "We want to turn commercial and sell advertising." Okay, Olivier, we all know that making money can be a nice thing, but keep your hands on those editorial controls.
Overall Rating: 17
The Toro Company
URL: http://www.toro.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
An unlikely candidate for the high-tech world of the Web, but Toro has put together an excellent site. All of you tech heads out there may be thinking, "Toro? Don't they make ide controllers?" Sorry kids, but Toro is the yard care specialist, making equipment for all kinds of outdoor environmental management. And by management I mean riding lawn mowers! Even though the lawn we had when I was growing up was only about 30 by 20 feet, I had always wanted a riding lawn mower. And even now that I have a car (and no lawn at all), I still think a riding lawn mower would be great. Toro's home page really shows where its heart is, too. When it launched it had an "under construction" sign on the corporate info link, but the sections for the consumer product line and yard care questions were up and running. The consumer product area is a well-designed candyland for anyone that occasionally likes to work in the earth, but with a lot of horsepower. The browser is met by an index of products that range from tractors to outdoor lighting. While some of this may seem overwhelming to the landscaping dilletante, the folks at Toro are real friendly. The section with the more serious equipment (tractors and snowblowers) have a utility that will suggest the right tool for you, based on your answers to a questionnaire (although I would just go for the most power you can afford). The lighting section shows the many different styles of outdoors lights, and has a whole section on how to design a lighting plan. The yard care section features a virtual expert named Earl who you can offer advice about lawn maintenance. Earl's "vocabulary" is somewhat limited, though, since you can only type one word queries into the search form, and if they aren't specifically about lawn care, Earl will be stumped (so save your ide controller questions for Gina Smith). Or you can use the browse function to find answers to lawn care problems. A number of documents, in official FAQ format, deal with grass, weeds, leaves, and pests. Rock on, backyard warrior!
Overall Rating: 17
Alexander Palace Time Machine
URL: http://www.travelogix.com/emp/batchison/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Shel Kimen
In the fashion that follows all royal history from Czars to kings, Alexander's palace is a fine example of soap opera a la hypertext with valuable historical insight. The site was originally constructed as a monument to the palace that Catherine the Great commissioned for her grandson Alexander Pavlovich in the late 1700's. But in the process of explaining all the rooms with maps and photographs, and digital images of the treasures that lied within the stucco and brick masterpiece, comes an outstanding historical tour through the lives of Russian Royalty from 1800 to the Second World War. The site creator, Bob Atchison says he became obsessed with the palace when he read about Anastasia in the second grade. The site, miles thick in every direction, is concrete proof of this obsession. Visitors will find themselves transported through the lives of everyone who dwelled in the palace -- servants and royalty, guests and war commanders. He is almost obnoxiously descriptive as he tells us about "golden strands" in Rasputin's beard and Anastasia's "blue eyes, light brown hair and a fine thin nose like her mother's." At times there is an overall kitchiness feel, like that of an online role playing game; "Do you want to go inside the palace?" or "If you look up to the right you'll see a frame laced in gold." But it seems to work well here in creating a mood and has a general effectiveness which is compelling enough to keep visitors "in the palace" clicking and learning away. While the site is not without fault -- numerous typos, a few poor HTML editing skills and even a some grammar errors that make some of the reading a bit choppy -- given the breadth of content covered (in a well organized fashion I might add!) it's very well done. It is certainly one of the most sincerest of HTML efforts I've seen from a part time page creator. As a matter of fact, this project is Mr. Atchison's first HTML creation, and he's managed to make fine use of Tables and images; it's readable and has several well constructed out pages. Russian history buffs should definitely take note of this one.
Overall Rating: 18
SPIV
URL: http://www.spiv.com/spiv.html
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Shel Kimen
If Spiv is any indication of what mainstream Web-publishing is headed for, we're in for an outstanding future! Spiv, Ted Turners twenty-something e-zine, is prepared and packaged for the urban hipster a la cyber culture. My first inclination is to lash out at yet another media king's attempt to buy out, chew up, and spit back at us our own ideas at an inflated price. But in this case, I am glad to say, I just don't think that's true. It seems Ted and the white collar boys are giving Spiv considerable editorial control and creative freedom to make the zine what it needs to be -- a fresh, intelligent, idea space that speaks Web to the people who know it best. Spiv has collected an outstanding group of editors who are in fact very involved in the wired community, from David Pescovitz of *Wired*, *Boing Boing* and *The Net* freelance fame, to Rebecca Paoletti who has written for *MIGHT* and edited *SOMA Magazine*. Spiv hits fashion, sports, lifestyle, music, and tech culture full force with smashing wit, knock-out graphics and an all around cool attitude that is never ever "too cool." Spiv is always fun and always accessible. Check out the latest in skater wear or read music scene reports from across the country. Chat with X-Girl model Cara Friedrichs or read a scathing rant about Pat Buchanon. Personality to politiks, it's all there. Editor of Spiv, Rebecca Paoletti, started the site with the creation of Shiitake. Not so far from a mushroom trip, the Shiitake section will dazzle you with games, quotes, a hot hot hot pink background, and the most clever use of a Web chat I've seen so far. But, perhaps the amusement flavor is best represented in Zooey, the section for fashion, urbanism, and attitude. "Zooey was my second site creation when I got to Spiv," said Paoletti. "The fun and scary thing about it is the number of people who really believe that she exists, that this NYC high school senior we created is real, and wants to go on dates with any number of college guys who write to her! I adore answering her email..." (Wink. Wink.) In plain English: Spiv Rocks! BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
Casady & Greene
URL: http://205.179.133.2/C&G/Welcome.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Casady & Greene are among the last of "Mac-only" developers. Their stuff is known for high quality, great value and excellent functionality, and their web-site features this same quality. It's well organized, looks great, has a perfect mix of art to content, and features the fascinating home page of John Calhoun, one of the best Mac programmers around. Even if you have a PC and can't download one of the fully operative demos of Casady & Greene's software, you should check this out to see the way a corporate web page should be done. Awesome. ***blue light
Overall Rating: 16
War and Strategy Games
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/POde/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This is the business. If you care at all about war games and strategy games, from a passing interest in Command & Conquer to a dedication to old-school strategy board games, you should already know about this site. The webmaster is obviously dedicated beyond all expectation, and this site includes daily updates and more content than you could possibly digest at one sitting. It's all done with a minimum of graphics to keep things fast, too. Overall, the keywords for this site are information and enthusiasm, both of which are in abundant quantities.
Overall Rating: 16
Hank's News
URL: http://www.happypuppy.com/hleukart/news.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Hank's news is a page devoted to providing links to hot new shareware demo's of PC games, along with some extremely short commentary by Hank himself (sometimes original, sometimes lifted from some other source). It's a great one-stop shopping site for someone who just picked up their PC and is looking to load up on the latest shareware masterpieces. Doom freaks should also check out Hank's homepage; he is the author of the "official" Doom FAQ v6.66 as well as a book on hacking Doom. ***blue light
Overall Rating: 16
Greek Mythology
URL: http://www.intergate.net/uhtml/.jhunt/greek_myth/greek_myth.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Having trouble remembering whether Cupid is the Greek or Roman name for the god of love? Don't fret. The Greek Mythology website is a hyperlink to all gods. It covers Greek and Roman mythology, heroes, stories and family trees. It also links to MIT's managed translations of the Greek The Iliad and The Odyssey (translated by Samuel Butler) by Homer, and the Roman The Aneid (translated by John Dryden) by Virgil. As site manager, John M. Hunt's goal is to distinguish the differences between Greek and Roman mythology. He does so with fine organizational skills and clarity, despite a few spelling errors. One significant difference between the Greeks and Romans that Hunt cites is "The Greeks were earlier."
Overall Rating: 17
Hal Hartley
URL: http://www.best.com/~drumz/Hartley/
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
Hal Hartley may write and direct the most obscure of sleepers (*Amateur, Trust,* and *The Unbelievable Truth*, to name just a few), but his work is highly regarded and his fan base is unflappable in its devotion. If you're a Hartley fan -- and you know who you are -- this is a must-visit site. You'll find filmography, critical reviews, image files, and a table of the actors who've made repeat appearances in Hartley movies -- the "Hartley Family Tree." An off-beat site paying homage to an off-beat artist. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
The Cabinet of Dr. Casey:
URL: http://www.cat.pdx.edu/~caseyh/horror/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
Doc Casey's spooky cabinet focuses on cinematic horror, but also pays careful attention to willies-inducing literature and visual arts. You'll find a movie poster archive, audio files from film classics, and movie information cross-referenced from here to hell. But wait -- It gets even scarier. The bad doctor has compiled an incredible timeline of horror history that spans from 1235, the beginning of the Inquisition, to the advent of TV's *X-Files* in the 1990s. The site suffers from a single drawback -- text that borders on illegibility. Watch those fancy colors, Doc! BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 17
Heartless Bitches International
URL: http://infoweb.magi.com/~nataliep/heartless.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I dig these bitches. And I mean that only in the kindest sense of the word. The grrrls behind this site are fed up with sexist boys who not only harass women in the workplace, but high-five each other yelling "Sa-weet!" Filled with lists of other offensive acts, real-life heartless bitches, and anti-whining rants, this site is a rad "how's it going" from post-feminist modernist women tired of your (and my) "I'm not sexist, but..." bullshit. Unfortunately, I'm a straight male which means I can't join this organization. But I'd definitely submit myself to these modem grrrls if they would have me. After all, I hate feminine deodorants too!
Overall Rating: 17
OUT.com
URL: http://www.out.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
A finely designed and easily navigated site from one of the premier gay and lesbian lifestyle magazines in the US. These pages overflow with news, arts, health, gossip, politics, and dozens of other subjects all tackled with Out's signature hip and intelligent reporting style. The point-and-click US map is really nifty, giving information on cool events, bars and clubs. Content from Out is also available for your viewing pleasure, but this site is anything but shovelware. A one-stop online shop for Queer culture.
Overall Rating: 18
Cafe Los Negroes
URL: http://www.losnegroes.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Billed as the net's Black and Latino hangout, Cafe' Los Negroes is flowing with cultural cred. Dig the frequent special events in the Cafe', like an online panel discussion with Ntzoke Shange, Vernon Reid, and Lisa Jones, or groove on the Cybirdland live jazz broadcasts. You can also check out regular features like art in the Bedstuy virtual gallery, currently show casing New York including Daniel Simmons and Michael Chambers, and download beats from singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon or spoken word from poet Adrian Castro. Cleanly designer and rich with the flavor of the New York Underground.
Overall Rating: 16
2.0.1.3 Transmissions from Quantum Time
URL: http://www.speakeasy.org/~z2013/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
From the Intergalactic Dream Convergence Project comes this exquisitely designed subcultural launch pad to interdimensional travels. "Information is light is information," is their maxim for the next step in the evolution of our consciousness. Once we've experienced hyperlinked hyperthought, we can open the dialogue with other worldly minds to exchange our multi-dimensional memes. Time's a waistin'. Better hop on the neural networked bus to a higher level of space-time. Getting there is half the fun.
Overall Rating: 18
The Terrorist Profile Weekly
URL: http://www.site.gmu.edu/~cdibona/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Chris DiBona, a college student and employee of the US Department of State's Office of Information Management in the Bureau of Administration, has provided us a collection of profiles surveying more than twenty terrorist organizations around the globe. Learn about all the baddies from the 15 May Organization to the Popular Struggle Front. Each profile includes a general description, activities, strength, ideals, and location of the group all taken from the US State Department's journal "The Profiles of Global Terrorism." The site banner reads "Your 100% recommended daily allowance of global terror," and I personally wouldn't want to overdose.
Overall Rating: 16
Welcome to Fashion Internet
URL: http://www.finy.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Fashion Internet is one of the most informative and exciting fashion locales online. Elegantly designed, content rich (and slow to download), FI gives the word from the New York runways and features articles like the "Clueless Guy's Guide to Buying a Suit," and the bios and biz information in the virtual showrooms from big name designers like Bill Blass and Donna Karen are useful for insight into hot couture. But most fun on FI is "Yak," where you can rant to your heart's content about trends, anti-trends, and platform shoes. Deep discourse for real designers, and fashion fun for the rest of us in jeans and t-shirts.
Overall Rating: 18
William Faulkner on the Web
URL: http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/faulkner/faulkner.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Yoknapatawpha County comes alive in John B. Padgett's tribute to one of America's greatest writers. The design is tasteful and clean, the links work, and the content is there -- lots of it. If you have any interest in Faulkner, this site will make your week. There could still be more text from the books, but a pretty thorough bibliogrpahy is included, with art to boot. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 17
Book Lovers Fine Books and Literature
URL: http://www.xs4all.nl/~pwessel/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A basic, but comprehensive set of links for the antiquarian book dealer, book collector, avid reader, et al., this site should be bookmarked by all those serious about their literature, arcane or otherwise. Assembled by a bibliophile from the Netherlands, it points to sites in both English and Dutch. As with browsing the shelves at your favorite bookstore, you are likely to while away hours and hours here in that peculiar dream state with the contemplation of all the books you'll never find time to read -- not if you live two hundred years. A splendid, if melancholy, pastime, that.
Overall Rating: 16
Into the Wardrobe The C S Lewis WWW Page
URL: http://www.cache.net/~john/cslewis/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
For all the folks who cut their teeth on the Narnia Chronicles and just can't get enough of C.S. Lewis's quasi-Christian fantasy lit, here it is: a site devoted to the Master. There's a daily Lewis quote -- updated religiously at 12 AM GMT -- plus downloadable images of Lewis, sound clips of Lewis, and well,...Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, everywhere you look. To paraphrase the creator of the site, this isn't just a place for fans, but a repository for all C.S. Lewis scholarship and marginalia. No surprise then that I was able to quickly satisfy my only curiousity; the "C.S." is for Clive Staples, nickname, Jack.
Overall Rating: 17
Welcome to the 19CWWW
URL: http://www.clever.net/19cwww/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The nineteenth century online seems kinda oxymoronic -- or should I say anachronistic? Nevertheless, this is what the Victorian Women Writer's site shoulda coulda woulda been but ain't. Slick of interface and deep of content, this one is more than just an electronic library. It also features art exhibits, graphics and a surprisingly active bulletin board where students of American Studies can post queries and comments. So while I'm still dubious as to the usefulness of great chunks of text online (I might feel differently if I could search the text easily, via key word or somesuch) others apparently appreciate it and take advantage of it.
Overall Rating: 17
About USA TODAY
URL: http://www.usatoday.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
USA Today has revolutionized the daily newspaper industry. Its characteristic style--slick graphics, tight layout, and almost too-terse stories--is widely criticized and even more widely emulated. Updated frequently, the Webspace features the latest news of the day. Each story is accompanied by extensive crosslinks, background information, and related pieces. The graphics are great and the layout is top-notch. This is one of the finest sites on the Web, an active and engaging space which seamlessly blends contents and presentation into a definitive example of what the Web can be. This page should be visited frequently.
Overall Rating: 18
Campaign for Broadcast Competition
URL: http://campaign.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is a single-issue site dedicated to stopping the 'corporate welfare' nature of the televised airway giveaways. Major broadcasters are lobbying Congress seeking to have the spectrum allotment for TV doubled and the new space given away. Consumer advocates are understandably upset by this proposal, and are pushing for an auction of the new spectrum space--an auction guaranteed to raise billions for the government. This page clearly outlines the issue and what you, the taxpayer, can do to voice an opinion. If you are outraged by the broadcasters' proposal, do check this site out.
Overall Rating: 16
Simon Wiesenthal Center
URL: http://www.wiesenthal.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Located in Los Angeles, the Simon Wiesenthal Center is an international center for Holocaust remembrance and human rights. Visitors to this page find an extensive introduction to the museum and its mission. In addition to on-line tours, museum schedules and such, extensive information is available on such relevant topics as Holocaust revisionism. Excellent layout and interesting content, in addition to the historical significance of its subject matter, make this site well-worth visiting. Much of the site is available in a variety of languages besides English, making this a truly international space as befits one with so grim an inspiration.
Overall Rating: 16
NewsPage Home Page
URL: http://www.newspage.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Pick up the daily business news from over 600 information sources without having to pull a big truck up to the corner newsstand. NewsPage has the latest news on computer hardware, software, data communications, telecommunications, energy, media, travel, insurance, environmental services, business management and more. Taking articles direct from wire services, this subscription-based service is excellent for text-only news, but don,t expect any bells and whistles. Check out the funny/hard-to-believe news section for the interesting stuff.
Overall Rating: 17
SALVO 12 8 13
URL: http://www.salvo.com/index.cgi
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Dubbed as an "American Survival Guide," Salvo salutes freedom of expression with a double-barreled shotgun verbal attack. Read Daily News Bite for an unabashed analysis of hourly happenings from news on Midwestern vampire children to convicted government officials. If you have Shockwave, SALVO abuses it fully with an interesting an Simon Says Electronic Game graphic. Read rants on ozone depletion, over population, land use, homelessness, domestic violence, Internet censorship, militia madness and more. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
Welcome to EXTRA
URL: http://www.extratv.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Extra! Extra! Get your daily dose of entertainment news and gossip here! Based on the entertainment television news show of the same name, the EXTRA site has multimedia sections on everything from discussions with male models from Miami (hear in their own words what they look for in a lass) to exclusive interviews with hip movie stars such as Jackie Chan. Look up the release date of new movies or read gossip off the online newsletter. The site is table-happy and has cute push-pull animation boxes to add glitz to the grapevine.
Overall Rating: 18
MUSICIAN.COM
URL: http://www.musician.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Missing a tuba player for your punk band? MUSICIAN.COM has a free musician search for traditional and not-so-typical artists. The real attraction here is the Hollywood Rock Walk Museum online archive where visitors can see photos of B.B King,s favorite guitar "Lucille" and the famous Star Boots from leader singer of KISS, Paul Stanley. Most of the site contains advertisements selling vintage guitars and equipment. Read articles on the featured artist of the month in Cyber Folio. For additional music-related site surfing, go to the Music Link Central section.
Overall Rating: 16
The Official Lenny Kravitz Site
URL: http://www.lennykravitz.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Rock and Roll is not dead on the Web and The Official Lenny Kravitz site proves it. Groove to his latest songs or watch snippets of videos and television interviews. Lenny talks about his music, style and family. (His mom was Helen on the television show, The Jeffersons.) The same folks responsible for the Megadeth Arizona site wow Web heads again with the similar eye-boggling graphics and design. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
Peeps
URL: http://www.peeps.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The Peeps site has nothing to do with those sugar-coated, pastel marshmallow chicks only sold around Easter. Cool, smooth urban sounds are the focus of this Hip-Hop nation spot on the Web. Get get-up-to-date info on BMG artists such as Deborah Cox, R. Kelly, Monica, Notorious B.I.G., Omar, Chantay Savage, Chef Raekwon and TLC. Bios, photos, audio and video files are available on all the bands for a complete multimedia experience.
Overall Rating: 17
PBS
URL: http://www.pbs.org/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Kathy Tafel
You'd expect PBS to have an information-rich site. It does -- every national show that PBS distributes has a page with descriptions of upcoming episodes. Many shows, including Nova, Hometime, and the Newshour with Jim Lehrer not only have this one page, but also sections of their own with more dynamic content. The Newshour, for instance, has real audio versions of especially interesting segments. You rarely have to scroll to find what you need, and information is presented with pleasant -- sometimes even cool -- graphics. PBS has done an excellent job translating its content to a new medium. BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL
Overall Rating: 18
THE FLAT EARTH SOCIETY
URL: http://www.tdolby.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
When an artist has personal involvement in the creation of their site the results can be truly magnificent, as in the case of The Flat Earth Society. The paradigm is an exclusive gentlemen's club (although anyone can join The Flat Earth Society) with wood paneled walls, big leather chairs, and cigars. The Library section has Thomas Dolby's discography, clips from his albums, videos, and song lyrics. The Club Room has an online discussion area, and there's a form for sending comments to Thomas Dolby himself.
Overall Rating: 17
Virgin Records
URL: http://www.vmg.co.uk/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
How can a big corporation be as cool as Virgin Records? I thought there was some kind of natural law that makes any large organization impersonal. Sure, a company can start out small, and be really cool, but when it gets successful, and starts to grow, then the money people take over and it loses its soul. I mean, Starbuck's probably started out as a funky little neighborhood cafe' devoted to serving really tasty coffee, and now it wants world domination. Maybe it has something to do with its British base, but Virgin is different. A long time well respected record producer, it also started an airline that from all reports is one of the most enjoyable on which to travel. And the Virgin Web site is just further proof that this company has a soul. The fact that we categorized the site under music as opposed to corporate says quite a bit. The most complete area of the site is called "The Raft," which I guess is supposed to be metaphorically complementary to "surfin' the Internet." And to get right to the creamy center, the section titled "Artists on the Raft" is the place to go. 22 bands are hanging out on the "Raft" with some of the most interesting Web sites I've seen. These are not your standard here are six sound clips and a bio kind of promotional sites. Well a couple of them are, but most show some real creativity, and it looks as if the bands actually got involved in the concept behind the site. For example, the Massive Attack area defies any sort of linear process, being organized on a stream of consciousness principle where your left brain is useless but your right brain is swimming in familiar waters. Images and words with no definite purpose fill the pages, interspersed with links that only take you further into the labyrinth. On the other hand, The Chemical Brothers have strange narratives that tell how they came up with their records. One story, called "The Chemical Brothers vs. The Boring Brothers" tells how The Chemical Brothers were taken in by a talking daisy that influenced them to stop making cool music. The Smashing Pumpkins area only has links to independently created fan sites because the Virgin site creator thinks the independent's did such a great job. That is definitely not typical corporate thinking.
Overall Rating: 17
Today's Calendar and Clock Page
URL: http://www.panix.com/~wlinden/calendar.shtml
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Jon Phillips
Computers can't give us back rubs, or blend perfect vodka martinis, but they can free us from the drudgery of methodical number-crunching. Are you prepared to compute the countdown to the new millennium in years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds? That's right, friend, you've got better things to do; swigging vodka martinis immediately comes to mind. But now computers can do busy work for busy people, and that's where Today's Calendar and Clock Page comes in. This site is nearly graphically barren, but infinitely compelling. As soon as you enter, you're hit with a barrage of numerical data to help you set your bearings across the space-time-history continuum. For example: "Today is Sunday, March 17,1996... Eastern Standard Time is 4:43 PM... This is the 11 week of the year... This is the 77th day of the year... Year 221 of American independence... 45th year of H.M. Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada... 3rd year of the 693rd Olympiad... Buddhist Year 2539... Atomic Era 55... Modified Julian Day 50159 ... Solar Cycle 17..." And so on and so on until you're so terrified by your own universal insignificance, you decide to blend another vodka martini. Once you digest all of these date stamps -- 25 of them roll out as soon as you load the page -- you can move downward to 62 different links designed to put time into historical, cultural, religious, and even astronomical perspective. Some links serve purely utilitarian purposes. For example, IslamicTimer 2.1 is designed to help the Muslim faithful plan their days around times of prayer. Another link, The Moon Phase Page, provides you with an image of how the moon will look from earth based on time coordinates of your choice. Other links predict impending doom. The National Debt Clock keeps a running tally of the depth of our monetary mire. At press time, the number reached into 13 figures. Let's not get into specific dollar amounts, or once again you may be reaching for that martini shaker. The World Population Clock tells us that the globe is burgeoning to the tune of 6 billion souls, and by 2050, 9.5 billion earthlings may be jockeying for elbow room. Whether you're interested in utility or entertainment, the Clock Page is a fascinating resource. Now let's look forward to the day when "wrist browsers" hit market.
Overall Rating: 16
Cyber Seuss
URL: http://www.afn.org/~afn15301/drseuss.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Jon Phillips
Chances are sometime around the age of four or five, you begged your mom for a heaping plate of green eggs and ham. You had no idea what turned the eggs green, and you weren't too hip to the concept of pork products, but you wanted your green eggs and ham, gosh-darned it, because one Mr. Sam I Am didn't want his, and you knew he was missing out on some fancy eats. So your mom fried up some ham, and threw some spinach into some scrambled eggs, and served them to you on an enchanted platter. And then your mom tried food coloring in the eggs after your spinach sensors went off, and you ran screaming from the breakfast table like a child possessed. The object lesson behind *Green Eggs and Ham* is just one of many espoused by Ted Geisel, or Dr. Seuss. Geisel died in 1991 at the age of 87, but his rhyming morality tales continue to steady the character of international youth. Geisel won a Pulitzer prize in 1984, and his 47 books are published in 18 languages. The entire Seussian phenomenon can be found at Cyber-Seuss, a site that offers hoospiferic helpings of Seuphonius triptitude. The site's main draw is its 15 online story books. You'll find standards like *How the Grinch Stole Christmas* and *Yertle the Turtle*, as well as more obscure tales like *The King's Stilts* and *Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose*. After you envelope yourself in nonsense words and delightful rhyming schemes, you can skip on over to obscure curios like Seuss-oriented ASCII art; a contest asking you to choose your favorite among The Grinch, his indefatigable doggie Max, and little Cindy Loo Who; and a sound file of the Grinch theme song ("You're a foul one, Mr. Grinch..."). From here, the site investigates the type of minutiae one might only find on the Internet. In 1972, pundit Art Buchwald borrowed from Geisel the following sentiment: "Richard M. Nixon, will you please go now! The time has come. The time is now. Just go. Go. Go! I don't care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Richard M. Nixon, will you please go now!" Indeed, Geisel was a man of moral and political conviction. Both children and adults will find much to learn from this endearing, whimsical and burgeoning Web site.
Overall Rating: 18
z Publishing Welcome
URL: http://www.zpub.com/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
See San Francisco z-style. z Publishing, an extensive Web directory of places to visit in San Francisco could make both a raver and a grandma smile with glee. Read the history behind the United States' only self-proclaimed emperor or the devastating Pt. Reyes National Seashore Fire. Other San Francisco topics include the Burning Man archives, San Francisco Cacophony Society, and media z (a resource for media folks.) Other sections on z Publishing include unofficial pages for Pope John Paul II, Bill Gates, and Bill Clinton. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
Typo.Com
URL: http://www.typo.com/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Any Net grrl who was once Miss Vermont Photogenic and a writer/editor for a multitude of magazines including MacHome Journal, Computer Life,...and yes, The Net...has to be cool. Read some of her articles about Tupperware parties, domain names and heterosexual relationships. Crystal also lends newbies a hypertext hand in designing their own Web site, with advice and links to useful shareware. Dip into Water's site for a refreshing look at the Web. Blue Light
Overall Rating: 18
AutoSite
URL: http://www.autosite.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Browsing through AutoSite is an enticing way for car fanatics to shoot the day. You must join (at $9.95 for 30 days) to get the full impact of this home for buyers and auto-philes. But even if you don't want to subscribe, come here to learn more about symptoms of car trouble and suggested solutions, get the specs on new cars by manufacturer or country, and even see good-sized photos of most models. Those who register also get access to current base prices for new cars, comprehensive standard and optional feature lists, financing info, and blue-book value for used cars. Lots here.
Overall Rating: 16
Auto-By-Tel
URL: http://www.autobytel.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Auto-By-Tel on the Web really means "Auto by e-mail and phone." It's geared to serious car buyers who already know the make, model, and options they want on a new car, and want a quote from a dealer. Submit your query (along with your name, contact info, address, and how you'll finance the car) via e-mail, and one of the qualified ABT dealers will call you back shortly with a quote. Not unreasonably, ABT takes pains to say that it is not a price-quoting service, and prefers queries from immediate (this week), serious (1-2 weeks), or future (1-2 months) buyers. Very cool.
Overall Rating: 16
Sower's Seed Christian Reprints
URL: http://members.aol.com/SowersSeed/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
These Sower's are busy disseminating reprints of classic Christian documents and books like "Pilgrim's Progress" to the masses. They feel that Christianity has strayed from the true path and that salvation lay in these historical texts. They may seem pretty hardcore today, but in the 1600's these guys would have been on the cutting edge. The formatting of the page, too, appears to be mired in the 17th century, as the site is all text documents with minimal formatting. It might not be pretty, but if you want to peruse an old treatise on why women should wear headgear at all times, this is a good place.
Overall Rating: 14
The Prayer Room
URL: http://hpserv.utulsa.edu/~rlr/PrayerRoom.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Thank God for places like the Prayer Room. Simply submit a name, an e-mail address, and what troubles you have, and it gets posted at the bottom of the page. Then read through the list of requests and pray for everyone on it. You can even e-mail them some spiritual encouragement. If God does answer your prayer, post it on the page so everyone can celebrate His greatness. The site's clunky organization and simplistic graphics don't hamper the pure functionality of this divinely inspired bit of HTML. Many of these people may need all the help they can get.
Overall Rating: 17
Mennonite Brethren Herald
URL: http://www.cdnmbconf.ca/mb/mbherald.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Brethren Herald is the online edition of a biweekly Mennonite newsletter based out of Canada. The issue I read deals with what it means to be a Mennonite in cyberspace. It intelligently explained the Internet to the novice and how it can bring far-flung church groups together. While they dwell on some of the evils of the technology, they also explain how networks and computers help translate the Bible into new languages in record time. Here I thought that Mennonites dressed in black and worked in the fields all day! If every issue is like this one it's well worth the read, Mennonite or not.
Overall Rating: 16
Islam Page
URL: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~ibrahim/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
If there is no god but Allah, then Mohammed might just be the Webmaster of this fine Islamic resource. Read the Koran and link to a database that lets you search through the book by word. Then peruse any of the other multitude of documents on everything from the Islamic holidays to the steps needed to become a Muslim. The main pages feature a crisp layout utilizing Tables and Frames to good effect. The graphics leave something to be desired, but seeing how Islam's not big on representational art, I guess I can make an allowance. If it's Islam, it's probably here.
Overall Rating: 17
Paul Ferland
URL: http://www.loa.com/~kilgrtrt/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Paul Ferland puts his cartoons online to entertain, to seek employment, and to encourage others to peruse his chosen vocation. Each day he adds a new one-panel cartoon to an ever-growing archive of humor. Many are as mediocre as what you'd find in the paper, but some stand out. Two aliens are drinking at a bar. One leans over and whispers, "I love you" while the other looks on concerned. The caption reads, "Aliens don't let aliens drive drunk." Hey, I laughed. Paul also dispenses valuable advice to aspiring illustrators. Get a good pen, draw, and get rejected. Hell, I don't need a pen for that.
Overall Rating: 16
The Infection Connection
URL: http://www.compusmart.ab.ca/gdebenha/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Infection Connection is the brainchild of a junior high school student who loves that which most computer users fear: The virus. Catch his Virus of the Week where he posts a new devious little critter to download and dissect. If that's not enough, a gigantic batch of viruses are available for your deviant pleasure. I wish he could have collected a bit more documentation about each virus and maybe some specimens from an operating system other than Microsoft's, but there's definitely enough here to cause your Windows machine "mysterious problems" for ages to come.
Overall Rating: 16
Svelte
URL: http://users.aimnet.com/~solanna/svelte.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Svelte is a well-crafted portfolio piece by a recent UC San Diego graduate majoring in digital design, and it shows. The site is filled with professional-quality graphics which include some pulsating link buttons which twirl about (viewable with Netscape 2.0 only). In addition to an interesting picture and movie portfolio, there's an article section featuring an entertaining story about a goat-herding parade in Idaho and some mid-range poetry. The site also contains a links list you might want to emulate. Each one has a matching picture and personal explanation of the site's content. They didn't teach this stuff when I was in school.
Overall Rating: 18
Phyllis Light's Healing
URL: http://www.ccsi.com/~phylight/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
I have a bias, and that bias is against pastel rainbow backgrounds with cosmological undertones. This is mind, Phyllis's Healing Page is not recommended for the new age skeptic. Phyllis is author to many a mystical book, including *Prince Charming Lives*, and *The Light Realization Process*. Read essays about her "telepathic healing gift" or check out her "Latest Cosmic Insights." There's a lot here, though more of the site, unfortunately, is about self promotion than spirituality.
Overall Rating: 16
Cosmic Consciousness
URL: http://www.infi.net/~thobbs/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
While primarily a journey though the spiritual, this site also offers links to online HTML tutorials, pointers to freeware and shareware, and a link to Netscape (as this site uses Netscape extensions, and well I might add.) The spiritual component is indeed rich and content and well designed, with plenty of links to a slew of additional resources. Tim will tell you all about who he is, how he found spirituality, show you his mystical book list, and guide you through a gallery of fine religious images. Quite an accomplishment.
Overall Rating: 18
BrowserWatch
URL: http://www.browserwatch.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
For all your browser needs, go here. This is an outstanding resource for up to date info on tools to help you maximize browsing the Web. Learn about the latest VRML viewers, get reviews comparing and contrasting Netscape Vs. Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and what ever you do, visit the Plug-In corner. BrowserWatch will point you to the best plug-in's available for your Mac or PC. This site kicks ass. My only complaint is that sometimes the server is a little slow; but if you are patient, you will reap great rewards.
Overall Rating: 17
BioTech
URL: http://biotech.chem.indiana.edu/
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
BioTech is the premier source for information on genetic engineering, the ability to alter nature at a very basic level. The glossary of biotechnology terms is an inspiring launching point to gain literacy about this astounding branch of science. Annotated links, searchable databases, and pointers to other biotech professional resources make this site a one-stop shop for information. In addition, clean design and keen use of search engines help to ease the strain of information overload. Forget about virtual reality, let's design our own natural world. Stop here to explore what it means to play god.
Overall Rating: 18
EPA & Ozone Depletion
URL: http://www.epa.gov/docs/ozone/index.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
New technology obviously won't do us much good if there's no ozone layer to prevent us from being burnt to a crisp. This site offers information running the gamut from overviews and layman's explanations to detailed scientific studies on ozone depletion and related US regulations. Worthy of a read is the tips on how to protect yourself and your children from UV radiation. Sunglasses help, but just aren't enough anymore. Help save yourself and the atmosphere: Stay away from those tanning beds (they're cheesy anyway) and just say no to hair spray in a can!
Overall Rating: 16
Smithsonian Natural History
URL: http://nmnhwww.si.edu/nmnhweb.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
If you've ever been to Washington DC, you know better than to "drop in" to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. A day is the minimum requirement for this historical tour de force. But if you can't go to the mountain... This site, like the museum, overflows with news and notes about all that is natural. Anthropology, Botany, Mineral Sciences, and other scientific branches have sections here. The Entomology Monthly Newsletter is a real joy. Bugs galore, people! The Mammal Species of the World offers a multimedia taxonomic database of all 4,629 recognized species of mammals. Guess what -- Humans aren't nearly the most interesting.
Overall Rating: 18
HST Greatest Hits Gallery
URL: http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/BestOfHST95.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This collection of dozens of beautiful images shot from the Hubble Space Telescope is a must-see for anyone interested in a better view of a starry, starry night. The red luminescent gas "hula hoops" framing the debris of a 1987 supernova explosion put 2001: A Space Odyssey to shame. Truly mystifying. Snapshots of the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet bombarding Jupiter or the suspected black hole in Galaxy NGC 4261 make me wish I'd followed my childhood dream -- Astronaut Pesco reporting for duty.
Overall Rating: 17
Unit Conversion Calculators in JavaScript
URL: http://www.cyberstation.net/~jweesner/conv.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
While not a groundbreaking achievement in the world of Java, this page of unit conversion calculators is a nifty bookmark if you need to convert quarts to gallons, kilograms to troy pounds (don't ask), or inches to nautical miles, for example. Enter the number you have and the Java script quickly converts for you. Very useful if you never could remember how many centimeters are in an inch. (I was absent that day.) But why do the calculators have a calibration feature? As if atmospheric pressure will alter the conversions?
Overall Rating: 17
Java Applet Rating
URL: http://www.jars.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
With the Web's high noise factor, good rating systems are a god-send. And now with new Web technologies surfacing, the technique has been applied to Java applets. This site rates applets in categories based on Top 1%, 5%, etc., including a list of the Top 100 Java applets floating about online. The expert judges are Java developers, writers on the subject, and leaders of Web users groups. Many genres of Java apps are covered here, from an Atlas, to technical programs, to games, and I'm in agreement with most of the reviews so far. For example, the Java Pac Man applet does, in fact, rule.
Overall Rating: 17
Biotechnology Information Center BIC
URL: http://www.inform.umd.edu:8080/EdRes/Topic/AgrEnv/Biotech
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is the homepage for the Biotechnology Information Center. In fact, this is probably the most comprehensive single-topic site you will ever come across on the Web. A huge collection of related links, loads of files for downloading and perusal, and an enormous searchable index make this site of use to any biotech researcher or fan. Information of every sort is collected here, even patent information for the latest creations to crawl out of the lab. Be sure to check out the up-close-and-person profiles of your favorite bacteria!
Overall Rating: 16
Embassy Suites
URL: http://www.embassy-suites.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is a fantastic site demonstrating the commercial application of the Web. Anyone planning a vacation should definitely check this out: reserving a room at an Embassy Suites hotel is just a few mouse-clicks away. In addition to a reservation system, availability, and rate information are also on-line. The entire system is cleanly presented and simple in construction, easy enough for the net-novice but with enough functionality to prove useful. One question: how much longer must we wait for an integrated system which will book all of the hotel chains, much like SABRE does for the airlines?
Overall Rating: 17
French Travel Gallery
URL: http://www.bonjour.com/wta/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Anyone considering a trip to France should visit this site first. This page may very well be the definitive source of information for the tourist-to-be. In addition to an on-line hotel reservation system, visitors find a huge collection of resources: a comprehensive listing of French-related links, maps, vacation suggestions, and other materials for the traveler. The especially curious can even download sound files of common French phrases! If every nation's Web resources were arranged in such a pleasant fashion, life would be much simpler -- and more enjoyable -- for anyone researching a foreign land.
Overall Rating: 18
The Brasil Page
URL: http://charlotte.acns.nwu.edu/rio/brasil.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Here it is, Brasil through the phone line: Brazilian sounds, Brazilian sights, the Portuguese language, Capoeira, and scantily clad women with skin like hot coffee. I just have one question: What ever happened to the Lambada? You know, the Forbidden Dance? Judging from this site -- which is just Samba all day long -- that other craze went the way of all things. But Samba! They're even doing it in Finland. The Finns! What a world.
Overall Rating: 16
Cockroach World
URL: http://www.nj.com/yucky/roaches/index.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Jon Phillips
Witness the noble cockroach. Six legs, sturdy, determined. Soul of a warrior, heart of a tiger. Eternally maligned but so often misunderstood. Have you hugged your cockroach today? Cockroaches ain't bad folk, they're just the victims of bad press. For the real skinny on these lovable garbage-eating vermin, scurry straight on over to Cockroach World. Dr. Betty "Bug Lady" Faber, an entomologist with the Liberty Science Center, presents roach-oriented information with such levity and spirit, you'll hardly notice that you're being schooled in serious science. The site hits you from a variety of angles to impart just about every niblet of cockroach information one could imagine. The Around the World game provides you with a full dossier on a particular breed of cockroach, and challenges you to correctly pick the roach's geographical point of origin. A Day in the Life of Rodney Roach provides a wry chronology of a cockroach's typical day: "10 pm. Rodney waves his antennae, picking up wonderfully icky food odors from the garbage and the delicious smell of rancid milk. He ventures from his hiding place. His eyes tell him that it's dark and safe, but he is guided by his sense of smell. He joins his family and friends already at work on the garbage can. They eat gobs of fat, takes sips of old beer, and finish off with rotting peach skins -- a five-star, gourmet meal." Poor Rodney. Life is tough. If you have unusually urgent cockroach concerns -- and who doesn't? -- you can send the Bug Lady specific questions (she answers one query each week), or go straight to the Roach Facts page. Betcha didn't know that powdered Oriental cockroaches make a dandy diuretic? Or how about the scrappy, unflappable Headless Cockroach? Decapitated cockroaches can continue doing their essential cockroach business for about a week. They only die because they can't consume water. Video, sound and image files augment this wonderful site, but a simple text catalog of urban roach folklore may be the main attraction for macabre visitors. Even titles like "Roach Toasties," "Horror In Pearland" and "Why You Should Brush Your Teeth" cannot adequately describe the terror dished up by the alarming department. Giddy up, Rodney.
Overall Rating: 17
Escape Artist Mathew Cooper
URL: http://www.loop.com/~straitjacket/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Jon Phillips
The typical vanity site doesn't offer an excessive amount of... oh, shall we say... intrigue. Some woman owns a cat named Motorboat; she writes about her cat named Motorboat. Some kid plays third tuba for the Portland Youth Symphony; he writes about playing third tuba for the Portland Youth Symphony. Some guy's favorite food is Nutella on wheat bread; he writes about the joys of eating Nutella on wheat bread. Simple. Easy. No frills. No pressure. Just tell us who you are. We're in, we're out. But Mathew Cooper throws a knuckleball into the whole vanity site phenomenon. Cooper is an escape artist of all things -- that's right, like Harry Houdini -- and a fine oil painter to boot. What's more, his grasp of site design is exemplary. Cooper's pages are top-notch both in content and aesthetics, and his site can be digested in its entirety in less than 25 minutes -- a time limit that should be considered a requisite for inherently self-serving pages devoted to a single individual. Using Netscape's Frames feature, Cooper presents a vertical array of hot buttons on the left side of his display. Click on a button, and a new theme pops up in the main window. The Dislocation button sends you an explanation of the physical process behind Cooper's particular brand of escape artistry: "My shoulders do come out of the socket area but do not really go to the point of dislocation." Scary stuff, Mat. You'll also find photos of Cooper shackled in chains, images of his oil paintings, and links to handcuff collections, a lock-picking guide, and a Houdini page. Of course all this isn't to say that Mat's site, despite all of its chi-chi accouterments, isn't still just a vanity site. Witness this biographical account: "I woke up the next morning in my own vomit. It was everywhere. I have the same birthday as Jimi Hendrix. I believe he died this way but I guess it wasn't my time. I spent a couple of hours apologizing to my Mother in between dry heaves." Scarier stuff, Mat. In the main, Cooper's pages are well-crafted, wonderfully illustrated, and fun to read. Escape from the doldrums of the 9-to-5 rat race, and lose yourself in this confident expression of self.
Overall Rating: 18
TimLand
URL: http://www.educ.drake.edu/ext/Tim/tim.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Tim, he's 38, working at Drake University, has two kids, wants to get more involved in computers, and has a nifty logo of Hawaiian hula dancers on his front page. He's sincere enough and seems to genuinely enjoy HTML. But besides the self promotion as found on all vanity sites, he's got jokes (not just links, but actual content folks), Mac info, music, and juggling goop, neatly displayed in a nice little Table. Woo Woo!
Overall Rating: 17
Hot 100 Web sites Updated Weekly
URL: http://www.web21.com/services/hot100/index.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Itchin to know what's hot on the Web? This is an interesting little resource that may not sport the fancy graphics of Lycos, but who cares, so long as it's useful! And that it is. Every week the site updates surfers on the top 100 Web sites -- the sites with the most hits. While there are no descriptions, and minimal editorial content here, it's a good place to get a feel for what has been successful in Web space.
Overall Rating: 16
IFIC Foundation
URL: http://ificinfo.health.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Looking for the latest on pesticides and food safety? Curious about nutionally related Gallup surveys results? The International Food Information Council is ready to serve you a mountain of facts, breaking that info into byte size chunks organized by who wants the data; reporters, medical professionals, consumers, educators and parents -- innovative and effective. Of course you'll also find member info, links, the newsletter, and a big FAQ. Expect to learn something here.
Overall Rating: 17
Travelocity
URL: http://www.travelocity.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
One of the first steps in planning a vacation is the fantasy stage. A friend mentions a destination, you see a picture of a place, or maybe you read an article about some distant city or country. Once the destination has captivated your mind, every little piece of information about that place you come across will add to your mental database of all the things you will do there. Then you start to imagine the arrival, when you disembark from whatever mode of transportation you've used and get your first real impressions. You imagine walking down the various streets, seeing the monuments, art, parks, or other significant landmarks. Maybe you dream of becoming friends with the natives, of being more than just a tourist, and getting to see the real treasures that only the locals know about. In this first stage it is difficult to do any serious planning because calling a travel agent is such a commitment. You ask a travel agent what it will cost for such and such round trip, and then they will ask you if you want to book that now. Heavens no! You're not at the nuts and bolts stage. But a good way to feel like you are putting the trip together when you are only in the fantasy stage is to become your own travel agent. A number of travel reservation systems are available on the Internet, but the one with the best interface I've seen so far is at Travelocity. There are 8 fields for entering destinations, so you can put together a fairly complicated trip, and the results page it comes back with seemed to give a lot of options and prices for flights. Clicking on any particular flight will display all the information that a travel agent would have. The reservation section of Travelocity also has functions for browsing flight information so you really don't have to feel like you're beyond the fantasy stage of travel. But if you haven't caught that bug to go to a particular place, and you feel you need to go somewhere, the Travelocity site also has a section called Destinations with information on various cities around the world. A large part of the focus of this section is on activities, so if you have an interest in theater, Travelocity can recommend a good play to go see in Vienna. An obligatory Merchandise section offers items of use to travelers, such as power adapters and toiletries, which can all be bought online. Travelocity is a great all around travel resource.
Overall Rating: 18
AIGAlink virtual gallery
URL: http://www.dol.com/AIGA/door.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
Wonderful. The American Institute of Graphic Arts has developed a beautiful, well-constructed Web site that walks you through a graphics arts exhibition in Philadelphia. Click your way through three rooms (more are expected soon) of outstanding projects, from interior signage to advertisement posters. And fear not: high-resolution graphics won't clog your bandwidth. The images are appropriately compressed to load quickly and maintain high quality.
Overall Rating: 18
Art Deco-Erte Museum
URL: http://www.webcom.com/~tuazon/ajarts/erte.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Creating his first successful costume design at the age of five, Erte began his career as one of the foremost fashion designers of the early twentieth century. The Art Deco Erte Museum displays some of Erte's most famous designs for the Folies-Bergere in Paris, including a costume for the Diamond in "Les Pierres Precieuses" and a silver lame costume, complete with pearl wings and ebony-plumed cap, that Erte himself wore to a ball. A Web site never looked so fashionable.
Overall Rating: 17
Goya
URL: http://www.primenet.com/~image1/goya/goya.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karina Vasser
Francisco Goya led classical painting into the modern world with a unique and ever-changing style. This site, devoted to the works of Goya, is also unique. It lacks the typical barrage of hyperlinks to miscellaneous Web resources, feedback loops, and advertisements. Instead, it's a stunning display of the artist's works. Each page is accompanied by a well -written biographical note. The works are presented in chronological order to demonstrate Goya's evolution. (Goya lost his hearing in 1792 and his mood and paintings took on an increasing aura of dark despondence.) Very well done.
Overall Rating: 18
Vintage Ink & Paint
URL: http://www.earthlink.net/~sworth/
Category: Art
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Schwartz
There certainly is a vast amount of information here, though you'll have to take a nap on the scroll bar to get it. Yes, it's another page of infinite length. Despite this slight annoyance factor, the remaining layout is easy to read and the content is good. Visitors learn about collecting animation art, as well as how and where to purchase it. They also can search a glossary of animation-related terms and learn about restoration processes. Valuable for collectors.
Overall Rating: 17
Sony Online
URL: http://www.sony.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Instead of taking several months to give Sony different Site of the Month awards -- for music, gaming, film, etc. -- for its amazing Web site, I thought it would be more efficient to mix it all together and name Sony as the best corporate site of the month. Know in advance that it is superb in all the aforementioned entertainment arenas. The "Music" section offers sound and video clips of featured artists (the offerings regularly rotate to avoid redundancy), tour information, online catalogs with *stuff* to buy, like t-shirts, posters, etc. (though there's no online ordering yet), and an updated news area -- for all the fresh gossip. Actually, most of their news is PR material, but it's entertaining. And no, no no, it's not over. Sony also sponsors at least two, sometimes three, live chats via America Online (Keyword: live) each month with Sony recording artists -- with transcripts available on the Sony Web site. The "Pictures" section traverses though cinema, video, and television, highlighting established, specially featured, and upcoming projects to keep you current and well-informed. There's a listing of how to find a Sony theater near you, as well as what might be playing there. When I last checked the site, the newest movie addition was "Jumanji," a feature film starring Robin Williams. The site for this one movie was several pages thick, with "behind the scenes" interviews and profiles, video clips, and an online contest to win merchandise. These katz know how to market in a fun and creative way. And let's talk interactive. Yup. The gaming industry's little media darling, the Sony PlayStation, has a home of its own on the Sony Interactive site, complete with game updates and all the technical specifications to leave bits and bytes types drooling. Sony also has screen savers here and every now and then offers a free one! Right now, they've highlighted "Beavis and Butthead" and "PlayBoy" (interesting combination...). And, though all of these areas have their own separate catalogs, there's a monster behemoth catalog in the "On Gear" section, should you want to purchase more Sony merchandise.... Be prepared to spend a lot of time here, especially if you're heavy into entertainment culture. The graphics are smooth, the layout is easy to navigate, and the content is never ending.
Overall Rating: 18
Nomius Zen Garden
URL: http://www.nomius.com/~zenyard/zenyard.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It's a little hoaky. Though the general principal is good, with weekly stories and Koans (proverb-like quotes) to help guide Zen Buddhists through their journey, the tone is slightly condescending in its "let us show you the way" approach. The site uses advertising, but the creators have selected sponsors who support their mission, such as a natural vitamin supplier. There's also a version of the story of 10 Bulls in full hypertext format. And, for the multimedia component, there are sound clips and visuals to help you relax and meditate.
Overall Rating: 17
Buddhism World
URL: http://dual.iems.nwu.edu/~cwshen/buddha.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Schwartz
With nice colors, graphics, tables, and organization, this site flows well. The content, while still growing, is fairly comprehensive. Especially well done is the link list. It's extensive, includes a special section in Chinese, and covers not only the Web, but also Usenet, FTP, Gopher, and e-mail resources. You'll also find vegetarian recipes and archived copies of the Electronic Buddhists Society's Newsletter.
Overall Rating: 18
The Pope Page
URL: http://www.catholic.net/RCC/POPE/Pope.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karina Vasser
The Pope Page is adorned with the kind extravagance found in the Vatican -- hypertexted pages lined with golden wall paper and decadent images of His Holiness John Paul II and other Popes past. The site is thorough, and leaves one with a feeling of complete papal saturation, though it's certainly interesting, and useful for historians and curious Catholics. The section containing writings of past Popes is an especially fascinating archive.
Overall Rating: 18
ELCA Homepage
URL: http://www.elca.org/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
For Christians of the Lutheran faith, this is a great Web site. It's well-designed, with tasteful icons and buttons, and it's easy to get through. It's also boiling over with content. Not only will you learn about the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, but you'll gain insight into other Lutheran churches, their beliefs, and the specialty services they offer. Most interesting, though, is the fact page, which outlines the churche's demographical information: who's involved, whether they're men or women, how many people have been baptized, etc. It's for a specific audience, obviously, but it serves them well.
Overall Rating: 18
Gospel Communications Network
URL: http://www.gospelcom.net/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
In a word: huge. Absolutely, unquestionably, this is one of the largest, most extensive, and thorough of all Christian databases. Learn about films to see, newsletters to read, chats to participate in, childrens' bible studies, the "Top 40 Resources," and on and on and on. The site is updated regularly, and despite its vast amount of content, it's easy to navigate. Cool icons and pleasing backgrounds. A great jumping point for Web-o-holic Christians.
Overall Rating: 18
The Hinduism Today Home Page
URL: http://www.HinduismToday.kauai.hi.us/ashram/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karina Vasser
One could spend hours pouring over the Hinduism Today pages (the Web companion to a full-color print journal articulating Indian spirituality). It's a never-ending array of beautiful and well-constructed pages lined with news, current events, health and history of Hindu spirituality. There's a wonderful section of the journal reserved for the exchange of Aums (Indian graphic metaphors) that is both spectacular to look at and thought-provoking. It's a fantastic creation.
Overall Rating: 18
Physics Unbound
URL: http://uptown.turnpike.net/L/lindeman/physics_ub.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Ahhh. I get giggly and excited when I think that one person created this amazing physics resource page just for the fun of it, solely for the purpose of "hypertexted scholastics". Our physicist Web friend has built some basic pages to describe some basic premises of physics: Newtons Laws, the periodic table, Hamilton's Principal, and so on. He encourages surfers to contribute their pages of knowledge, either to link, or to archive on his server. It truly is unbound and perfect for craving minds.
Overall Rating: 17
ECOLOGY Channel Homepage
URL: http://www.ecology.com/
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The ecology channel wants to keep you current on the trials and tribulations of man vs. nature. There's an extensive news section that covers topical issues, a kids corner (with Captain Seaweed), a profile of species in danger (with photographs and information), and additional information on a wide variety of conservation and environmental organizations. The site itself is slow, however, and sometimes waiting for a page takes a little longer than any reasonable person has time for. But if you're determined, there is good stuff here.
Overall Rating: 17
Animal Resources
URL: http://www.bev.net/education/SeaWorld/infobook.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
These pages are part of the larger SeaWorld Web site, but taken on their own, they cover a large spectrum of general animal information, including reproduction, conservation, characteristics, scientific classification, and much much more. It's not the prettiest learning tool available, but it's quick to respond and full of hard-core animal facts. There's also an interesting section geared to interested young people on how to become a marine mammal specialist. Whales to hippopotamuses to birds in danger of extinction, it's all here.
Overall Rating: 16
Electronic Zoo
URL: http://netvet.wustl.edu/e-zoo.htm
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Schwartz
If you're looking for any sort of animal-related information and want your list to have more structure than Yahoo! or Lycos, check out NetVet's Web extravaganza. It's out of control huge with links to, as mentioned, all animal-related everything. Don't worry, there's a search engine to help guide you through the site, and low and behold, it works! The graphics are so-so to great, depending on the section, but the information and organization will leave animal lovers smiling.
Overall Rating: 17
The NASA Homepage
URL: http://www.nasa.gov/
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It would take me literally months to dissect and review each and every section of NASA's infinite Web site. Dare I say NASA has more server space than anyone else, ever? Maybe not, but it's huge! There's art, science projects, spacey info, shuttle news, technology development, student projects, and more more more. Everyone and anyone can probably find something of interest here. My only qualm with a site this big is that there *should* be a search engine, else muddling through could take days. If they have one, I sure couldn't find it.
Overall Rating: 17
Ocean Planet Homepage
URL: http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/ocean_planet.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Speaking of NASA, it seems they've conspired with the Smithsonian to bring us a hypertexted version of "Ocean Planet," a traveling exhibition to explore and present the planets ocean history. Surfers can search for specific ocean-related data they'd like to learn about or take one the curators "special tours" on biodiversity, women and the sea, pollution, sea surprises, or others. There is a lot of info here, so plan on spending a great deal of time soaking it all up.
Overall Rating: 17
Space Images Archive
URL: http://www.seds.org/ftpweb/
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Pictures, pictures, and still more pictures. Search or browse through hundreds of space-related pictures: planets, space observatories, art, eclipses, launchers, and anything else having to do with space stuff. I typed in the word "Pluto" and got seven pictures to choose from, ranging from the planet to satellites that track the planet. Very cool. It's quick and if you get a chance, look at the X-ray photo of the sun -- it's amazing.
Overall Rating: 18
Interactive Maps
URL: http://thunder.atms.purdue.edu/interact.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It's weather. Plain and simple. It's about the same as watching the Weather Channel on cable, though there are no commercials and you can get the local forecast anytime you want. Click on the image map for a general region or type in the specific city you're looking for. It's fairly accurate (as accurate as any weather interpreter can be), and it's updated about about every six hours. Sometimes, the server gets bogged down (it's a popular site), so be prepared to wait for data at times.
Overall Rating: 16
Santa Cruz Vampires Motorcycle & Scooter Club
URL: http://www.tower.org/vamp/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Originally founded in the 1940s, the Vampires was a motorcycle-only club, but now includes "rugged hard-riding scooter enthusiasts." Its site, still under construction when I visited, promises to be one swank stop for anyone into riding. It features great pictures of bikes, plus sections devoted to various manufacturers and their models. Interested in purchasing a vintage bike? You can link up to Christie's to see what's on the auction block. Check the site for information on joining the group for a ride. But, as they caution, "be prepared for a sore butt. "
Overall Rating: 16
Grand Central Railway Station of Cyberspace
URL: http://tucson.com/concor/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
This is nirvana for the hopelessly train-obsessed. Everything anyone could possibly need or want to know about trains is here, including hundreds of links to pages covering myriad topics about real and model railroads. There are listings of manufacturers and suppliers, clubs, magazines, shows, historical societies, e-mail lists, chat sites, and forums. The word "exhaustive" comes to mind. Arguably the best feature: You can have your own Web page within the Grand Central Station. And, should you extricate yourself from this site, you can make your real-life train reservations from the link to Amtrak's site.
Overall Rating: 17
JON ZIMMERS HOME PAGE
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~jonz/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Tools. That's what Jon's into. He buys, sells, studies, touts. These aren't your usual tools, though. No, Jon's partial to beautiful 'n' rare tools, like unusual cast iron levels , machinist's tools, and parts. Although the site isn't super-attractive, he includes lots of photos and plenty of text/links to give you a good understanding of his obsession. Should you be interested in dropping some serious cash, Jon's selling. Take a look at the super-glam Stanley No.1. At just 5-3/4 inches long, this is the smallest bench plane made. A steal at just $1,295.00.
Overall Rating: 14
Home Fashion Information Network
URL: http://www.thehome.com/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Homeowners will want to visit the Home Fashion Information Network for lots of useful information about, umm, fashion and your home. There's a lot of depth to this site. Topics include everything from decorative accessories to window and wall coverings. But be warned: You have to wade through tons of bad writing that includes scary phrases like "the versatility of solids" and "creating a cozy haven." Don't let that keep you away, though, as the section called "Wood You Like To Know" (ugh) contains a great chart that imakes the visit worthwhile.
Overall Rating: 15
Lion's Den
URL: http://www.mgmua.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Slick. Very very slick. Each and every page of the movie maven MGM is a well-designed, well-organized near-masterpiece. The graphics appear to be high res, but take only moments to appear, and when they do, they seem to flow instead of blur (adding a nice sheen to the creation). They cover the spectrum well, with information on the motion pictures, television, video, and interactive projects that MGM produces and sponsors. There is also some background data on the corporate history of MGM and its executives. Oh yes, and don't forget the "Studio Store." With official t-shirts, crew bomber jackets, mugs, and polo shirts, it's as fun as any Hard Rock cafe, and there are no lines! (Though the site warns that it is not secure yet and that MGM will not take responsibility for any transaction problems. You might want to wait a few months before ordering stuff.) The site's treatment of current and upcoming movies is well-executed. Besides the usual sound, video, and still clips, MGM has interviews with main characters, reviews from national journalists, and phenomenal graphics. Meet the directors, too! I was especially impressed with MGM's treatment of the movie "Leaving Las Vegas," which featured interviews with both Nicholas Cage and his character, the estranged alcoholic and lovelorn Ben. MGM's also done a nice job promoting its successful television show, "The Outer Limits," and it's probably the most impressive aspect of the site. It's creative, a bit more interactive, and offers episode profiles and features so that active fans can stay current and also glimpse the future. And, super kudos to the animated eye ball! If you enter the rock (no secrets revealed here, you'll have to visit to see what I mean), you could win "Outer Limit"-related prizes! Contests are always tasty bait. Monster fans should take note that the monster gallery is indeed worth serious attention, with still clips of creatures that have graced the set of "Outer Limits." Clever. Captivating. And while you're lurking around the site, stop in to the dialog area and exchange "thought-provoking" ideas, not necessarily about "Outer Limits." Overall MGM is informative, rich in content, and worth frequent visits from Hollywood movie go-ers.
Overall Rating: 18
Chicago International Film Festival
URL: http://www.ddbn.com/filmfest/one.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ken Bousquet
Strong, intuitive graphics lead you to useful and specific information about the Chicago International Film Festival. For instance, you can learn what's playing on a particular day, where the different shows are, what time they start, and what each film is about. The highlight of the site is a poster gallery of black-and-white photos, mostly by Skrebneski, of glamorous naked people who have muscular bodies. There are also QuickTime movies to download,. If you're a filmmaker, you can get an entry form; if not, there are coffee mugs and t-shirts in the gift shop.
Overall Rating: 18
More Barrymore Than Ever Before
URL: http://www4.ncsu.edu/eos/users/r/rfbatcho/www/drew/
Category: Film
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ken Bousquet
If you're up late in your dorm room eating rice cakes and Cheetos and have a thing for Miss Barrymore, this site may suffice. There's an offering of pictures of her in various sultry poses, ranging from a topless shot of her as a prepubescent in boxing gloves to Drew dressed up in a corset and hoop skirt. The best part is the site's link to David Woodward's Drew Page, a nicely structured site with icons and lots of content. The worst thing is the obnoxious blinking "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" and "COMING SOON" signs.
Overall Rating: 18
Hype Movie World Polls Surveys Reviews & Cool Links
URL: http://www.hype.com/movies/home.htm
Category: Film
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
The strength of this site is not its polls or reviews, but its links and resources. There is a great link list called "The Mother List of All Film-Related Web Sites," which includes everything from Cannes, Sundance, and Berlin to the Lo Res Film and Video Festival in San Francisco. Entries are in Super 8, Hi-8, as well as Mac-based tools. Hype also does the Canadian Film Centre site, and has a related link to the Toronto International Film Group. These resources provide gobs of information about Canadian film culture.
Overall Rating: 16
Classics and Mediterranean Archaeology
URL: http://rome.classics.lsa.umich.edu/welcome.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
It's appropriate that a site dedicated to the past is so stuck in it. Don't get me wrong: Someone did a terrific job of gathering far-flung Web links and centralizing them in a format handy to scholars. But in the end, it's just an extension of a Gopher site: text-based, with few helpful internal links or explanatory texts, and user-friendly it ain't. Don't expect any commentary on which sites are worthwhile (or even appropriate to your needs). Still, content is more important than technical flash in academia, and this site is a wonderful portal to other resources.
Overall Rating: 14
The Ancient World Web
URL: http://atlantic.evsc.virginia.edu/julia/AncientWorld.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
There's no reason academic studies have to be dry and daunting. If you have a good guide, the world opens up to you. In this case, the world in question is the ancient one, and your guide is Julia Hayden, a masters' student at the University of Virginia. She knows her stuff: Every entry is sorted, classified, and annotated, and weekly (ha!) updates keep the place fresh. The home page includes archaeology news of interest, though some "news" is outdated. No matter: The quantity of links and the commentary makes this a must-see stop for Ancient World tourists.
Overall Rating: 17
Perseus Project
URL: http://medusa.perseus.tufts.edu/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Many of us know about the Gutenberg Project, which mostly focuses on putting seminal Western texts of the last 200 years into electronic form. The Perseus Project is similar, but with a more esoteric bent: it's interested in the texts and images of archaic and classical Greece. Managed by a Tufts University professor, the site has heavy-duty corporate support and it shows: Its depth of study is amazing, and it's tied together with various search engines. The entire site is also being released as a four-CD set (!) by Yale University Press next year. That's a lot of stuff!
Overall Rating: 17
Philosophy
URL: http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I always like to find online texts. It's a great way to save a trip to the library. The philosophy section of the English Server at Carnegie Mellon University is a pretty good repository of material, from Aristotle to Rousseau. There are also some more general thematic texts thrown in, such as "Women in Philosophy." The Web page is only an index for a Gopher server, so all the pretty HTML ends at the top level.
Overall Rating: 14
The Metaphysics Research Lab Home Page
URL: http://mally.stanford.edu/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The name alone evokes so much, it's either a complete parody or a lair of serious strangeness. The "stanford.edu" in the address indicates the latter, but it turns out not to be all that strange. This site exists to promote a paper called "Principia Metaphysica," which is based on the ideas of an Austrian philosopher named Ernst Mally. The gist of it is defining abstract objects as encoding properties, as distinct from concrete objects displaying properties. Had enough? If not, head for the address above.
Overall Rating: 17
Objectivism - The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
URL: http://www.rpi.edu/~pier1/phil/objectivism.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This site is a perfect example of an informational forum for an active philosophy. While references to and homage for Ayn Rand permeate the site, the focus is on the philosophy of Objectivism she defined. Not sure what Objectivism is, or if it's right for you? Read the FAQ located on this site. Linked resources include a newsgroup for the active discussion and debate of Objectivism. Curiously, the creator of the page has divided it into "good" and "evil" sections (other philosophies come under "evil"), which suggests a reading of Nietschze is in order.
Overall Rating: 17
Semiotics for Beginners
URL: http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/semiotic.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Those who need a quick course on signs and signifiers for literary and cultural analysis, or anyone interested in a different critical tool, will find this quick and dirty explanation of semiotics very useful. A semiotic question: When you say Internet, are you referring to the global computer network, or the word that is our agreed-upon sign for the network. Roland Barthes was into it, so it should be good enough for you.
Overall Rating: 16
Welcome to Critical Mass
URL: http://fas.sfu.ca/comm/c-mass/c-mass.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Critical Mass calls itself a "Webzine of communications issues," and it delivers. The communications issue it focuses on is the Internet, so if you want help talking to your children, this isn't really the place to go. It's published monthly during the academic year, and the issues seem to be generally theme-based. For example, issue two of volume two dealt with government on the Internet. It should be noted that this is a Canadian publication and has that great, white north slant.
Overall Rating: 18
Manchester Institute for Popular Culture Website
URL: http://darion.mmu.ac.uk/h&ss/mipc/index.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Manchester could very well be the prototype for twenty-first century urban life. It exemplifies the regeneration of a derelict industrial city for post-industrial urban use. In the 1980s, British youth found its deserted warehouses the perfect places to host raves. While it's easy enough to dismiss raves as "all-night dance parties," the fact that the phrase "rave community" exists suggests that there was some minor social revolution going on. What better location for a think tank devoted to the study of popular culture? So, the existence of the Manchester Institute of Popular Culture (MIPC), based at the Manchester Metropolitan University, is no surprise. And, with the entry of the Web into the lexicon of popular culture, the MIPC would just have to have a Web site to have any kind of credibility as an authority on popular culture. According to Dan Hill, a research graduate at the MIPC, the medium of the Web amplifies the positive aspects of popular culture. Mr. Hill says the Web allows "artists to distribute their work via the net, bypassing the cultural industry infrastructure and the power structures of the art world." The technocracy of the Internet is a lot easier to negotiate with than the art buyers, gallery owners, and critics of the art world. One agenda of the MIPC, and of many cultural theorists worldwide, is the promotion of democracy. This does not refer to the political structure, but to the notion of every member of society having a voice. So, MIPC is working to ensure "that the new digital popular culture is not limited to the privileged minority who currently have access." But the MIPC Web site is not just a forum for studying culture; it's a part of that culture. The funky design of the logo is more suggestive of modern graphic design than the title of a stodgy academic paper. One purpose of the site is to disseminate information on conferences sponsored by the MIPC. A recent one was titled "Fanatics! Football and Popular Culture in Europe," which is scheduled to coincide with the 1996 European Football Championship. A further example of the eroding delineation between critical studies and subject matter.
Overall Rating: 18
The Spenser Web: The Shepheardes Calender
URL: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~jntolva/shepcal.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The beauty of this site is that it shows how the Web can really enhance literary studies. Each page of Spenser's Shepheardes Calender can be viewed in one of four different versions, including a scanned copy of the original printing. To name the site "The Spenser Web" is a little bit misleading, however, since it only has the one work. Also, getting through the first couple of pages is a little annoying, since the links are hidden at the very bottom of the pages.
Overall Rating: 16
Vergil's Home Page
URL: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~joef/vergil/home.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Latin fans will find this page quite a treat, since most of the on-location texts by Vergil are in the original. For all of us translation wimps, there are links to English versions of the Aeneid and the Georgics. While the page is tastefully designed, it isn't very well-organized. Its plethora of links, such as texts, bibliography, pictures, and related articles, are all just thrown together on one page.
Overall Rating: 15
The Internet Poetry Archive
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/dykki/poetry/home.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This very well-constructed and tastefully designed site features the work of living poets. Living poets are a rare breed, and should probably be on the endangered species list. I'm sure this is why the site only had three of them (when I visited). Besides the sheer novelty of discovering living poets, visitors to the site can sample audio clips of the poets reading their poems. Somebody realized poetry is meant to come in through the ear, and not the eye. Will wonders never cease?
Overall Rating: 18
The Poetry of Yeats
URL: http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/yeats/Index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
It's time for the indulgence part of our program; Yeats is one of my favorites. Oh, the site isn't much to look at. It's what we call Lynx-enhanced -- just text, no pictures of audio. But there are a lot of poems here. Technically, it would make any Web designer cringe. The top of the page has the title, "The Poetry of Yeats," then a very long list of poem titles that link to the text. But I just want to repeat that there are a lot of poems here.
Overall Rating: 14
Virtual Henry
URL: http://sec-look.uiowa.edu/henry/preface.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Ah, the play made from the movie by Kenneth Brannagh, or was it Mel Gibson? Anyway, something like that. The full text of "Henry V" is here, which should be enough in itself, but we are also demonstrating the powers of HTML. The text is annotated with hyperlinks, which is brilliant, and not only do the annotations have text, they also have pictures, so you can see, for example, what Henry V's father looked like.
Overall Rating: 16
The George and Ira Gershwin Homepage
URL: http://www.sju.edu/~bs065903/gershwin/homepage.htm
Category: Music
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Schwartz
For the Gershwin fan, this is the creme de la creme. It's a full-on archive that must have taken quite a lot of time to research (I'm suspecting years of enthusiastic pursuit). Though I am no Gershwin expert, the bundle seems complete, with a listing of plays, film scores, and behemoth discography, all in glowing hypertext format. Plentiful in details and trivia, it even includes some reviews written by the site creator. And, of course, you'll find the ubiquitous link page of other Gershwin related sites. Bravo.
Overall Rating: 17
Richard Wagner Archive
URL: http://www.utu.fi/~hansalmi/wagner/
Category: Music
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Wagner, underscorer of weddings and formal gala events, is alive and well in cyberspace. Though this site tries one's patience with its slow server and too-heavy graphics, it's well-informed and thorough. Quotations, critical essays (by the site creator and others), a biography, and, of course, a complete discography provide this site with the necessary components of any "fan page." If you can wait for the pages to load (hint -- turn off the auto-load images on your browser), it's worth it. Some of the pages load first in Finnish, though they're all also available in English.
Overall Rating: 16
Ceolas Celtic Music Archive
URL: http://celtic.stanford.edu/ceolas.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
While it doesn't *look* particularly inspiring, The Celtic Music Archive certainly delivers content. You'll find everything from song lyrics and artists, to basic information about instruments used in Celtic music. There's also a semi-current listing of Celtic-related events and concerts organized by geography and by performer.
Overall Rating: 16
Bikini Kill
URL: http://www.columbia.edu/~rli3/music_html/bikini_kill/bikini.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Well, if Blue Grrrl (formerly Net Web site reviewer extraordinaire) were here, she'd rave about this site's adorable riot grrrl qualities, the darling photos of Tobi, Kathi, and Kathleen, and the grrrl manifesto. The Little hearts on a string graphic is super-Rad as well. But Blue Grrrl is at art school, and Shel Kimen is here to satiate the mainstream populous, and guess what? It's still a Rad site. Gossip, discography, sound clips, and cool girl links lace this Bikini Kill (grrrl rock non-stars) tribute page with style and thoroughness. It's super-duper fresh.
Overall Rating: 18
Welcome to Agents Inc. Firefly
URL: http://www.agents-inc.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Ever spent too much time waiting to hear the latest CD at a record store listening booth, only to be disappointed? Firefly can help. It's an intelligent agent of sorts designed to categorize your music tastes, then spew recommendations of other artists you might like. You're given a list of bands to rate according to what you already know of them, and Firefly stores that in a mega-database. It then searches the database for other people who've entered similar interests, and recommends potential new music for you. It's ingenious and surprisingly accurate.
Overall Rating: 18
Internet Music Review Service Main Page
URL: http://www.monsterbit.com/IMRS/
Category: Music
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Here's another place to check if you're not sure what to add to your music collection. The graphics are nice enough and the organization is handled well, considering how much information is stored here. Search for bands you may have heard of and read what others have to say, or browse through the "what's new" section to get some fresh ideas. It's got one of those dastardly little "Point Top 5% of the Web" logos on it, so it's apparent that others have also found this site useful.
Overall Rating: 18
Welcome to the Metaverse
URL: http://metaverse.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Go, Adam Curry! Though I'm tempted to slight this site on the premise that Adam Curry is a dweeb, it's really a well-designed, thoughtful, comprehensive look at the music industry. Metaverse uses the technology well, and has pages and pages and pages of industry news, gossip (the infamous sleeze report), reviews, events, and so on.... And while the site sports advertising, it's for the most part tasteful and unobtrusive. A great site for most modern (alternative, pop, punk, funk, etc.) music fans.
Overall Rating: 18
VIBEonline takes it to the Bridge
URL: http://pathfinder.com/@@rOPfiIGGhAMAQHte/vibe/VibeOnline!.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
What makes the VIBE site the music site of the month? Could it be the ultra-amazing graphics? Maybe it's the astonishing amount of original content, updated WEEKLY. Or maybe it's the level of interactivity it initiates with live chats, reader surveys (of both serious political issues and just-fer-fun follies). No, no, maybe it's the diversity of subject matter. Though mainly musical, VIBE touches a bit on all aspects of entertainment; movies, video and literature. O.K., no, I get it, it's definitely the quality of the reviews section, with a specifically hot Web-site-of-the week review --a thorough walk-through of a great online creation. Hmm. Yes. Yes! YES! It is all of these things. In a word (or two), VIBE ROCKS! It's a fantastic companion to the paper zine, in fact, it is definitely as good as the paper zine and one would have to wonder (less the coffee table status quo reasons): Why buy the paper zine at all? Everything you could ever want to know about the VIBE world of rhythm, blues, rap, and traditionally African-American entertainment is wrapped up in a snazzy, I mean super-snazzy, hypertexted format, whenever you want it -- for free! Technically, they pull off some nice stunts. The image maps are beautiful, but not server-bogging. The tables are aligned perfectly (no matter what size your browser is). The colors and fonts all work especially well with the overall design (kudos to the artists.) And the CGI scripts (for all that interactive stuff) run superbly. This is no small feat, mind you. I reviewed the December issue of the zine, where I found an outstanding article about the history of black super-heroes (in chronological order complete with cool graphics). The reader survey opinion poll chose the controversial topic of abortion (with a nonpartisan non-bias): Are you pro-life or pro-choice (and why)? And, of course, the feature stories revolved around the year in hip hop, with comprehensive coverage of all the chart stoppers and flavors of the 1995 season -- Mariah Carey, Notorius B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, and Adina Howard, to name a few. And there's a compelling interview with anti-rap activist and proclaimed feminist Delores Tucker. (I'd suggest a look at the back issues if you missed this one.) Overall, I find it difficult to understand how anyone wouldn't like this site, even if VIBE isn't your chosen music scene. It's everything a good zine should be, and more.
Overall Rating: 18
Welcome to JAZZ Online
URL: http://www.jazzonln.com/JAZZ/
Category: Music
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
This is a GREAT site. It starts with a smashing BANG of colorful graphics, then shoots to an outstanding table of contents. Reviews, news, catalogs, and links line the pages and yikes, you could even register to win a Gibson guitar. (That's enough to lure me in...) Did I mention the online live chat rooms, interviews, and intelligent feature articles? Yes, it's a definite winner.
Overall Rating: 18
Cipher Comic Graphic Novel
URL: http://vvv.com/home/cipher/
Category: Publications
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It's captivating in most every aspect. The logos float through blackness inviting with mystery. The words are simple and few, provoking curiosity. And the content, the content is stunning and thoughtful. Cipher is a graphic novel --a collection of original pen and ink drawings, stories and digital artwork. The site debuted early last winter and has been steadily growing since, definitely one to bookmark as it promises to continually evolve. I'm dutifully impressed.
Overall Rating: 18
Welcome to ELLE
URL: http://www.ellemag.com/
Category: Publications
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Though I may not be the fashion vixen you think I am (ack ack), I do know a good Web site when I see one. And, though it may pain me to rain such praise over a fashion magazine, I have no choice but to do just that. ELLE has got a great Web development team (or so it appears) and the site is stunning. ELLE won't taunt you with teaser paragraphs and dead-end links. It's nothing but top-rank professional. The site walks you through selected features on style, fashion trends, society, and culture from last month's issue, and gives the table of contents for the current newsstand issue (wouldn't want the paying subscribers to get miffed). The features are long enough to keep you busy for hours, and they're laced only with the highest quality graphics. The haute couture set would be proud. Dahhrling, pass me the Gray Poupon and the Netscape, please! But that's not all. ELLE also invites repeat visits with a model gallery (for gawkers and fans of the world's top super models), a link list of ELLE's favorite online fashion hot spots, and an event list that'll "put you in the thick of things." Sure, they lay it on kind of "thick" themselves at times, but isn't that what glamour is all about? But I do have a complaint with the "numerology" report. When I checked in December, it gave me a reading (with an oh-so-clever birth date calculator) for October. Ooops, a bit late (though luckily, ELLE also provided me with a 900 number -- billed at $1.25 per minute-- to call for weekly updates). Oh well, we can't all be as perfect as Linda Evangelista. The organization of the site is superior. It's an easy and intuitive path to uncover the feature stories, jump to trends, get in touch with editors, and subscribe (though it wasn't quite ready for online transactions when I checked -- get ready for the 800 number-- I suspect it won't take much time for ELLE to remedy this). Overall, ELLE is the best fashion magazine on the net. And the special tenth anniversary page is super-cool, with almost animated ELLE covers of past years.
Overall Rating: 18
Threaded Contents
URL: http://village.ios.com/~paulchiu/threaded/threaded.htm
Category: Publications
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
My first reaction to this zine was kind of harsh. I thought "Not another twenty- something look at the world by people who might not really understand what it is like to be twenty-something." But after probing a bit deeper I found some interesting articles ranging from sexism and racism to body art and American politics, streamline layout, and a broad range of opinions. There's also a helpful Net Reference section that should help newbies along the dirt path that is becoming cyberspace. So open your mind and take a ride.
Overall Rating: 18
The Wild Wilde Web Welcome
URL: http://www.clients.anomtec.com/oscarwilde/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
"To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up." -- Oscar Wilde A poet in the 19th century could not be successful by holing up in a garret and writing madly. A social dimension was required. Wit was required. A really good poet had to be able to show up at a party and say something, at least one sentence, that would be so very clever as to be repeated by more than one person, thereby assuring the poet's reputation. In the 20th century, wit was practiced by Dorothy Parker and the members of the Algonquin Round Table, but in recent times wit seems to have fallen in disfavor. Oscar Wilde was a master of wit, which is the focus of Michael Tidmus' Wild Wilde Web. Originally, Michael was just going to put a page on the Web of Wilde's witticisms, but he decided that there had to be some kind of contextualization, so the site expanded to include a biography, a list of Wilde's works, other people's quotes about Wilde, and links to Wilde-related sites on the web. The material on the Web site was salvaged from an exhibit Mr. Tidmus had taken part in called "Serious Games: Interactive Images." He chose to create an interactive piece about Wilde, using the paradigm of a Victorian parlor game. Some time later, he was asked to be "the participating American artist in ArtAIDS (http://artaids.dcs.qmw.ac.uk:8001) -- a project of AIDS-related images that went online on World AIDS Day, 1994." This introduction to HTML gave him the expertise to program the Wilde site. The graphics on the site are particularly exceptional, which is no wonder, since Mr. Tidmus has been a graphic designer since 1984. He says he "spent seven years freelancing Apple Computer's advertising graphics for BBDO and Chiat-Day." One of the most extensive areas on the site, and probably the most useful, is the bibliography section -- a list of books about or with references to Wilde. The only drawback is that these books should probably have been linked to some other online reference that provides further information about them. When I asked Mr. Tidmus what Wilde might have thought about the Web (a question I acknowledge is pretty stupid), he kindly replied, "I think Oscar would have applauded the accessibility of knowledge and deplored the lack of beauty inherent in much Web design."
Overall Rating: 17
Scampaign 96 Headquarters
URL: http://www.comedyusa.com/Home.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The 1996 Presidential election is gearing up, and candidates are marching out of the woodwork like a professional clown troupe, making us laugh until we cry. Well, the crying may have more to do with so many of these freaks being absolutely serious about the various ways they want to control our lives. The Scampaign '96 site should provide some needed relief from all the scary rhetoric. The site is run by a bunch of comedians who are creating there own style of political journalism, a style that has become necessary, considering the ridiculous lows to which current campaigns have sunk. The home page is updated frequently with news and commentary from the front, and should continue up to the fateful day when we pick the '97-'00 version of the president. The Scampaign '96 commentary is also distributed as a mailing list, which can be registered for through a form on the site. If you have friends without Web access, get them on the mailing list. Barry Weintraub is the mastermind of Scampaign '96, and he makes no bones about his political cynicism. "We hope to entertain and inform and unite disaffected voters through the common bond of cynicism," he says. If this is the only way to get people to vote, then rock on, little warrior. Another area of the site has profiles of all the presidential hopefuls, plus quotes to let voters know the candidates positions on various issues, like this one from Phil Gramm: "I was a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. And as president, I want to finish the Reagan Revolution." Sometimes, no comment is necessary. The site has its own cabinet, filled by people like Johnny Steele, Minister of Rants; Nate Hale, Minister of Treason; and Will Durst, Minister of Caustic Commentary. Each "Minister" has his or her own opinions to offer, and they're not all as left-leaning as the general tenor of the site. Also, look for "The Noah Letters," a correspondence between common citizen Noah Fillmore and the various candidates about their positions on the issues, published exclusively on this site. Mr. Weintraub has big plans for Scampaign '96. " We hope to use the site as a springboard to establish a permanent comical journalistic presence." Inform and entertain, with cynicism and justice for all.
Overall Rating: 18
The Sports Network
URL: http://www.sportsnetwork.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
O.K., sports fans, if you're looking for an alternative to ESPNet (http://espnet.sportszone.com/), this ain't a bad jaunt. It's consistently updated with news, events, and scores, and offers both professional and collegiate coverage. It's got a nice layout, good enough graphics (though few huge glossy action photos), and a pretty dang fine searching mechanism. And they don't skip corners. There's information on just about every team, archived locally on the server. (Yup, mucho original content here.) It's a winner. (Nice cliche, eh?)
Overall Rating: 18
Seattle Mariners Home Plate
URL: http://www.mariners.org/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It's official. (Toyota advertisement and all)! Learn everything there is to learn about the Seattle Mariners. Did you know that Infielder Rich Amaral has a degree in business from UCLA and weighs 175 lbs.? Yes, that's the nitty gritty type stuff you'll have access to. Of course, the site has archived team schedules, tells you how to contact your favorite Mariner, and contains "merchandise" to buy (secure only for Netscape users). The layout is O.K., nothing too special, but die-hard fans will probably like it just fine.
Overall Rating: 17
Cleveland Indians Home Page
URL: http://www.indians.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The Cleveland Indians Page offers much the same as the Seattle Mariners page, by way of content. You'll find player info, game schedules, online merchandise sales, and team stats. The difference is that the Indians page has great graphics, putting it an inch above most other baseball-related sites. The icons are tasteful, the pages load quickly, and it's overall just better. And, they promise to add video soon to jazz up the site with a little multimedia foo foo. Of course, if you aren't an Indian fans, none of this matters anyway.
Overall Rating: 18
NBC Golf Tour
URL: http://www.golf.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
At first glance, it's a little busy, but after probing through the golf.com site, I was left to assume it's cluttered only because it has more golf information than any sane server could handle. Egads, it's packed. Search the entire world for gold courses, via a clickable image map, get gold tips from pro Jeff Maggart, stay in tune with upcoming events and NBC broadcasts (yes, NBC is a very visible sponsor), or visit local clubs and merchandise vendors. No corners are skipped: There's contact information for all of these places. It's perfect for serious golfers.
Overall Rating: 18
DansWORLD Skateboarding
URL: http://www.cps.msu.edu/~dunhamda/dw/dansworld.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It may not be slickest-looking skateboard page, and it may not even have the most current content, but nonetheless, I really like this site. It's got FAQ files, gossip, tons of pictures, a few videos, links, and a super-cool photo archive of net surfers who also also skate. The Mike Blabac photos of the San Francisco skate scene are pretty tasty, too.
Overall Rating: 17
Resort Sports Network
URL: http://www.RSN.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Skiers of the world unite. Well, skiers, snowboarders, and resort lounge lizards of the world unite. This site aims to be a one-stop shopping guide to winter resorts in the U.S. It does an outstanding job. RSN starts with an ultra-clean front page laced with smooth-stylie graphics (nice icons) and a comprehensive main menu -- what's new, video clips, a resort locator, events schedules for the resorts you locate, contests to play, links to follow, and a series of spy cams to show you what's really happening in these vacation havens. It's packed. RSN maintains a huge college students section, and although it has some cheesy bits and bytes about what is "Rad" and "Raging" (like the silly little dictionary of "cool" words), it also has some very useful information. The extreme sports page is great, with a comprehensive list of trails and runs for the dangerously inclined (the mountain biking in Maui interview is fabulous). There's a special contest area "for college students only." The site also helps you organize group trips and guides you through an events calendar for the various resorts (it's actually the same as the events calendar linked from the top page, but in different, perhaps hipper colors). Most impressive, and important for the budget-minded, the site points you to where to ski for free. RSN lists resorts that are looking for seasonal instructors and helpers in exchange for free passes. The video clip collection, though not huge, has a number of high-quality action videos of mountain biking, wind surfing, and general extreme sport goop. You can also view the scenery from one of 14 resort cams (Vail, Tahoe, Park City, Wildcat, and others), with an updated image every few hours. RSN sports a Usenet-like, threaded chat section for surfers to converse about the various hot spots and not-spots, trade skiing tips, and ramble about whatever else they want to, which may or may not relate to resort stuff. It's a fairly active list, so definitely check it out. All the pages load quickly, look great (the creators have mastered their HTML and Netscape extensions), and have lots of information. It's a great site.
Overall Rating: 18
GT BICYCLES
URL: http://www.gtbicycles.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
I ride GT because its bikes are well-constructed and look cool. And, guess what? Its Web site follows suit with a super-clean layout, mucho information (e.g., an online catalog of all its bikes and accessories), and valuable dealer locator searching capabilities. You can type in a zip code, select what you're looking for (parts, frames, tech shops), and you'll get an accurate list with addresses and phone numbers. GT also provides updated news, events, and bike related links. Very cool.
Overall Rating: 18
The Church of Virus
URL: http://www.lucifer.com/virus/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
"Now entering the Virus Zone. Closed and/or irrational minds may be offended. Open and/or rational minds may be infected." This is the tone that laces this site, with its all-black background. Its stark look represents an intense sort of seriousness quite successfully. Click on high- or low-bandwidth (always a nice option) and you're off. The entire concept about Virus is to infect its readers with free thought -- to offer a broad range of perspectives (all with an appropriate "free thought" slant) -- to encourage the questioning of faith and spirituality. This site is not intended to "trash" religion or horrify "believers" with blasphemy and irreverence, though at times it might be mistaken as such with links to paganist and satanic resources. The biases are clear from the start, but not overwhelming or pushy. There are lots of curious bytes to Virus. Separate from one another, they might seem trivial, but taken in the context of the whole site, they help create comprehensive and well-supported arguments. One link will take you to a page about Daniel C. Dennet's book, *Darwin's Dangerous Idea*. The page sports reviews that have been printed in national journals, and also invites readers to submit their own opinions of the book. The same is true with Kevin Keely's book *Out of Control: The Rise of Neo-biological Civilization*. Again, the Virus creator is seeking surfer participation and interaction, all the while allowing us to ingest his creation and make our own decisions about it. The rest of the site is filled, I mean filled, with statements, summaries, and observations about movements of philosophy, politics, religion, science, technology, and evolution, all striving to infect us, again and again. Virus is relentless in its pursuit. And what I found most valuable beyond the overwhelming amount of time and effort taken to build this site (intense graphics and layout aside) is the reading list. The reading list is a hyperlink hoe-down of literature to move you through the process of deciding what religion is or isn't in your life. Many of the recommended books have links to summaries, or places they're available online. And, to supplement this reading list, there's also a page of Internet resources to spawn further questioning and perhaps a few answers. There will be some who have no need for this site and will most certainly be offended, but there are many others who should find great thought-provoking pleasure.
Overall Rating: 18
The Tele-Garden
URL: http://www.usc.edu/dept/garden/
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Tele-Garden is an actual garden planted, watered, and viewed by a robot controlled by members via the Web. The interface is excellent, and you can communicate with other gardeners via a message wall. This is one of the most technologically advanced sites I have ever seen on the Web. It's designed to be viewed for a short period of time on a regular basis. And I believe it personifies the nature of the Web. Like the Web, it's creative, offers an interesting use of technology, and, most of all, is a place you can waste away hours doing something completely useless.
Overall Rating: 18
Hong Kong Home Page
URL: http://www.hongkong.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This very complete guide to Hong Kong has a specific section for travel and tourism, but there's also plenty of other information for the virtual traveler, including history, government information, business and economy, etc. The tourism information is pretty good, including a section on shopping that lists the kinds of products you might want to buy in Hong Kong, along with advisories on shopping strategies.
Overall Rating: 14
Discover The Keys
URL: http://fla-keys.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A tourism site for the Florida keys, this site has extensive information about Key West, Key Largo, etc. Each set of Keys has its own section of accommodation and shopping listings, history, and various relevant information. Although this is a graphically inclined site, I didn't particularly care for the colors and backgrounds used. There are times when you're sorry you can view all the HTML extensions. The site could have also used maps of the Keys, as maps are one of the great pleasures of planning trips.
Overall Rating: 15
The One and Only Morocco WWW
URL: http://www.agadir.com/maroc/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Ah, the mysteries of Morocco. Tangiers, with its connection to ex-pat authors like Bowles and Burroughs. Casablanca, made famous the world over by Humphrey Bogart. Fez, known as the source for shriner hats. While filling in information gaps about Morocco had every possibility of killing the mystique of the place, I had to know more. The One and Only Morocco WWW isn't the only Morocco guide on the Web, but it's probably the best one. I think the trick is not taking "one and only" for its literal meaning. As a travel guide, it's not the most immediately practical. It doesn't have a complete listing of all the hotels throughout the country. There are no train schedules online. No restaurant listings. This is the kind of guide that tells you a lot about the country, and primarily whets your appetite for going there. It's also the perfect place for the virtual traveler. The virtual traveler might like to know what the restaurants are like, or see pictures of some of them, but a listing of all of them, with directions how to get there, is unnecessary. This site covers so much of the culture and what's in Morocco, and there are so many pages, you can get in pretty deep. The site is littered with pictures of Morocco that illustrate the various sections. History, which goes back beyond Roman times, is covered. The site describes the flavor of 12 major Moroccan cities, and even has some of the most beautiful and useless maps. They have great graphics, but don't really show much detail as far as streets go. The Moroccan cooking section is probably my favorite, listing recipes for delicacies like Bastela and Couscous. But just knowing how to make the food isn't enough; the section on culture tells how to serve the food. There actually is a section with practical travel information, but knowing how many kilometers of railways there are in Morocco doesn't exactly help me ride them. The whole site was created by two students, Nabil Zary and Mounir El Abridi, and the impression I get is that the site is a labor of love. Versions of the site exist in English, French, Swedish, and Spanish, so it's definitely got the World in World Wide Web covered.
Overall Rating: 17
The New V3
URL: http://www.dataflux.bc.ca/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The New V3 is the redesigned site for the city of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and it is huge. I clicked and I clicked until I was tired of clicking. There's stuff all over, from British Columbia ferry information, to a whole mini-site about Buchart Gardens, a large, private park in Victoria. Unfortunately, it's not very well-organized as a travel site. There are some maps of the area, but they are in the ferry section, and the museum information is pretty sketchy.
Overall Rating: 16
BOB c WEB
URL: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~asdamick/www/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I just wanted to take this Kodak Moment to say that you people are not mentioning me often enough in your posts. You have been forgiven, for I am a benevolent human being, but you will simply have to do better from now on. - The BOB(c) (from Usenet newsgroup news.misc) Thus begins the saga of The BOB(c), net.god and raving egomaniac. Well, there's a reason we're calling these Vanity pages, and The BOB(c), alias Andrew Damick, has done an exceptional job in this extensive shrine to himself. To be fair, there's a lot of material here that doesn't have anything to do with The BOB(c), and a distinction should be made between the online persona and the man behind the curtain. And one more point on the fairness angle: Credit for a lot of the graphic design goes to one Beverly White, another well-known net.god. The BOB(c) is famous throughout Usenet-landia, and has published a lot of very useful newsgroup how-to information on his site, like "How To Create an Alt Newsgroup." There are archives of postings from newsgroups, which is probably some of the most humorous writing anywhere. The BOB(c)'s link library is incredibly large and very eclectic. Just about all of the most interesting and well-designed places on the Web are listed here. When asked about the purpose of the site, The BOB(c) replied: "Words are my domain. Playing with them is what I do, and that is evident in my site." It's also pretty evident from his very active Usenet life, where he maintains his own newsgroup, alt.fan.the-bob. And as for communication, The BOB(c) says: "I generally get several pieces of e-mail per day [...] concerning my site." With the amazing advances in Web technology, I had to ask The BOB(c) if he had any plans to incorporate Java or VRML into his site. While he has no immediate intentions to do so, he did suggest adding "some 3D, animated, talking groundhogs to lead you through the pages and read my poetry to you." And, I should mention that The BOB(c) does not have a list of his CDs on the site.
Overall Rating: 18
Zeigen's Dilemma
URL: http://www.emf.net/~estephen/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Zeigen, or Stephen Mack, as he's sometimes known, has a very extensive Web site. There's a section of fiction, two Web games (Roshambo and Magic Infinity Ball), a couple of music pages (Tori Amos and Ajax), Usenet manifestoes, and personal information like an online diary and an apartment tour. The tone is sort of "sensitive young man," and there is an overlying philosophy to the site about how we must make choices in life. But, how do you know you weren't predestined to think that? Anyway, good link pages.
Overall Rating: 18
Redmond Rose
URL: http://www.halcyon.com.redrose/joan.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
This chronicles Joan L. Grove Brewer's big beef against her former employer, Microsoft. Her story, supported by memos and newspaper articles, is either a truly horrific example of corporate abuse, the ranting of an embittered nutball, or both. She claims that as a consequence of pointing out software flaws, corporate Microgoons beat her up, resulting in a severe spinal injury. Her argument loses some credibility toward the end, where she goes off on a diatribe about demons, angels and plagues. An altogether strange tale definitely worth looking at.
Overall Rating: 16
Jie's Homepage!
URL: http://www.mit.edu.8001/afs/athena.mit.edu.user/w/o/wonder/www/home.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
Jie is getting her doctorate in Chemistry at MIT. Previously, she attended Stanford, as well as schools in her native China. In spite of being a serious overachiever, Jie presents an attractive and friendly vanity page, with interesting links to sites on science, China, and *People* magazine -- which demonstrates Jie has *some* kind of life away from the academic grindstone.
Overall Rating: 18
The Internet Book Shop
URL: http://www.bookshop.co.uk/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
IBS claims to be the biggest online book shop, and while biggest is not always best, in the case of a bookstore, it means a lot. O.K., browsing through a bookstore is like meditation for me; I lose all sense of time, who I am, where I am. That is, if it's a big enough bookstore, if I can get away from any windows to the outside world, then you won't see me for at least a couple of hours. IBS, with 780,000 titles, is big enough. The fact that it's online means no distractions, like sirens from the street, or loud people. Browsing a bookstore's shelves is a lot like surfing Web pages, which is probably why an online bookstore seems like such a good fit. As far as online commerce goes, it's easier to ship books all over the world then it is to ship cars, or pets. And shipping is an important factor with IBS, because it's based in Britain, or Oxford, to be exact. Worldwide shipping has a lag time of four to 14 days, which doesn't matter a heck of a lot when you're ordering a title you can't get from any local bookstores. For Web pages, a U.K. address also means slower response time, which could be a problem if you're doing extensive searches. Oh yes, there's a search utility, an essential resource for a site like this. It's quick and easy to use, allowing you to search by title, author, ISBN, or publisher. If you're not sure where you want to start browsing, then the subject listing might be the place for you, although I did find the subject breakdown just a little bit weird, such as the category "Fiction, 'True Stories,' Humour." I'm not really sure what 'True Stories' have to do with fiction. In fact, I think they are kind of the opposite. The site also has the Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide, a compendium of recommended authors and books, which is an excellent way to find new favorites. What really endeared me to IBS was it's special focus section on Herge's *Tintin*. Not only does it have every one of the graphic novels, each page has picture from the cover.
Overall Rating: 18
Atomic Books Electronic Catalog
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/atomicbk/catalog/catalog.html
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The electronic catalog is the online version of the physical Atomic Books store in Baltimore, MD. And I know just how to get there because there's a map on the site. The book selection is great; it consists of all the weird and eclectic stuff you won't find at Barnes & Noble. Besides underground comic books and graphic novels, there are sections for revenge, hiding your identity, and trash culture. Unfortunately, online ordering isn't very sophisticated. No shopping basket; you just have to type the name of your selection into a text box.
Overall Rating: 15
Speak To Me Catalog
URL: http://clickshop.com:80/speak/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The unifying element to each item sold on this site is that it speaks. Ahhh, the wonders of microchip technology. The catalog runs from the serious -- tapeless recorders -- to the humorous -- swearing keychains -- to the bizarre -- a talking spatula. Talking spatula? At this point, we should all collectively say "Go figure," and get on with our lives. Complete online ordering capability, but the graphics are way-bad. Lots of audio clips, though.
Overall Rating: 16
You Have Found Us
URL: http://fringeware.com/SchwaRoot/Schwa.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
Alien invasion paranoia as conceptual art. The site features products for defense against extraterrestrials, though, as you will soon learn, no place is safe. There's an abundance of striking black-and-white graphics, plus subtle and well-conceived humor free of the literary sledgehammers most web-site jokesters feel they must wield to get a laugh. A favorite was the fine print disclaimer that degenerates into a rant by the company's disgruntled lawyer. The site looks good and is easy to navigate.
Overall Rating: 16
Welcome to Spatula City
URL: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~twoflowr
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
A wide variety of fictitious spatulas are on display, including the Five Spatulas of Fury, and the 12 Gauge Spatula Attachment, which is effective for cleaning even the most encrusted food off of any surface.You are encouraged to submit ideas for spatulas, but if managers Stefan and Jenny Gagne don't get back to you, it's because they don't like your idea -- or are busy with their real lives. The site isn't limited to spatula fun; you'll also find odd links to such things as an online staring contest, where you go mano-a-mano with a large eyeball.
Overall Rating: 18
The Night Gallery
URL: http://www.wbmca/users/kgreggai/index.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
This elaborate and visually first-rate homepage is devoted to horror, true love, and body noise. By his own admission, the proprietor spends four hours a day maintaining his site. An extensive audio gallery is devoted to burps and farts. Other wonders include pictures of frightening food discovered in the back of his fridge. I get the impression site master Kevin is the Sara Winchester of the Web, driven by some odd demon to ceaseless construction of his page. I'd be truly worried -- except he's fallen in love, which is another subject documented with meticulous detail.
Overall Rating: 18
Paris Pages: Paris Art
URL: http://www.paris.org/ParisArt/
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
When planning to create a site about Paris, one would inevitably expect to make art one of the main sections. After all, Paris isn't just about snooty waiters and croissants. In the Paris Art section of the Paris Pages, afficionados and collectors can search through lists of links for galleries, artists, or images. Some of the major contemporary artists residing on the site include Jean-Louis Guitard, Kara, Roger Karoubi, and Peter Klasen. An added plus: Paris Art provides prices and gallery locations for each piece featured. Viva la Web!
Overall Rating: 16
Welcome to ArtsLink
URL: http://pathfinder.com/@@sRMXEnH1hAMAQIlr/twep/artslink/
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
With all the independent art sites on the net, Time Warner Electronic Publishing finally took the creative plunge and returned from the underground with ArtsLink. ArtsLink provides an Artists-in-Residence section that displays a wide range of material, including abstract computer algorithm images, controversial posters about racism, colorful charcoal sketches of women, and QuickTime VR multimedia pieces. Read about projects in development, and catch up on cultural issues in the Morfogen and Associates News section. ArtsLink also wants visitors to spearhead its bulletin board discussions on topics such as the influence of AIDS in art, and performance art advice.
Overall Rating: 18
Picture Project Gallery
URL: http://www.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~student/picture_projects/
Category: Art
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Beautiful and immensely moving, this site serves as a photo documentary of the horrors and suffering that has consumed the scope of all life in Bosnia. The archive contains dozens of astonishing, gut-wrenching and heart-warming photographs with simple (and painfully confrontational) commentary, laced along margins as captions to photos. It's an outstanding Web site to visit, especially on days of deep melancholia. Guaranteed to instigate introspection.
Overall Rating: 18
Designlink
URL: http://www.designlink.com
Category: Art
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Here's your "Online Resource for Creative Professionals." It's well-designed and keenly organized, and offers to build networks among the denizens of the design industry, manufacturers, and other Internet resources. Complete with a portfolio display area, job bulletin board and a yellow pages directory, Designlink is definitely a good starting point for illustrators, photographers, interior designers and anyone else peering over creative visual edges.
Overall Rating: 18
DesignOnline
URL: http://www.dol.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Artistically speaking, this is one of the most competent looking resource sites on the net. And as far as content goes, it's the cat's meow. Design Online is home to pages and pages of design-related everything: news, professional and non-profit organization info, discussion areas, files, fonts and links galore to keep designers, architects and artists connected both within the wired world, and outside the digital crusade. Many gold stars for this impressive accomplishment.
Overall Rating: 18
may you live in interesting times
URL: http://adaweb.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The momentum of this site swings far and wide with energy, creativity and an overwhelmingly large collection of images, artwork, and ideas. AdaWeb fills its server with digital exhibitions, examples of creative HTML design, and flurries of abstract concepts. At first, you'll need to trust your intuition to click with reckless abandon (few options are clearly indicated, though many are presented). But, as you find yourself pouring through the site, it becomes apparent that this sort of random access works well with all the presentations, and adds to its enjoyment factor. Stunning creativity.
Overall Rating: 18
Zero Tolerance
URL: http://Zero.Tolerance.org/zt/ztfront
Category: Art
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Zero Tolerance is a hodgepodge of creative efforts spanning digital media, photography, and philosophical goo -- all rolled into a cool-looking but kind of messy package. It's hard to nail down the site's intentions, other than it's a place to store ideas, however chaotically. Perhaps no other point is required. The images are sometimes spectacular and sometimes lacking, but overall, the site is entertaining, thoughtful and worth visits from curious types.
Overall Rating: 18
Survival Research Laboratories
URL: http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/SRL/
Category: Art
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
A blazing background supports the content of Survival Research Lab's post-apocalyptic-demolition-style-techno-art extravaganza. A mouthful of rusty nails and battling robotic droids are sure to captivate the fascination of at least a few sadistic net surfers. And the pages devoted to Burning Man -- a giant wooden sculpture that is annually erected and torched in a Nevada desert -- are exceptionally inspiring. Survival Research Labs lives on the fringe of an over-exploited bleeding edge, and its web site will back this up. Outstanding.
Overall Rating: 17
Kaplan Educational Centers
URL: http://www.kaplan.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Kaplan -- famous for helping underachievers earn admission to their parents' swanky alma maters -- has an extremely useful Web site. To be fair, there are plenty of people who chose educational paths to law and medicine a little late, and definitely benefited from Kaplan testing materials. The site features summaries of the current climates for admission into professional college programs. Kaplan books and software can be purchased online, and a special feature section displays an offbeat sense of humor. Though a commercial site, Kaplan offers invaluable free resources for those interested in professional development.
Overall Rating: 17
Library of Congress
URL: http://www.loc.gov/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Amazing content. If you want to feel one with the democratic process, go here and peel through the Thomas legislative database. Read the actual text of the bills that you *think* you know something about. There is also a great bibliography of published works that can be searched by title or name. The library features exhibits on specific themes, such as women in World War II. And if that weren't enough, there's also a great image archive. The main drawback is that the site isn't very intuitively organized; it does require some effort to locate points of interest.
Overall Rating: 16
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
URL: http://www.uiuc.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
OK, Web users, lets collectively bow in the direction of UIUC, host to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Without the bright boys and girls at NCSA, the Web would not be what it is today. Sadly, I can't say if that's a good thing or bad thing. But for a site of such distinction, UIUC lacks wild HTML tricks. It *is* big and fast, however, and provides so much information, you could spend a few days just finding your way around. You'll find complete college catalog-type information, plus the university's library site.
Overall Rating: 16
Paolo Marcucci's Shadowrun Archive
URL: http://www.interware.it/users/paolo/sr2/index.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Here's *yet another* role-playing game archive on the Web. But this one has pages and pages of information and resources for the game Shadowrun, which is set in a cyberpunk future. Paolo Marcucci has used the new HTML Frames function to organize his site, and it works very well; I highly reccommend visiting the archive with a browser that supports Frames. The site is based in Italy, but I didn't notice any lag in connection time. Wow, are RPGers really all sitting around their basements with laptops these days?
Overall Rating: 17
The Braintainment Center
URL: http://world.brain.com/index.cgi/UN/Index.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
When I discovered that this site hawks a game called THINKfast, I initially concluded that The Braintainment Center is a mere software promotion venture. Further exploration, however, revealed much more material. Most of the content describes new concepts on how the brain works, and justification on how THINKfast can improve cranial operations. Interesting stuff; certain to raise some skeptical eyebrows. An online intelligence test may make visitors feel inferior. It certainly had this effect on me.
Overall Rating: 16
The Chess Connection
URL: http://www.easynet.co.uk/worldchess/home.htm
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The Chess Connection is the site of sites for chess fans, as it publishes chess columns from various British publications, such as *The Spectator*, *The Independent*, and *The New Statesman*. While it's a great repository for game stratagem, it would be nice if the Connection included an online archive. The Chess Connection Shop has the one of the more interesting uses of Frames I have seen.
Overall Rating: 18
The Pinball Archive
URL: http://pinball.cc.cmu.edu/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Closely related to the newsgroup rec.games.pinball, this Web site stores the collective wisdom of people serious enough about pinball to discuss their passion on the Internet. I spent a few hours going through the rule sheets posted here, finding the ins and outs of my favorite machines. Besides just offering rules, the site also lists the easter eggs hidden throughout various games. For some wacky reason, the site includes a search utility -- I guess so you can get back to the tables as soon as possible.
Overall Rating: 15
Wacky WWW Adventure
URL: http://ugweb.cs.ualberta.ca/~hubick/adventure/adventure.cgi
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Although the concept behind this site is simplistic, the site itself is brilliantly executed and boasts a ton of content. Here you'll find an interactive story that begins with a single paragraph ending with you, the protagonist, walking out your front door. Now you're afforded 170 choices as to what you want to do next. At least it was up to 170 when I last visited. Since multiple users can add their own choices, the whole affair is fluid -- and some of the contributions are naturally infantile.
Overall Rating: 17
dEPARTURE fROM nORMAL
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~xwinds/dfn.html
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Here we have an art and poetry magazine that seems willing to publish any work slipped through the proverbial mail slot. These arbiters of aesthetic either have low standards, or were scraping for content, and accepted some material that could only *claim* to be poetry because it didn't follow the rules of sentence structure. Bad grammar is not the soul of poetry. Most of the site's content is pretty decent, though, and attendant imagery is quite nice.
Overall Rating: 17
In Vivo
URL: http://freenet3.scri.fsu.edu:81/users/jtillman/
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
In Vivo is a literary magazine willing to consider unsolicited submissions. It's not entirely mind blowing, but is a great example of using the Web to circumvent cost-prohibitive print and paper endeavors. The editor who sifts through outside submissions is sufficiently critical. Content is better than average, and the whole site is well-organized, including the author index, which spans archives as well.
Overall Rating: 16
Sackcloth and Ashes
URL: http://www.millcomm.com/~dfattig/index.html
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Wow, a magazine for hip, irreverent Christians. Is this the smallest demographic in America? This strange little e-zine accepts unsolicited contributions, and is published whenever its editors have enough material and time to get it together. One seemingly regular column is titled "Heresy," and contains a description of some kind of alternate belief system. There are also articles on esoteric mythology. A very strange mix, but very enjoyable. Some issues are available in PDF, the Adobe Acrobat format.
Overall Rating: 16
Sea of Noise
URL: http://www.mindport.net/~szarka/sonj.html
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The typical zine used to be a photocopied pamphlet of barely edited, unadulterated creativity. Web technology has allowed e-zines, zines' online soulmates, to be as slick as the publication you're currently reading. Kind of a shame, really, but Sea of Noise manages to retain that zine look by publishing in unenhanced HTML. While it may not be all that pretty, there is something comforting about the look. You'll find good articles with a sophisticated sense of humor, plus record reviews.
Overall Rating: 14
Tripod
URL: http://www.tripod.com/
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Perusing the first well-designed page of Tripod, I was expecting to find a hip and somewhat frivolous e-zine for mindless GenXers. I happily scanned through the table of contents looking for something to take my mind off impending deadlines, but all the articles I ran across seemed overly serious and practical. Advice on how to invest my money? An article and test about personal safety techniques in an urban environment? Where's the fun in *that*? Just wait. According to its mission statement, Tripod attempts to bestow the "Tools for Life" upon people in their mid-20s. This concept took shape in 1992, when Bo Peabody and Brett Hershey, two Williams College students, and Richard Sabot, a Williams economics professor, were working on a project to teach young adults about financial investments. But it wasn't until 1994, when Peabody attended a demonstration of the Web, that the group found the appropriate publishing medium for Tripod. The editors expanded content to include other practical sections, such as Travel (with some of the Fodor's books online), Work, Health, Community, and so on. The News section has grown to become a major portion of the content, with daily updates and extensive coverage of the 1996 political campaigns. But Tripod is much more than an online publication. It's truly interested in promoting Internet communities. This explains why it has its own Multi-User Object Oriented Environment (MOO), a graphic-oriented chat space. Tripod has also broken new ground by being the first Web site to allow users to create their own personal Web pages. "We wanted users to start establishing a face and a presence on the site," says Ethan Zuckerman, Tripod's "Webkeeper." While the site's founders and a good portion of its staff are Williams College alumni, Zuckerman did post-graduate work at nearby Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he recruited some great art talent to work on graphics. Tripod's page design is some of the best I've seen on the Web. You'll find extremely good integration between text and art. A staff of 16 works out of a converted Greek revival house in Williamstown, Mass., although the site's actual servers are in Northampton because of the proximity to a T1 line. With investments and advertising dollars starting to line its coffers, Tripod looks like it will have a promising future as a top Web site.
Overall Rating: 18
Jumbo Shareware
URL: http://www.jumbo.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
With almost 50,000 programs, Jumbo can definitely claim to be the Internet's "Official Shareware" site. Shareware and freeware is categorized by type, then operating system. Once you find something you like, you'll link to a list of FTP sites from where the software can be downloaded. The number of sites varies depending on the software. Nice graphics. If it exists, it's probably here.
Overall Rating: 18
Conde Nast Traveler
URL: http://www.cntraveler.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The sophisticated traveler knows that the creme de la creme of travel publications is Conde Nast Traveler. In the archaic age of print and pulp, this magazine was an incredible resource for information on worldly destinations. What individual's travel library would be complete without a large section of back issues as a reference for vacation plans? Now, in the digital age, we don't have room for extensive libraries, or large collections of printed information. Fortunately, Conde Nast Traveler isn't bound to its print past, and now has an online presence that is much, much more than repositioned print content. The core of the site is an incredible database of vacation spots, which are critiqued with extremely informative qualitative assessments. While many travel-related sites will simply list a bunch of hotels and restaurants to be found in a given city, Conde Nast Traveler offers well-written descriptions of the various aspects of a location. The key areas include Hotels, Dining, Access, and Weather. The site also offers a number of very intelligent and creative ways to sift through its core database; each way reflects a different intuitive communication model. The Great Escape area is the most obvious road to access. A clickable world map allows you to zero in on a continent, then country, then individual city. This is good for people who "think globally," and like using maps in their everyday lives. For people who care less about geography and more about amenity, Conde Nast offers Concierge as a navigational tool. This section guides you through a series of forms on which you enter the parameters of your dream vacation. Concierge then returns an increasingly refined list of destinations that match your criteria. Snapshots is an ingenious navigational device for those driven by visual cues. Four photos are displayed on a page. Clicking on the photo that is the most appealing to you shoots you to information on the illustrated locale. If none of the photos are appealing, clicking a button will load four new images. The site also includes a good section of travel-related news, all of which is very relevant to planning a trip. All in all, Conde Nast Traveler is the definitive resource for online travel planning.
Overall Rating: 18
The Asylum
URL: http://www.galcit.caltech.edu/~ta/cgi-bin/asylhome-ta
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The stars of the Asylum, a nuthouse-themed Web site, are not the wacky doctors or patients one might expect. The real stars are a collection of interactive toys with which to play. The mentally disturbed can create pretty pictures with a Lite Brite set or an online paint program, and post 'em for all to see. The developmentally challenged can write interactive fiction or fill out a poll. The simply cruel can opt to kill the site's cute mascot, "Wysiwyg, " and bring bad karma to their server. Although it's a tad too cute for me, the Asylum may entertain even the most brain-damaged simian.
Overall Rating: 17
The Biz
URL: http://www.bizmag.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The word on the street is that film professionals, wanna-be film professionals and film fanatics should be surfing the BizMag Web site. Dazzling its readers with flashy colors, gossip, job boards, and the latest, greatest movie trailers available online, Biz speaks with authority and backs itself up with comprehensive coverage. Some of the icons and design decisions are less than spectacular, and some of the pages are harder to read than they need to be, but overall, Biz is a great site for film industry current events.
Overall Rating: 17
Cultronix
URL: http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/cultronix/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
While this could just as easily fit into the media category, as it features articles, graphics, audio and video clips (as any high ranking e-zine might ), its focus is almost exclusively within the lofty realm of humanities: philosophy, arts, and, of course, culture studies. With multi-syllable paper titles -- "Wallowing in the Quagmire of Language" and "Delusional Circuitry" -- Cultronix is sure to win the hearts of intellectuals worldwide. Load up this page in your local cybercafe, and you're sure to be a hit.
Overall Rating: 17
Eighteenth-Century Studies
URL: http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/18th.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The entire English server at Carnegie Mellon University is amazing, and the 18th Century history archive is just another wonderful piece of the whole. It's slightly sad, however, that subjects of such extremely high interest potential -- Rousseau and Locke, The history of Lady Julia Manderville, and Rare Maps from Revolutionary America, to name a few -- are bestowed with dull and unimpressive layouts. Does this treatment endorse the philosophy that such pristine literature and classical brilliance needs to remain far, far away from Internet technology, or does this site merely lack someone to do the HTML dirty work?
Overall Rating: 15
Special Collections: The Siege and Commune of Paris
URL: http://www.library.nwu.edu/spec/siege/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
A revolutionary's dream come true. View 1,200 images -- landscapes, portraits, political caricatures and architecture -- from the siege and commune of Paris, 1870 to 1871. The site is heavily armed with an accurate search engine, but is also "browsable" for those who aren't so certain of what they hope to find. It's a wonderful collection for any curious historian. The overall layout is dry, gray and boring, but the images of battles and burning buildings certainly make up for an otherwise dreary blandness.
Overall Rating: 17
I-Channel Ellis Island
URL: http://www.i-channel.com/ellis/index.shtml
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Ellis Island: the gateway to America's gold-paved streets of opportunity. Ack. Ack. Now all those discombobulated immigrants have some online evidence to show for their tedious waits in line, sometimes 10,000 hungry, sea-sick people thick. The Ellis Island pages in fact offer a very informative and interesting perspective of arrivals to the "New World." There are plenty of pictures, historical accounts and general facts to pique interest and awareness, and it's all organized fairly well.
Overall Rating: 18
Diotima Women & Gender in the Ancient World
URL: http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/gender.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Complete with essays, bibliographies, and miles of links and images, this is an extraordinary collection of resources that should educate the Internet community about women in ancient times. There is as much local content as off-site pointers, so Diotima serves as both a source and database. Layout is well-executed, especially considering the amazing amount of content. From Semonides to Sappho, there's a lot of info here.
Overall Rating: 18
Haiku for People
URL: http://www.oslonett.no/home/keitoy/haiku.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
You'll find answers to various haiku-related questions, and plenty of haikus by famous and not-so-famous poets. Nothing more. But that's OK. The poems are wonderful (for haiku aficionados, at least) and the How and What sections are informative, and should be useful for would-be haiku writers. The site is simple and to-the-point, accomplishing its intended goals. I like that.
Overall Rating: 18
Roots & Culture
URL: http://www.escape.com/~rastaman/Roots.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
When I was attending U.C. Santa Cruz, Rastafarianism was extremely popular among the student body. All the white kids thought, "Cool! A religion where you're *supposed* to smoke pot." Many students grew make-shift dreadlocks, donned green, yellow and red knit hats, and walked around saying things like, "Jah love, dude." The silliness ended after graduation. The pressing need to earn a living drove Rasta pretenders into the working world. The pages of Roots and Culture don't even mention marijuana, and while you'll find links to reggae sites, you won't find any references to Bob Marley and his musical progeny. Rather, the site's emphasis is on Ethiopian religion and history. Within the context of Roots doctrine, the term Ethiopian denotes all people of African origin -- Africans, African Americans, and in fact all the world's people who, according to scientific evidence, descended from a common African ancestor. Despite this broad inclusion of the globe's entire populace, much of the site's content focuses on the country of Ethiopia itself, and the religious teaching of Emperor Haile Selassie I. You'll find a quiz about Selassie I that is clearly intended to teach instead of test -- if you quickly want an answer to one of the questions, you can activate a nifty drop-down device for immediate results. Selassie I is portrayed as a visionary who unified Ethiopians worldwide. A section of quotes details the Emperor's wisdom during the politically turbulent times just before World War II. Another section is devoted to Marcus Garvey, a seminal figure in the American Black Renaissance of the 20s and 30s, and the leader of the "Back to Africa" movement. The theme here is on leaders of black unification. Throughout the site, you'll find references to God and the Bible presented in such a way as to suggest that religion cannot be separated from the political realm. To educate people in Ethiopian religious practices, the site includes a page with information on Masqal Baal, the Commemoration Day of the True Cross which is held nationwide across Ethiopia on September 17th.
Overall Rating: 18
Pegasus Home Page
URL: http://www.pegasusor.com/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
This is an extensive gallery of designs for stitchers, needlepointers, quilters, soft sculpture makers, and other hobbyists who work with needle and thread. You'll find dozens of easy-to-search categories including cats, cottages, continents, and, my favorite, Federal Duck Stamps. The friendly folks at Pegasus don't sell products over the Internet, but they will send special orders to a nearby store if you e-mail a request. Rumor has it that the conceptual landscape artist Christo started his career with a needlepoint kit, so get stitching.
Overall Rating: 17
Washington DC Swing Dance Server
URL: http://catalog.com.meyer/swing.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
Here we have an extensive list of swing dance classes, clubs, instructors, weekly events and more, accompanied by photos of happy residents of our nation's capitol cutting a rug. Information should appeal to everyone from beginners to "Strictly Ballroom" types into serious competition. I can't imagine that anything to do with swing dancing in the DC area has been left out. Obviously, the usefulness of this page decreases the further away you are from DC, but if geography is on your side, it's definitely a useful resource.
Overall Rating: 16
The WWW Arts and Crafts Connection
URL: http://www.craft.com/craft.nbr_frnd/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
Colorful buttons that look like hand-stitched samplers help you around this massive storehouse of arts and crafts information. Categories include books, craft malls, supplies and services, articles and news. It's a snap to find what your looking for, or, in the rare case this site comes up short, find links to somewhere else. If you're not yet an artisan or craftsperson, this site may inspire you begin.
Overall Rating: 18
Juggling Information Service
URL: http://www.hal.com.services/juggle/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
I used to juggle, and can tell you that jugglers are a fixated and focused bunch of humans. This site reflects this obsession, claiming it is "connecting all juggling related resources." I believe it. Colorful ball and club icons shoot you to areas such as festival listings, meetings, a shopping mall from which to order equipment, movie clips and worldwide juggling magazines such as New Zealand's *Flying Kiwi*. If it has to do with throwing objects without dropping them, it's here.
Overall Rating: 17
interBirdNet
URL: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/gf09/index.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
Ask me how England's auks are doing, and I can tell you, "It's been a good month for Little Auks along Britain's North East Coast." I know because I checked out interBirdNet, a resource for bird sightings in the United Kingdom. All sorts of nifty avian info is here: a Red-Neck Grebe was sighted at Cavendish Dock Barrow in Furness. Splendid, just splendid. Technically and aesthetically, this site comes up short, but if you scope birds on the Isles, this is your hangout.
Overall Rating: 14
Air Hockey
URL: http://homepage.interaccess.com/~tweissm/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Scwartz
The air hockey page warns that if you aren't using Netscape, the site might not look the way it's supposed to. I found no Netscape-only tricks to speak of. In fact, I found a dry layout with even dryer pictures. But that's not what Air Hockey is about, and the rest of the site is loaded with content, including: bios of key air hockey personalities, rules and procedures, a terminology glossary, and a few essay-type articles. So while you shouldn't expect to be blown away by innovative design hoopla, this is a great site for die-hard air hockey fans.
Overall Rating: 16
SoccerNet
URL: http://www.soccernet.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Schwartz
SoccerNet is a big, big site for the English and Scottish soccer divisions. Get the latest news and files, link to team profiles (with adorable little shirts and shorts icons that actually match team colors), or place bets in the Soccer Pools area. The graphics for the most part are gaudy, tacky, eye-bending spectacles, but if you can get past that, this is a decent page. Most of the focus is on team profiles, history, players and awards. Not bad.
Overall Rating: 17
Visit to Nepal
URL: http://enigma.phys.utk.edu/~syost/nepal.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
If you're planning a tour of Nepal, visit this site before your departure. It's an outstanding documentary of a one-month trip, and includes an expenses run-down, guide book info, a 70-page travel journal, and dozens of photographs with accompanying text. The overall layout is dry -- standard Netscape gray and prehistoric icon buttons. Still, given the breadth of content, this is a wonderful site.
Overall Rating: 16
Looking for Lovedu
URL: http://www.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/features/lovedu/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
This is a completely inspired and insightful collection of writings from an African journey, in which Ann Jones searches for Lovedu, a tribe "where women rule." Jones lends a beautiful perspective to the travels. Her words flower as she documents landscapes, personalities and cultures with explicit detail. I'm in love with this documentary, and recommend it wholeheartedly. As an added bonus, you'll find magnificent photography.
Overall Rating: 18
GNN Travelers Center
URL: http://www.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Schwartz
With outstanding feature stories and an outstanding list of travel-related resources, GNN hovers near the top of all travel sites. Instead of breaking down travel into logistical compartments of expense reports, packing lists, and so on, GNN documents traveling from the perspective of the people who do it. The stories are real, often exciting, and offer fresh commentary about life on the road.
Overall Rating: 18
United Airlines
URL: http://www.ual.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Fly the friendly skies with a friendly Web site. Cliche? Yes. True? Yes. United indeed has a wonderful Web site for all levels of browser capability. Since I'm running on a T1, I opted for high-capability, and it was well worth it -- pretty layouts and creative ideas abound. Load up with flight schedules and travel tips, read the Mileage Plus newsletter, and find out what the United employee-owners have to say. Good stuff.
Overall Rating: 18
Edge of CyberSpace
URL: http://www.europa.com/~edge/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Schwartz
This is a big home page. There are some wonderful graphics, but they're heavy, and take a while to load. There are mounds of links, and while not organized, it's nice to see them woven into original content. And that is the key phrase that elevates this site -- original content. A lot of time has gone into making this home page different from the standard link list and resume online bit, and for that, it's worth a few peeks. It has a left-leaning, young perspective, with info on the state of Oregon, tons of Internet tips, and a few extra goodies that I'll keep secret.
Overall Rating: 16
Riot Page
URL: http://www.primenet.com/~bandd/riot/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Reviewed in the December issue of The Net, the riot page has undergone an evolution. It got an A before, and I guess it doesn't get much better than that. The site still rocks, with new features, some snazzy HTML tricks, and fresh new content. Her voice rings with grrrl flair, and her link lists are growing quickly and impressively. The best new service: Meet her friends and maybe get a date.
Overall Rating: 18
Princeton Review
URL: http://www.review.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
High school juniors and seniors who simply *must* attend the best universities would do well to visit this site presented by the "nation's leader in test preparation." That's right: The Princeton Review offers classes on preparing for standardized tests like the SAT, GRE, and MCAT, which will later get you into -- guess what? -- more classes. Study, study, study. Achieve, achieve, achieve. That's the Princeton way, but there's no disputing the Review's attraction if you aspire to a career in law, business, or medicine. A search engine eases navigation, but lengthy download times of frivolous graphics may leave you peeved.
Overall Rating: 16
The Flag-Burning Page
URL: http://www.indirect.com/user/warren/flag.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
It's no surprise that this incredibly provocative page has grown so much and been the subject of incessant debate and media attention. The purpose of the page is not to gratuitously burn a flag, as some might think, but to provide a rallying point for opposition to a constitutional amendment (which has been in the works since 1989) to prevent flag burning. And a lot of people on the Internet apparently take it in that spirit, which has lead to a lively discussion archived here. But the really fun stuff to read are the flames that have been sent to the creator of this site.
Overall Rating: 16
Hong Kong Movies
URL: http://www.mdstud.chalmers.se/hkmovie/
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Excellent and plentiful content makes this site a must-browse for anyone interested in the cinematic output of the Hong Kong movie industry. What? You didn't know there was a Hong Kong movie industry? Some of the best action flicks in the world come from Hong Kong, which is where most of the American fan interest lies. This site has a huge, searchable database full of movies, short descriptions, and links to actor bios. For newbies, a letter of introduction lists the top seven movies that everyone should see. The design isn't beautiful, however, sporting a typical browser-gray background.
Overall Rating: 15
Poker Variants
URL: http://www.wolfe.net/~peter/poker/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
When I used to play poker in college, I thought it was a pretty complex game, capable of confusing newbies as each dealer called a different game from a repertoire of about 10. Looking at this site and seeing the many games I'd never heard of has just made me feel like a newbie. Peter Sarrett, who maintains the site, has the games divided up by type, such as "draw" or "stud." The programming is about as basic HTML as you can get, and there are no pictures at all, except for some ASCII diagrams of card layouts.
Overall Rating: 15
The Planet's Empire Archives
URL: http://www.empire.net/~children/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
No fancy graphics, no easy interface, this is a working site set up to support Internet play of the war game Empire. Players rule a country and try to expand its resources by grabbing territory, building up the military, and supporting the civilian population. It's for hard-core gamers only, though, as the FAQ casually states "blitz" games last about 24 hours, and long-term games run two to six months. The client software to play the game is available from this site.
Overall Rating: 14
Conceptual Metaphors
URL: http://cogsci.berkeley.edu/MetaphorHome.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Although designed for cognitive scientists, the Conceptual Metaphor site should be of interest to writers and anyone who enjoys language. The metaphor system being used isn't explained, but it isn't too hard to figure out from the content. There's the "source," the thing being defined, and the "target," the thing the "source" is being compared to. The site indexes metaphors by name, source, and target. It's an ugly, raw site, and the link to references listed the titles of three books without any more information.
Overall Rating: 15
Greek & Roman Cities of Western Turkey
URL: http://rubens.anu.edu.au/turkeybook/toc.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Michael Greenhalgh, a Professor of Art History at the Australian National University, is one academic who has embraced the Web and its possibilities by choosing to publish his book on ancient cities in Turkey, electronically, before the print version came out. It's a fascinating and well-researched topic, but it really lacks in that none of the archived pictures are linked to their references in the text. Also, it's a perfect test of the viability of publishing lengthy texts on the Web and having people read them online.
Overall Rating: 14
Rhiz-o-Mat
URL: http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/~messiah/rhizomat/rhizomat.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The core of this site, the actual Rhiz-o-Mat, is nothing more than a Web quote generator, drawing from the book, *A Thousand Plateaus*, by Deleuze and Guattari, two modern social critics. It 's a particularly annoying generator because the pages are set to auto-reload with a new quote at too rapid a speed to let you read the entire quote. The rest of the site is not technically part of the Rhiz-o-Mat, but it's incredibly strange and funny, and any trip to the Rhiz-o-Mat will likely propel the viewer into other areas of this unique space.
Overall Rating: 17
Spoon Collective
URL: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The University of Virginia, sponsor of the electronic version of the excellent Journal of Postmodern Culture, runs a number of mailing lists under the name Spoon Collective. The lists cover the latest topics and authors of cutting-edge cultural criticism and philosophy, such as Baudrillard, Bakhtin, and Film Theory. The postings to the lists are archived along with general info and longer papers, and, for some topics, a Web page has been built. Follow the instructions to join a list, or just satiate your intellect with the archives.
Overall Rating: 15
Take Down
URL: http://www.takedown.com/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
When renowned computer hacker Kevin Mitnick was arrested in a Raleigh, North Carolina apartment early last year, the event marked not the daring capture of a sociopath, but the easy picking of a frustrated UNIX nerd who was begging to be caught. Mitnick, a "career hacker" if you will, had allowed a potentially harmless pastime to grow into a debilitating obsession. His hacks had become cries for help, the electronic pleas of a loner, an underachiever, the product of a broken home. His capture by the FBI was thus a humanitarian gesture. Marlon Perkins couldn't have tranquilized wounded animals with more noble intentions. This is the Mitnick melodrama as presented by Tsutomu Shimomura, a senior fellow at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Shimomura helped authorities track Mitnick after the hacker invaded and ransacked Shimomura's computers in December 1994. Mitnick was snagged some two month later, implicated in a variety of computer break-ins, and charged with "illegal use of a telephone access device." The entire story can be found on Takedown, a site that details Shimomura's role in the man hunt, and delves into Mitnick's personal history and psychology. The site brims with fascinating minutiae, including replays of some of Mitnick's key Telnet sessions. Sure, you could read the print version of "Takedown," co-authored by Shimomura and *New York Times* reporter John Markoff. And, yes, you can visit the book's official Hyperion promo site. But Shimomura's own Takedown site provides RealAudio samples of John Woo-like phone messages left on his personal answering machine during the height of Mitnick's mischief. Were the messages from Mitnick himself? This has yet to be determined. They are, however, patently bizarre: "Damn you. My technique is the best. My boss is the best. Damn you. I know rdist technique, I know sendmail technique, and my style is much better. Damn you, don't you know who I am? Me and my friends, we'll kill you." A second voice speaks: "Hey boss, your kung fu's really good." Back to the first voice: "That's right, my style is the best." While neither voice may be Mitnick's, the crank call does reflect the playful hacking spirit shared by Mitnick and his brethren. In other words, hacking isn't about stealing money or intellectual property. It's about demonstrating one's own power in a faceless, post-modern society. While Shimomura arrogantly paints himself as a white knight to Mitnick's ugly Quasimodo, he does sketch an accurate and compelling picture of hacking as a pastime-cum-obsession.
Overall Rating: 17
Schwa
URL: http://fringeware.com/SchwaRoot/Schwa.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
What might be bizarre to you is deep brain food to some, and satire to still others. Schwa is whatever you want it to be, a movement of anti-culture or a space alien freak phenomena. The site is as ambiguous as the "movement" itself. Pictures of cartoony little grays (space creatures with big eyes) adorn the Gallery, while sound clips, press clips, and Schwa merchandise fill up the rest. It needs some color, and a suped-up spaceship logo gyrating across the top might be nice. But as far as originality and fun factors go, Schwa rocks!
Overall Rating: 15
CCCnet
URL: http://www.cccnet.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Look out, Sesame Street, make way for the Internet and CCCnet. While CCCnet may not sport the likes of our yellow feathered friend, it's got just as much educational and entertainment value, and it's interactive! A leading publisher of multimedia education titles, Computer Curriculum Corporation wins the honor of being the first Web site to provide original, interactive curriculum online. And it's accomplished this task with exceptional grace. For starters, it looks great. CCN teamed up with the outstanding crew at vivid studios (http://www.vivid.com) in San Francisco to create a high-resolution, creative, and astonishingly quick site. It's powered by a monster SGI server to add to the speed factor, so even those with slower connections can reap the benefits of nice graphics. CCCnet offers lesson plans to teachers on a subscription basis -- though no fees have been set yet. It also supports these teachers with a message board to interact with other teachers and post questions (both technical and subjective). The super bonus: For two hours everyday, there's a tech person live, online, to answer questions immediately. CCCnet also encourages parents to get involved with a "school-home" section. This way, parents get to participate in what their kids are learning and offer help and encouragement. My favorite part about the site: It strives to teach children not only about the subjects at hand -- math, science, the environment, art, etc. -- but also how to use the Internet and maximize the Web. Many of the assignments involve children using the Web actively to complete projects -- using search engines, libraries, and other online resources to hunt down information. Students are also encouraged to network and communicate with students at other schools involved in the program. Very cool. The current online project, Energy Flow In Amazonia, teaches kids about life forms in the rainforest. The final assignment is to pick an organism (of the millions living in the Amazon, from protozoa to tiger), learn about it, and post its biography online, in a templated Web form. Kids from all across the country will be adding to the real-time food chain. Outstanding! This site is one of the most innovative Web accomplishments I've seen so far, and I can only hope it's positive precedence will be replicated many times over. Teachers, pay attention to these kats.
Overall Rating: 18
Media Literacy On-Line
URL: http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/HomePage
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Media Literacy is a movement to educate youth and adults about the media -- how to use and maximize its benefits, and how to guard against its tricks. The Web site is a stockpile collection of, you guessed it, media literacy-related information available online. While there isn't an extreme amount of original content filling up the bandwidth (nor will you find snazzy graphics or HTML 3.0 wizardry), it is outstanding as a collection of resource links in one convenient place. With smart organization and enough color to keep us from getting the "Netscape Gray" blues, this is a very valuable site.
Overall Rating: 17
Air-Medical
URL: http://www.cris.com/~Seaox/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
How exciting it would be to perform medical procedures of critical importance in helicopters and planes. I was instantly drawn to a site about being a flight nurse. Air-Medical covers education requirements, archives a monthly newsletter about the profession, links resources and organizations, and has a classified section for job openings at Florida Hospital. The design isn't so brilliantly executed; in fact, it's rather bland, but the info is interesting.
Overall Rating: 16
American Cancer Society
URL: http://www.cancer.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
If there is a better-designed, more informative non-profit health site than this, I sure haven't seen it. Cancer.org for the American Cancer Society (ACS) is outstanding in just about every aspect. The layout and overall impact demand respect. And the amount of information archived here is astonishing. On the top level, the ACS highlights four main areas: Golf; SmokeScream (anti-smoking propaganda); Breast Cancer Network; and How To Contribute. I admit to being slightly confused at the significance of "golf" on a cancer information Web site, but it seems the ACS has a few clubs around the country that have a special deal for people wishing to contribute. Kinda dull, but wait, hang onto your seat for the rest of the ride -- it's long, colorful, and full of medical facts, statistics, research data, grant resource info, links, and more more more. Quite impressive is the SmokeScream area, which specifically targets younger net surfers. It's by far the brightest section with the coolest of cool graphics. Follow IkeMan, the hip icon-o-graphic mascot, as he gives us facts about smoking, invites us to play a "clean the lungs" trivia game, and answers questions in a "Dear Ike" column. It's a little funny that Ike, obviously a 30+ writer/editor type, is pretending to be a teenage hipster. He messes up a lot of the "cool" and "groovy" jargon with awkward, out-of-context type blunders, but overall, he tries. We'll give him points for that. And, besides, the message is good: Kids and adults shouldn't smoke cigarettes if they hope to breathe well for a long time. The SmokeScream area also plays some Netscape frames tricks, incorporates Macromedia's Shockwave, and offers a nice young people-focused link list. The Breast Cancer Network is one of the online authorities for women's health. It's packed with statistics about breast cancer -- who it affects, at what age, and survival rates. The site also offers diet and fitness recommendations, discusses several treatment options, and has a well-supported "recovery" section. The graphics here are simple, yet pleasing and quick. There will be no waiting around for pages or image maps to load. Nice. And while my Netscape browser tells me that transactions at cancer.org aren't secure, they still have an online donation form: Visa, MasterCard, American Express. Though I'm sure it's a safe as any of them, you might feel better committing to a little volunteer time instead -- call the 800 number for details. This is a win-win site!
Overall Rating: 18
Secret History of the United States 1962 1995
URL: http://ucunix.san.uc.edu/~taylorrm/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Any site boasting to reveal secrets is A.O.K by me! And secrets about U.S. history are even more entertaining, as the small details that link assassins to Hollywood to dead presidents and UFOs have always been especially fascinating. While this site may not boast an extraordinary repertoire of HTML bells and whistles (no color, no tricks, and few stylie graphics), it's phat with interesting text and links. Search the site by major topics -- Nuclear, UFOs, Drugs, National Debt, and civil rights, or click on a year. The site creator also built the conspiracy pages at http://www.uc.edu/~taylorrm, go figure.
Overall Rating: 16
Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats
URL: http://members.aol.com/glud/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
This is a nice example of how to disseminate information about a political organization. Not only does GLUD (Gay and Lesbian Utah Democrats) provide ample info about the group, with contact information and instructions on how to join, it also has some original content. GLUD has plenty of news clippings, updates about hot issues, and an action alert section to keep activists busy and informed.
Overall Rating: 18
Feminist Majority Foundation
URL: http://www.feminist.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
While this may not be the best non-profit women's site (it proudly displays this award from Impact Online), it is the best feminist resource site I've found. News, urgent action alerts, links to university resources, online zines, and additional feminist Web sites are well-presented in a snazzy HTML package -- with forms, tables, image maps, etc. The "911" section is outstanding, with links to domestic violence and sexual harassment resources. It's regularly updated and should be a very important item on any feminist's bookmark list.
Overall Rating: 18
Republican Main Street
URL: http://www.rnc.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
While most of us are completely bored with the main street/town hall/cyber community metaphor found on far too many Web sites, "Republican Main Street" pulls it off quite gracefully -- it's graphically strong and never overbearing. It's a site for all things Republican: video clips of Republicans on TV, regular updates on the Republican National Convention, bulletin boards, guestbooks, and live chats for starters. Especially interesting is the "school" section, which illustrates the history of the party and how to run for office. Well done.
Overall Rating: 18
Tres Bizzare
URL: http://ucunix.san.uc.edu/%7Esolkode/tres_bizar/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Sometimes there is a case to be made that a site is good, even without a shred of original content. Those questing for "bizarre" sites on the Web no longer need to rely on casual coincidence (i.e., the occasional click to an unexpected surprise), but can now count on Dave's Tres Bizarre page. Dave hunts around for kooky sites and posts a new one each day. (He also archives the old ones.) And to his credit, the sites he chooses are, in fact, very kooky and creative, and will link you to the Web-O-Tainment you may be looking for. YeeHaw! Nice layout, too.
Overall Rating: 18
The Giant Hatpin Collection
URL: http://wnc.com/hemsath/hatpin.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Here is the work of someone who is either extremely patient or very obsessed. Or perhaps both. I can do nothing but revere this site, which functions as a tribute to one person's hatpin collection. View the top level group photo, or see the collection divided into categories -- animals, military, boy scout, safety awards, etc. But the clincher is: Each and every one of these buggers also has a close-up treatment photo, for detailed inspections, no doubt. It's quite a spectacle.
Overall Rating: 17
Troquista Home Page
URL: http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~ldevlin/troquista.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Arm your guns, we're warriors in a monster truck shoot-out. The Troquistas have joined forces with other anti-Doctress fanatics to bring us this site -- one of many, anti-Neutopian Web pages. (The Doctress is a bizarre Usenet newsgroup personality who spews utopian-like visions she calls Neutopia.) While the Troquista sect of the rebel force has a small page with some less-than-savvy design skills (links to ASCII text and a distracting background), it's possible you might not care about graphics by this point. The content is so very hysterical that it *should* be read. Outstanding!
Overall Rating: 16
Froggy Page
URL: http://www.cs.yale.edu/HTML/YALE/CS/HyPlans/loosemore-sandra/froggy.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Ribbit. If you like frogs -- ribbit ribbit -- you'll certainly enjoy the Froggy Page, with its dozens and dozens of frog-related links and info. First, you get froggy pictures. Mostly, the image section consists of links to other sites that contain frog GIFs and JPEGs. But then, there are froggy sounds, froggy songs, and froggy tales -- "The Toad Prince," and "The Wind in the Willows," to name a few. The frog anatomy section will fulfill the needs of the scientist within and, of course, there's quite a list of Kermit thee frog links, too. And remember, on the Internet, nobody knows you're a frog...
Overall Rating: 17
Widescreen Movie Center
URL: http://www.cheezmo.com/wsmc/
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
If you love letterbox film, this is your site. You'll find archives of letterbox films on TV and in the theaters, links to additional resources, and the real juice: a guide to which letterbox films will be on television each month (searchable by time zone and what cable channels, if any, you subscribe to). The layout is clean and simple, as the site is more of a functional database than anything else. And the logo at the bottom, Just Say No Steve Martin, is clever (in pretentious art film circles anyway).
Overall Rating: 18
Online Movie Guide
URL: http://www.losangeles.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
The first impression: gaudy. The second impression: confusing. But upon deeper inspection and reckless clicking, I found some useful information about films on TV and video, and reviews of films in theaters in Los Angeles. However, the reviews section is an atrocious eye sore -- there's an obvious attempt to get everything on one page, even if it means requiring a magnifying lens to read it. Ouch. This service is also available for Chicago (http://www.chicagowww.com/), Denver (http://www.denver.com/), and New York (http://www.newyorkwww.com/).
Overall Rating: 15
rec.arts.movies archive
URL: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/mleone/web/movies.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
A FAQ is a FAQ and for the most part, neat-o images and suave design tactics are not to be expected. So, as suspected, this archive of the rec.arts.movies Usenet newsgroup is relatively dull to look at. Straight gray backgrounds with blue links to info about specific films (presented a la ASCII text, of course) is pretty much par for the course. Nonetheless, if you're a follower of the newsgroup or particularly interested in famous quotes, Oscars, or a few specific films, such as Resevoir Dogs or The Looney Toons, it's pretty packed.
Overall Rating: 15
School Is Dead
URL: http://pages.prodigy.com/S/C/D/School_is_dead/Learn_in_freedom.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Not only are kids rebelling against formalized schooling, their parents are, as well; and, as sites we've reviewed in the Blue Pages have shown, there are plenty of Web resources out there for those interested in home schooling. But what about "no-schoolers"? For both groups, Karl Bunday's site is a convincing (although ugly) collection of quotes and arguments emphasizing that the one who learns best schools least. The points are presented as one heavily linked screed, making the site great for browsing, but it's hard to find specific information unless you use the index.
Overall Rating: 15
Urban Education Web
URL: http://eric-web.tc.columbia.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Learning about learning: that's what the Urban Education Web is about. It's part of the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), a well-known and highly-respected database of studies on education. It, in turn, is funded by the U.S. Department of Education. All these layers of support point to two attributes of this Web site: it's densely academic, and it's excellently supported. Here, you'll not only find out if the government has published information about gangs in the schools, you'll probably find the monographs themselves, hyperlinked internally and with other documents. I don't know what poor souls are sitting in a windowless office doing all this, but they deserve to be thanked.
Overall Rating: 16
General Organic and Biochemistry
URL: http://odin.chemistry.uakron.edu/genobc/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
There are lots of Web sites designed to supplement college courses, but most of them fall just short of the mark. Not this site! Designed to supplement the textbook "Chemistry for Today," it includes dozens of concise and illustrative slides the professor used to compliment his lectures -- and his use of frames in presenting the material is inspired. He even includes a summary and form-based test! Visit his other classes via The Virtual Classroom at http://odin.chemistry.uakron.edu/classroom.html. And don't miss his "favorite excuses from students" page at http://odin.chemistry.uakron.edu/excuses/.
Overall Rating: 18
Global Online Adventure Learning Site
URL: http://www.goals.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
John Oman, a sailing adventurer, left the port of Seattle in November 1995 with the hopes of sailing around the world in 150 days via his 60-foot yacht. He may be alone at sea, but we've been invited to follow along via this Wev site: Read his logs, check the current sailing conditions in his location, see pictures he's taken, and even consult maps indicating his position. As a result, we get a superb background in the nautical sciences. His isn't the only travelogue on the Web, but it's one of the most "realistic," with hard data augmenting his lyrical notes. This site is a must for all would-be seafarers.
Overall Rating: 17
College Board Online
URL: http://cbweb1.collegeboard.org/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The College Board oversees tests such as the SAT and AP exams, administers financial aid programs, suggests standards among its 3,000 member schools, and acts as a general intermediary between students and colleges. And now, many of its services are available via the Web, through colorful image maps, clever forms, and genius-level search engines. Separate indices direct students, guidance counselors, faculty, and member schools to the most relevant information. The technical level is high, making this a user-friendly entry to the intimidating world of college admissions.
Overall Rating: 17
Voyager Guerrilla Girls
URL: http://www.voyagerco.com/gg/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
For almost a decade, the Guerrilla Girls have been wheat-pasting healthy doses of post-feminist modernist agit-prop onto buildings, poles, and the minds of the world. Using their trademark creative approach of targeting sexism, physical abuse, and any "boys club" that emerges with irony and DTP, the Guerrilla Girls have risen to the New Media occasion with this Web site.The site is a clean, elegant archive of their posters -- political art that also serves as a catalog of this decade's fight for women's equality. As their slogan states, the Guerrilla Girls "could be anyone. We are everywhere." Be ready.
Overall Rating: 16
Skeleton Closet
URL: http://www.realchange.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The dirt is what drives us. In this Closet is a beautiful summary of the allegations and confirmed scandals surrounding our glorious leaders and those who want to be. Get insight into Bob Dole's short fuse, Clinton's Whitewater past, and Newt's rubber checks. With plenty of information and, most importantly, a comprehensive list of sources for the tidbits, the Skeleton Closet is where I'll be hanging my hat during the fall of 1996, when things really start to get interesting.
Overall Rating: 17
The Film Zone
URL: http://www.filmzone.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"Oh no," I thought, "not another Web zine dedicated to film and its followers." What a pleasant surprise to find well-written articles on a variety of subjects, organized in a thoughtful fashion -- and making fine use of frames, too! Foreign films, independents, animated works, and more are treated right alongside the usual Hollywood giants. This site sent me down to the local video store in search of a half dozen different titles -- high praise. This page is a rare thing indeed: a film-devoted site worth visiting for its content as well as its images.
Overall Rating: 17
Humphrey Bogart Page
URL: http://www.macconsult.com/mikerose/bogart/bogart.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"Oh boy, another fan site!" Long ago, I thought the Web might actually be a tool of empowerment; too many half-baked fan sites later, I am forced to admit: I was mistaken. Despite my growing hatred for the fan site, I can still proclaim this one of the finest fan pages I have come across. Lots of images, sound files, and trivia will delight the Bogart fan. Especially noteworthy is the excellent arrangement and presentation; whether by accident or planning, the creator has done a marvelous job here!
Overall Rating: 17
Cusimano: Surrealist Artist
URL: http://www.terraport.net/archiavv/
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Surrealist art isn't always a myriad of melting clocks. On the Cusimano: Surrealist Artist site, visitors wander through six galleries that feature paintings and drawings of desert roses, carousel horses, and levitating lips. The Canadian artist, Joseph Cusimano, explains every painting to help art lovers grasp the meaning behind an image as perplexing as his human tree. Cusimano, more than his art, resembles Dali (it's the mustache). Visit this site for a good dose of bizarre art and metaphysical madness.
Overall Rating: 17
DIA Center for the Arts
URL: http://www.diacenter.org/
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
If artists painted not from the soul but from the results of a market research survey, they would find a happy home at the DIA Center for the Arts in New York. DIA features experimental art, such as an online exhibit called, "The Most Wanted Paintings on the Web." These paintings reflect the artists' interpretations of a professional market research survey about style and taste; in turn, the site was created to please the greatest number of people. Visitors who fill out the online survey help determine future art and exhibits, making the site interactive and constantly evolving.
Overall Rating: 16
Welcome to the Whitney Museum of American Art
URL: http://www.echonyc.com/~whitney/
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The Whitney Museum of American Art understands America's quest for its own artistic identity and celebrates new, talented artists on its Web site. Whitney features beautiful paintings of railroad sunsets and morose roses. Learn why the Beat Generation influenced American art and culture in the 1960s. Walk on the wild side in the "Altered and Irrational" section (zebra skin and Day-Glo?). Or witness oddities created from rubberized hair, mirror glass, and wood. The Whitney Museum represents some of the best, most obscure art in America with an equally exceptional Web site.
Overall Rating: 16
The Castles of Wales
URL: http://www.wp.com/castlewales/home.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
If a man's home is his castle, then what is his home page? The Castles of Wales site presents visitors with more than just a few photos of royal casas. Learn the difference between the Norman and Edward castles. View short sketches on Wales' principal castle builders, and read an examination of what motivated their creations. Test your knowledge with the Welsh Castle Quiz, and discover why Chepstow Castle in southeast Wales is one of the best castles to visit. This site offers plenty of information on the history behind these majestic land marks. The Castles of Wales is a Web site fit for a king.
Overall Rating: 16
K12 World
URL: http://www.k-12world.com/home.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you are a K12 teacher with a fair amount of patience, amble on over to K12 World, a very tidy and useful site packed with Web resources of interest to you. You'll need patience because there are two top pages for each topic, and the download can be mighty slow. But once you're in, you'll find classroom goodies; (Internet) library information; funding sources; lesson plans; and more. Especially cool is Internet Live, a page of live camera links and exploration events geared to eager net students. The Classroom area features several disciplines, so whether you teach science, journalism, or art, there are helpful links for you here.
Overall Rating: 15
Wellspring
URL: http://wellmedia.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Wellspring is a lovely oasis -- a very pleasant stopping place in your Web travels. There's a weekly newsletter with short, pithy commentary (with references, thank you) on topics like "detox with sweet potatoes" and "Chinese hangover cure." The tone is helpful and accessible, and numerous back issues are available. The producers of Wellspring also promote mental-physical-spiritual health through videos, but selling is strictly low-key here. Take a breather from your frenetic schedule and stop at Wellspring for some words of wisdom and inspiration about getting to "total wellness."
Overall Rating: 16
Borderline Personalities
URL: http://www.dds.nl/~harwijn/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
BPD is a form of mental illness marked by sudden rage and mood swings, self-destructive behavior, chaotic relationships, and the like. Here's a very thoughtful site that offers hope, information, and common sense for all concerned about the disorder. There are Internet resources -- FAQs, mailing lists, and multiple Web pages -- as well as a nicely annotated bibliography of lay and professional books on the subject. You can go to the archive of alt.support.personality to read more, or learn about the the AOL-specific folders and conferences (no links, though). It's maintained by two individuals who are providing a real service.
Overall Rating: 16
Names Project
URL: http://www.aidsquilt.org
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The "AIDS Quilt" is a huge AIDS education project that memorializes those who have died from the disease. This Web page (beautiful as it is valuable) for the Names Project, home of the Quilt, extends its educational value by offering statistics like these: 3,000 women are infected each day; 5 million *more* children will be infected by the year 2000; it's the leading cause of death for Americans aged 25-44. The Names project also produces traveling exhibits of portions of the quilt, now too large to be shown in full. (There will be a one-time display of the entire 33,000 panels in October 96 in Washington, D.C.) There's also information on making panels, related local events, and Names Project memorabilia.
Overall Rating: 17
The Body
URL: http://www.thebody.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
This "multimedia AIDS and HIV information resource" is a good model for providing news, commentary, and pointers to a whole range of information about a complex disease (and social phenomenon) like AIDS. The home page offers definitions, and info on safe sex and prevention, diet and nutrition, experimental drugs, and lots more. Equally important for the activist are links to groups advocating more research and medical access, education, patient advocacy, and so on. The Body also offers a forum (with anonymous registration) for ongoing personal discussion, a calendar of events, and summaries of related organizations.
Overall Rating: 16
Lifelines Health Page
URL: http://www.lifelines.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Lifelines is a fairly useful meta-site with lots of good links, some helpful tidbits, and a pleasantly light sales pitch. (The company makes various health maintenance products as an employee benefit program for other corporations.) Even knowing that, Lifelines offers a good library of annotated articles, regular newsletter,s and pointers to medical, nutrition, and fitness links. These links are wide-ranging: from alternative healing to the American Medical Association, computer-related health issues to sports medicine to the World Health Organization. This page alone (http://www.lifelines.com/medlnks.html) is a good resource.
Overall Rating: 16
LoserNet
URL: http://www.calpoly.edu/~ttokuuke/loserHP.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
LoserNet is the continuing online journal of a truly pathetic, purported 42-year-old virgin loser. Almost every day, he adds a paragraph to a continuing saga describing his escapades to the gym, where he feels awkward, or his time at home in a tiny apartment, where he obsesses about his neighbors. Sad as it is, the journal kept me occupied for over an hour, and I had hardly scratched the surface. Sure, there are no graphics, and the 115k text files are a bit awkward to load, but it's sort of like watching a car wreck. Read it before he goes into therapy and becomes normal.
Overall Rating: 15
MELVIN
URL: http://www.melvin.com/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
MELVIN is a humor magazine that bills itself as America's First Web site. While it might not be the first, it's certainly one of the better ones. Opening with a big newspaper-esque splash page with a "fake" tabloid story headline, MELVIN stands out. Followed by more "news" items, pop culture articles, and even interviews with bands, the magazine manages to be funny most of the time. Navigating the site is a bit of an exercise, however, as a clear table of contents is hard to find. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a new issue posted since June 1995. Too bad.
Overall Rating: 16
NannyMUD
URL: http://www.lysator.liu.se/nanny/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Kathy Tafel
NannyMUD's home page is more extensive than Elendor's. This may be more indicative of long Swedish winters than any real necessity for such depth of content. That, and it's been around for almost six years. NannyMUD is medieval in theme, with magic thrown in for kicks. The home page explains the environment, some of the quests, and the technology used to create the MUD. There are also pictures of most of the wizards and even some mere mortals. The MUD itself seems much more goal-oriented than Elendor.
Overall Rating: 17
Official Guinness
URL: http://www.itl.net/guinness/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This is a site no member of the cult of Guinness should miss. There are delightful treats to downloaded -- a Guinness screen saver and wall paper composed of your favorite Guinness advertisements. There's also a Guinness FAQ to answer your age-old stout questions. So open a can of pub-draught, pull up a chair, and step into the virtual pub.
Overall Rating: 13
SRI International
URL: http://www.sri.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
SRI, a non-profit research organization spun off from Stanford University, has created a Web site detailing its services and projects. There's a lot of information, much of it quite technical, about what the organization is up to. Amateur scientists with an interest in applied scientific research could spend hours at this site reading about fascinating projects. Industrial executives considering research collaborations could also spend hours scooping out good ideas. It's a fascinating organization, and the site does a good job of chronicling its activities.
Overall Rating: 16
Andersen Consulting
URL: http://www.ac.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Anderson is an international giant in the management and high-tech consulting industry. This means that some of the best and brightest minds around work on the Anderson payroll and Web site. If you're interested in technology, you'll find fascinating reading here, from tomes on the future of multimedia to analyses of retailing on the Internet. The site has a slight feel of having been thrown together rather than planned, but I didn't find that too much of a distraction. Job recruitment, technology discussion forums, and Internet news also make this site of value.
Overall Rating: 16
Codex Privacy Site
URL: http://www.thecodex.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Playground for the paranoid. Codex offers electronic eavesdropping products and services, including things no one can live without, such as a Conference Room RF Shielding device. The site has a great section of links; anyone into conspiracy theory will love them. From Mossad to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the links cover topics such as hacking, privacy, spying, and international intrigue. The site also offers practical information (such as how to tap a phone). You also have the chance to order an e-mail version of its catalog (I enjoyed it) or to subscribe to the newsletter. Don't miss the disclaimer in the How To section.
Overall Rating: 16
The Hitchcock Page
URL: http://www.primenet.com/~mwc/
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
If you've ever seen Rear Window, and watched the first 20 minutes closely, noticing how each of the neighboring windows Jimmy Stewart is observing reflects the character of its occupant, you know the attention to detail Alfred Hitchcock put into his films. If you've ever sat through Suspicion and been completely mystified about whether Cary Grant was a killer or not, even after the ending, you know why they call Hitchcock the master of suspense. And if the final scene of North By Northwest --the train entering a tunnel -- wasn't lost on you, you've got some idea of Hitchcock's sense of humor. None of this has been lost on Mark Claunch, the creator of the Hitchcock Page, either. "Hitchcock's true genius was how he used all of the tools of film-making," Mark says as an explanation of his admiration for the film-maker. Mark does more than present information about Hitchcock's films on this site; he presents a study of the art of film-making through a picture-by-picture breakdown of the shower scene from Psycho. This section of the site offers a choice of going through the scene manually, by clicking a link, or choosing the server-push option, which will automatically load the next still in the sequence. Though the pictures are small, there are more than 50 of them, it still takes some time to get through. The Filmography section of the site is a very nicely programmed listing of Hitchcock's 56 films, broken down by decade, with links to the Internet Movie Database for further information. At the bottom of this page, in a box titled Other Film Work, are films where Hitchcock did other work, such as Title Card Design (his first job in the film business). Of particular interest is the cameo section, which lists where all of Hitchcock's brief appearances in his films occur. Hitchcock appeared as a bystander in 37 of his films. Under Feedback, Mark has a form set up so people can vote on their favorite films and send him their own comments about the site or Hitchcock in general. The Awards section starts off with a list of Internet users' top 10 Hitchcock films based on the votes received in the Feedback section, placing the Internet community's vote above such petty organizations as the Motion Picture Academy.
Overall Rating: 17
The Tankers Homepage Strategic Simulation Gaming and Military History
URL: http://www.webspace.com/~tanker/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
War games are probably a guy thing. Moving cardboard counters that represent tanks, squads, airplanes, or ships around a board with the intention of outmaneuvering an opponent (commonly referred to as "the enemy"), all the while imagining the smoke and fire of battle, sounds pretty ridiculous on the surface, but it taps into some subconscious death struggle motif. The four or six hours it takes to play a game get swallowed by the intense concentration, the seriousness with which you contemplate moving the right elements of your forces to make a breach in the enemy lines that can be exploited. Paul J. Calvi Jr. has been war-gaming for more than a decade. He's also a graduate of the U.S. Army Armor School and the Armor Officer Basic Course at Ft. Knox. More recently, he's been working as a Web master. His HTML programming skills and his interest in military strategy have led to the Tanker's Homepage, which is probably the most complete source of war game information on the Web. There are game reviews, club listings, game release information, and articles on strategy and game design. Surprisingly enough, most traditional board war games haven't been converted into computer format. "The conventional wisdom has been that a computer game couldn't simulate the complexity of a board game," says Paul, "but I think that is a bunch of nonsense." Because war games take a lot longer to learn than most games, computer game companies "seem to believe that a realistic war game will not appeal to the masses." But a few recent arrivals on the computer war game scene have given Paul hope that the next two years will see a big expansion in the market. The Tanker's Homepage has more than just games, however. A substantial portion of it is taken up by military history. Included are book excerpts and papers discussing wars from the Civil to the Gulf. One of the most fascinating areas are the veterans' stories -- accounts from soldiers, sailors, and airmen about their combat and non-combat experiences. Rounding it all out is a section with reviews of war-related movies. Following the open discussion nature of the Internet, Paul publishes submissions, and runs two boards where users can post and reply on the site.
Overall Rating: 16
New York Trash
URL: http://www.nytrash.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Most tourists remember New York City for its smell more than for its taste, and online, it's no different. New York Trash is the seedy guide to a city with no party limits. Get the dirt on the bands, bars, and behavior that keeps New York City fun and trashy. The guide a la dumpster is sectioned off by migraines (weird rants), earaches (music reviews), eyesores (party pics), and cramps (Internet links and guest book). Even Blondie's Debbie Harry has her own section of photos and handwritten lyric scans. Dive into this dumpster site for the goods on the Rotten Apple.
Overall Rating: 17
Supermodel Home Page
URL: http://www.supermodel.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Even supermodels can be geek girls. Read about your favorite leggy lass on the Supermodel Home Page. SuperModels in the Rainforest is a special section meant to not only show beautiful models prancing around the trees but to teach us about the fragile ecosystem, animals and native peoples. Another section introduces visitors to one of Ford Modeling Agency's Supermodel of the Year, Monika Schnarre, with insights on her make-up tips and fashion secrets. Parts of the site is still under construction, but the elaborate quality of the home page suggests supermodels can walk down the Information Superhighway just as gracefully as a fashion show runway.
Overall Rating: 17
New York Times
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The News York Times prints all the news that's fit to print... online. This is one of the best national daily newspapers online that uses hypertext to explain articles in-depth. Read about the latest news, or go into a feature about Internet legislation. The newspaper requires you register at the beginning in order to read everything, but it's worth it! The photos capture moments of tragedy and triumph. Who said newspapers were going out of style?
Overall Rating: 18
The Data Lounge
URL: http://www.datalounge.com/trudy/index.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Why are drag queens always in the desert these days? There was Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, there was Patrick Swayze playing Vida Boheme, and now there's Trudy, host of the Data Lounge. Is it that we, as a culture, respond to this juxtaposition between the raw natural and the extremely artificial because the industrial revolution has filled our lives with manufactured goods? Or is it that nothing in those vast open spaces can upstage a drag queen's fabulous couture? Trudy knows. Trudy is an exiled Manhattanite glamor queen on a mission of destiny to add color and style to the Arizona desert. The Data Lounge is her little spot of culture in those arid lands, where she logs on to the Internet to write entries into her Dearest Darling Diary, respond to Calling Cards, and post 'Lectric Letters. Her diary tells the tale of how she packed her bags and left Manhattan, her trip into the desert, and her many adventures into Los Angeles or back to New York for Wigstock. Calling Cards are where we, Trudy's admiring masses, can send her our comments or pleas for advice, and if grace is smiling upon us, she will post our words with her reply. Some of Trudy's special friends, whose missives get posted in 'Lectric Letters, are Mr. Jewel, who keeps Trudy informed by writing her about the various Broadway shows he sees, Sage, who writes Trudy poems and has intimated that Trudy is her mother, and the Marquessa Areta von Kass, who tells Trudy of her dating tribulations. But are these electronic words enough for one such as Trudy, once the premier socialite of Manhattan? Can the lizards and cactus compare to the fashionable boys and girls walking down Fifth Avenue? Of course not, but at least Trudy has Sir Lancelot, her faithful German Shepherd, to keep her company on those long desert nights. But not to worry that anything untoward is going on, that Sir Lancelot's doggy innocence is being taken advantage of. He's got his own section at the Data Lounge where he offers his opinions on politics and the state of his digestion. But Trudy can't be online all the time to help those less fortunate as the desert wind would make her skin positively ruddy if she didn't take time out to put on a moisturizing mask. To give her time for beauty, a clever little bit of programming, the Draginatrix, takes over while she's away. By answering a series of questions, the Draginatrix will provide the user with a whole new drag queen makeover.
Overall Rating: 17
Duke Papyrus Archive
URL: http://odyssey.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/homepage.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
We're used to classical names for archival Web pages. But while Project Gutenberg isn't centered around that German bookmaker, Duke's Papyrus Archive is all about... drum roll, please... Egyptian papyrus! More than 1,300 papyri (yes, that's the plural) are cataloged here, with descriptions, translations, and images of the documents in two resolutions. These pictures were the most exciting part of the site for me: seeing the actual scraps of linen from which scholars have reconstructed an entire world. Fully searchable, although there's not as much cross-linking as there could be.
Overall Rating: 16
Irish History
URL: http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~jdana/irehist.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Sometimes you come across a Web site that impresses with the depth of one person's passion and dedication. Such is the case for the Irish History on the Web site, managed by Jacqueline Dana. At first blush, it seems like the usual collection of links: but what makes this site unusual is that (a) the links are well-organized and relevant, and (b) a lot of the linked material is by Ms. Dana herself. There's an unquestionable bias toward Irish nationalism, but whether you're for or a'gin' it, the history alone makes this site worth a visit.
Overall Rating: 16
SPEED
URL: http://www.arts.ucsb.edu:80/~speed/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
SPEED is an online zine which, in its own words, "...provides a forum for the critical investigation of technology, media, and society." That's a tall order, but SPEED seems to be up to it. The young publication combines the critical writing of an academic journal with the hit-and-run graphic style of Wired, giving both immediate appeal to the eye and delayed gratification for the brain. As of February, only two issues were up, so stay tuned. But how long can they keep this up? Better visit now before everyone there gets burned out.
Overall Rating: 17
Media History Project
URL: http://spot.colorado.edu/~rossk/history/histhome.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Marshall McLuhan alerted Americans to the intricacies of the media, and watching the watchmen has since become a popular sport. The Media History Project is a great place to learn the basic histories of the telephone, TV, music, comics, and other methods humans have developed to get the word out. Colorful icons and sharp writing egg you on to further discovery, but some links are sadly broken, and the multicolored text is hard to read on some monitors. Teachers will wet themselves over the included syllabi, anal retentives will dig the site's organization, and all will be edified.
Overall Rating: 17
Pattern of Knowledge
URL: http://www.tiac.net/users/kba/pok.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Art Bardige of Cambridge, MA offers up an elaborate and thoughtful theory about the history of human invention. It's a noble attempt. Enter into Bardige's construction. The meta-chart is too tidy and clipped for me, but the text is interesting, if biased (remember, you've been warned). He feels that the years 1859-1865 "were the most extraordinary in all human knowledge," based on this output: Darwin's Origin of the Species and Marx's Das Kapital, among others. If you like this kind of thinking, come in for a read far removed from the daily grind.
Overall Rating: 16
Skeptics Society
URL: http://www.skeptic.com/skeptics-society.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
"I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them." The Skeptics Society has adopted these words of the Dutch philosopher Spinoza as their motto. The Society publishes a magazine and holds regular conferences to investigate cultural and scientific ideas on religion, conspiracy theories, life after death, urban myths, and paranormal events. Their page includes selected articles from the magazine, papers, interviews, and an excellent reference page of other skeptical sites. A thoughtful and low-key presentation is what you'll find here, as befits intelligent skeptics, which these folks seem to be.
Overall Rating: 15
Bertrand Russell
URL: http://www.crl.com/~bpmac/russell.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Mathematician, philosopher, agnostic, libertarian socialist - Bertrand Russell was a larger than life character. Created by Russell admirer Bruce McLeod, the page contains the text of a number of Russell's speeches and essays. You have to dig through some links to find a bio of this controversial and considerable intellectual, but it's worth it if you don't know him. Russell, who was British, was actively prohibited from lecturing on US college campuses, vilified by the Catholic Church, and generally viewed as trouble by the establishment. You'll find several of his best-known pieces here, including "Why I Am Not a Christian," and "What Is the Soul?"
Overall Rating: 16
Spirit-WWW
URL: http://www.spiritweb.org/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you're curious about spiritual matters broadly defined, gravitate to Rene Muller's Spirit Web. This gent has built a thoughtful and useful site featuring articles, a useful glossary, and links to more info on topics like yoga, meditation, UFOs, reincarnation, and channeling. He has selected a number of articles and essays for each topic, so you get a variety of voices. And he includes a metaphysical bibliography, an event calendar, relevant e-mail contacts, and "spiritual web chat," where you can discuss spiritual beliefs and mysteries with others. An excellent stop for the open-minded spiritually inclined among us.
Overall Rating: 16
Intentional Communities
URL: http://www.well.com/user/cmty/index.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Intentional communities have an honorable history and a pretty good Web site. The notion of shared living today is brought to us by earnest folks who want to find better ways to live together, share resources, and create ecologically and environmentally smart living arrangements. These might include housing coops, land trusts, and eco-villages as well as actual communes. Here you'll find articles, listings and descriptions, events, and products from and for communitarians. As you might expect, the crew building this site, sponsored by the Fellowship for Intentional Community, keeps a regular diary (with links) of their Web updates.
Overall Rating: 16
The Millennium Matters
URL: http://www.newciv.org/millennium_matters/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Feeling anxious about global warming, virus outbreaks, or over-population? Run, do not walk to The Millennium Matters for a long perspective on these and other crises affecting Planet Earth. Millennialists come in all shapes and dogmas; it's safe to say they believe that virtually all our daily experiences point to the end of life as we know it. Many of these pages cover UFOs, New Age spirituality, and communalism and the links offer further reading, FAQs, newsgroups, and the like for a wide, wide array of subjects. If nothing else, dipping into these pages will give you a vivid taste of a culture in the making.
Overall Rating: 16
Jack Vance Archive
URL: http://www.hw.nl/~remy/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Fans of award-winning Sci Fi and Fantasy author Jack Vance will be in the Web world of their dreams after a visit to this site. The archive's comprehensive bibliography of Vance's published novels, short stories and collections is a much-needed resource for anyone familiar with the extremely prolific writer. Looking for a first edition of The Languages of Pao? A marketplace for rare Vance artifacts is under construction on the site and will surely be a welcome resource for the dedicated Vance collector, earthbound or otherwise.
Overall Rating: 16
ABBAnatic
URL: http://www.dlc.com/funnyguy/abba.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
What's an ABBAnatic? A mental patient who slaves away on a Web page about Scandanavia's finest pop quartet. Featuring primo graphics, lyrics to all of ABBA's songs, track listings, and cover art to all the albums (including a bunch of bootleg recordings), this site is overwhelmingly comprehensive. Catch up with post-ABBA solo projects, including the Broadway flop CHESS, which spawned the early 80s smash, One Night In Bangkok. Even if you hate ABBA and all things Swedish, the site's worth visiting for the album art alone.
Overall Rating: 17
Bird on a Wire: The Leonard Cohen Home Page
URL: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/cpage/Leonard_Cohen/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Leonard Cohen Home Page looks terrific with Netscape. Like Mr. Cohen, it's got professional class in a morass of tired-looking nobodies hurriedly cobbled together. The discography and lyrics are listed by album, complete with scans of the original record's art. There are a few articles and interviews to be perused and pointers to choose Lenny-related resources. If you're a fan, it's an indispensable resource, and if you're not, the crooning shots may be worth the visit alone.
Overall Rating: 17
Street Justice
URL: http://www.oslonett.no/~gatasp/gpe.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Gatas Parliament is the Norwegian Communist rap group that makes up 67 percent of the funk in that country, and 100 percent of this Web site. Even though the bulk of it is in indecipherable Norwegian, there's enough English to let you understand what's going on. Read (what you can) of their bios. Don't they look cute? Sure, these young Red Shirts may want to overthrow their parents capitalist agenda, but that doesn't stop them from Rockin'!
Overall Rating: 16
Gordon Lightfoot
URL: http://www.mmlc.nwu.edu/~mfifer/lightfoot/index.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Hotfoot it over to the Gordon Lightfoot page, where you can get a fanciful band biography, up-to-date tour information, a decent discography, guitar tab, and links-a-plenty to outside Gordon-sites. The "band" area contains separate pages for each band member detailing their vital stats and outside interests and hobbies. A sort of Rock & Roll resume. The "You and the Gord" area is filled with user-submitted pictures of Gordy and themselves throughout the ages. And age they have. While not the prettiest or most comprehensive fan resource, it functions and has funny pictures to boot.
Overall Rating: 16
The Byrds
URL: http://www.uark.edu/~kadler/rmcguinn/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Psychedelic, man! Even though I was through with the 60s in the late eighties, this brought me back. A trippy logo dominates this site, featuring tons of band photos and album artwork, a few sound files, a giant unformatted Usenet FAQ, guitar tab, and the latest news from the band members themselves. Also, peruse "fan memories" of the great times and the concerts they were too drugged out to remember. Visit the "Folk Den," which has a new, unreleased folk song every month available for the download. Maybe these Byrds can sing, but William Shatner still does a better Tambourine Man.
Overall Rating: 17
Virtual Garden
URL: http://pathfinder.com/@@EucPNeG6gAAAQISI/vg/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Let's face it: You either have a green thumb, or you prefer plastic plants. I'm the latter kind of person. But still, the Virtual Garden offers a wealth of information I wish I could put to use. The searchable plants encyclopedia is really amazing -- learn to identify the three forms of lettuce and discover if the Adiantum plant really has the power to thicken and curl hair. For the more diehard dirt dweller, the site has numerous online gardening books and magazines to peruse and even a directory of the finest botanical gardens in the world. Couldn't find any Cannabis Sativa growing tips on the site, though.
Overall Rating: 17
Thee Joker's Funhouse
URL: http://www.escape.com/~joker/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
First of all, hacking was not just an 80s teen fetish that ended when the Legion of Doom went to jail and Shimomura nailed Mitnick. It's alive and well in many basements and high school computer labs, which still follow the maxim that "information wants to be free." This site is a basic guide to phone phreaking and hacking resources on the Web. Although a bit young, and riddled with an annoying amount of slang, Thee Joker's Funhouse is a fine starting point if you want an introduction to the questionable activities of those lurking on the lines. Remember, though: If the phone company calls, deny owning one.
Overall Rating: 16
Puppetry
URL: http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~rosesage/puppetry/puppetry.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Puppetry is one of the worlds most venerable art forms, yet it is usually not considered "serious" in this country -- an impression this site goes to great lengths to change. Whether you are a serious puppeteer, or totally new to the art, there is an extensive amount of well-organized information to capture your interest. The site is arranged by types of puppetry, and includes famous puppets and puppeteers, current puppet exhibits and touring companies, online resources, mail order supply houses, and much more!
Overall Rating: 16
A Basic ASL Aid
URL: http://home.earthlink.net/~masterstek/ASLDict.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Speaking without words is just what the Basic American Sign Language site hopes to teach people on the Web. Learn basic hand gestures for words such as Alaska, green, and toilet. The site also shows all the signs for the alphabet and numbers up to 10. Even though A Basic ASL Aid site is an excellent resource, it IS basic in design. Glitches in the site will take visitors to the bottom of the page when all they wanted was to look up the sign for ambulance. Perhaps mastering the sign for the word annoying would be more useful here.
Overall Rating: 16
Church of the Bunny Bunican West
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vpd/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
I've long argued that harsh words and scorn are not the way to confront the dangerous and kooky. Ridicule and sarcasm are far more effective. Take note: The Church of the Bunny offers as plausible an explanation of this world and its workings as any religion I've ever encountered. An extensive site with loads of information on church doctrine and members make this one of the most amusing religious-themed sites on the Web.
Overall Rating: 16
Messiahs Inc
URL: http://www.iop.com/~thanedfane/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Deciding to fight fire with fire, this site offers an at-times hilarious primer on the evolution of a religious faith. Perhaps starting your own church is the most meaningful exercise of religious freedom; in any case, how can you argue with a Holy book entitled, ""Messiahs, Inc.," or "How Jeremiah L Hermastone Starts A Church of His Own, 'Beats' the IRS, Patents God, and Has More Sex Than Rush Limbaugh, But Less Than JFK!" I'm not sure if I understand it, but I know this site is good. Highly recommended for anyone who appreciates a good rant.
Overall Rating: 16
Fisbee Freestyle
URL: http://www.users.interport.net/~rmeier/disc/disc.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Anyone can catch a frisbee, but not everyone can spin a plastic disk with style. See photos of pros such as Bob Coleman catching a frisbee with his leg draped over his arm or witness the grace of Gena Sample's leg split as she catches a low throw. Look up the rankings of the top frisbee players in the Freestyle Players Association section or follow your favorite players in the tournament schedule. Test your disk knowledge in the Frisbee Trivia section or let the links list take you to related sites as if you were a frisbee floating across the Web.
Overall Rating: 16
Rugby World Server
URL: http://www.libertynet.org/~djrugby/brfc.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Considered to be one of the roughest sports around, rugby has a safe and easy site to learn more about the game and its players. The Rugby World Server pays tribute to the sport with an extensive WWW directory of pages, a coach search, USARFU and MARFU news, rugby suppliers and publications, and more! Meet the Brandywine Rugby Football Club or find out how to join the Middle Atlantic Rugby Football Union. Some of the sections are still under heavy construction, so watch out for missing links and sparse content.
Overall Rating: 16
SoccerNews Online
URL: http://www.csn.net/~eid/soccer/sccrindx.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
What's white and black and kicked all over the globe? A soccer ball! On SoccerNews Online, fans can read who's kicking the ball all the way to the CONCACAF Gold Cup or which team will wow the world at the 1996 Summer Olympics. SoccerNews Online divides the reports by associations such as FIFA, CONMEBOL, UEFA, CAF, AFC, and OFC. Go to the USA section to see which college team is ranked highest in the league or follow the links to select sites each representing youth, amateur and professional teams. SoccerNews Online has reached its goal as a valuable sports resource.
Overall Rating: 16
The Martial-Arts as Kent's Learned Them
URL: http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/fun5/martial.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan now have a Web site even THEY would bow down to honor. The "Martial-Arts as Kent's Learned Them" has information on Martial Arts in General/Self-Defense, Tang Soo Do, Aikido, Qigong, Jeet Kune Do, and a Martial Arts Doublespeak Guide. Read the hypertext version of the Art Of War by Sun Tzu or shop for equipment on the WWW Martial Arts Supply Catalog. Get advice on how to find a real Jeet Kune Do instructor. This is a stellar site for anyone interested in Kung Foo fighting.
Overall Rating: 16
CyberDojo
URL: http://www.ryu.com/CyberDojo/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The CyberDojo site represents a group of karateka interested in discussing Traditional Japanese or Okinawan Karate. The site features plenty of karate information including a FAQ, the CyberDojo mailing list, directory sorted by styles, a Karate terminology list, traditional Karate Kata list, a schedule of Karate-related events, Karate bibliography and suggested readings, and cute little Karate guy icons. Learn there's more to Karate than chopping wood with your feet!
Overall Rating: 15
Gordon Hake's Basic HTML Tutorial
URL: http://hake.com/gordon/w3-index.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
If you don't like what you see online, you better be prepared to top it. And Gordon's put together a nice home for autodidactics itching to weave their own part of this Web. This site is a clear introduction to Web publishing, complete with links to other Web development resources online. Most of this tutorial is appropriated from other places, but the info is still all good. You won't find tips on how to include all the latest bells and whistles here, but that's of no matter for newbies. In the end, it's not glam and glitz but clear design and clean content that's the message of this new media. Start here.
Overall Rating: 16
The Page Generator v2.0
URL: http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/~jolson/generator/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Instant gratification! The Page Generator gives us what we want -- a home page of our own -- when we want it, which of course is right now! Enter in some basic design guidelines -- color of background, size of print, title of page, etc. The machine than cranks out a cookie-cutter page that can be mailed to you for placement on your server. I love it! Web pages on demand! Forget learning HTML in a week. That's for people with too much time on their hands, nerds, and those lucky enough to get paid for programming. Perhaps *now* I'll get around to creating home pages for my favorite candy bars.
Overall Rating: 17
Don't Spread that Hoax
URL: http://www.crew.umich.edu/~chymes/newusers/Think.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Don't send me anymore "Good Times Virus" e-mails or messages about some pitiful terminally ill kid trying to break the Guinness Book Record for receiving the most get-well cards! These net.memes, and others explained on this site, are not worth your time! They are hoaxes! Get it? Pranks! Thanks to Charles Hymes for devoting a page documenting this garbage and advising us to check our info before wasting bandwidth. This site is a must read for newbies susceptible to age old cons and Word viruses. Now remember, the Federal Government is not going to start charging for e-mail anytime soon! OK?
Overall Rating: 16
Macintosh WWW Resources
URL: http://www.comvista.com/net/www/WWWDirectory.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Look here for some good, and free, info from Com Vista, a net and Web consultant company. Their WWW Resource Directory is a one-stop shop for almost everything Mac-based surfers and designers need to explore to set up shop in Cyberspace. You'll get it all, from client-side audio apps and browsers to server software and CGI tools. Some of the tools are even reviewed to help you choose your apps wisely. A good bookmark to keep handy when lurking, or decorating.
Overall Rating: 16
GraphComp's VRML Tools Review
URL: http://www.graphcomp.com/vrml/review.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
As we wait for VRML to catch on, new browsers are popping up that claim to be the best for exploring 3D worlds on the Web. The VRML Tools Review from Graphcomp, a graphical software development company, is a clean and well-organized comparison chart of the latest VRML apps to hit the net. Snapshots of a site seen through each browser are a striking complement to the chart -- and there *is* a big difference between the presentations of VR Scout and the oft-hyped WebSpace. Look here first so you don't waste your downloading dollar on below-par VRML applications.
Overall Rating: 16
Long Grove Confectionery Company
URL: http://www.longgrove.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Forget Mom's birthday? Want to send that special someone from the chat room a chocolate computer? Never fear, Long Grove is ready to meet your needs 24 hours a day, and with a wide and quirky variety of mouthwatering chocolates to chose from, you should be able to find the perfect gift to bring a smile to any chocoholics face. You can order all their delicacies from a form, have them gift wrapped and delivered, and get a free box of chocolates for yourself. Despite all this, since the only payment option Long Grove gives you is plastic, and it's forms are insecure, I probably won't be ordering any luscious chocolate tackle boxes.
Overall Rating: 16
X-Large Inte(r)network
URL: http://www.cinenet.net/xlarge/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
For today's young suburban fashion plate, X-large brings it's entire clothing catalog to the web. Unfortunately, it just scanned in the catalog, viewable one bandwidth-eating page at a time. The site is much more than a catalog, though, developing an image of the company as a propagator of irreverent, angst-ridden, youth culture. From video game manuals to an essay praising the merits of liquor, X-Large runs down what's hip in sound bite sized chunks. It has a small archive of sounds and video, and a very active open forum which is mostly a discussion of Hip-Hop. The site is very cool, definitely worth a visit even if you are not interested in their catalog.
Overall Rating: 16
Fastball
URL: http://www.fastball.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
I have a vision of Fantasy Baseball addicts, spittle dripping from their mouths, pouring over the intense baseball minutiae on this site. Run by Cox newspapers, this site has access to tons of content -- professional reports, pictures, videos and Real Audio reports. It's got the latest baseball news fresh off the wire and organized by team, the latest team transactions, discussion areas, batter by batter stats, scores, schedules, photos, Official Rules, and even quotes by baseball's least funny spokesperson, Bob Ueker. The only limitation of this stat-loaded wonderland is it's Atlanta Braves bias. Good thing they won last year.
Overall Rating: 17
Golf Magazine
URL: http://www.golfonline.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Golf magazine has created a useful Web site that goes beyond the regular print version. It's got up-to-tee-off news, the latest weather report so you don't get hit by lightening, a database of the top golf instructors, the rules (in case you forgot), a database of courses and resorts, and a bulletin board on golf-y topics. My favorite feature is the Personal Profiler. Fill out a form that and the computer gives you a detailed plan on how you can improve your game. It told me to wait for the monkey to swing all the way over before teeing off at the mini-golf course.
Overall Rating: 18
On Hoops
URL: http://www.onhoops.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
On Hoops isn't just a collection of basketball scores and statistics, but also a collection of well-written commentary. Unafraid to express an opinion, these guys bat around the league, the players, and even the announcers with impunity. They cover all the major events with reviews on games, industry insider tidbits, and critical analysis on the state of the basketball itself. These guys live, breathe and eat basketballs. My only complaint with the site is that the graphics aren't so great -- but this should hardly get in the way of any fan looking for some cutting-edge coverage they won't find anywhere else.
Overall Rating: 16
Internet Law Library
URL: http://www.pls.com:8001/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
I'm pretty certain that this site could in no way be duller or blander in appearance than it already is. We're talking the most basic of basic Netscape gray and hyperlink a la blue, which may be fine for a law library... You'll find 11 copies of the US constitution (one in Spanish), every other country on the planet's constitution, attorney and legal directory links, reviews of law books, and a few measly icons (mostly US flag variations). It's great as a stockpile of information, which is what it's all about. Outstanding for lawyers and legal wanna-be's.
Overall Rating: 15
CSUWEB: RTFM Web Style
URL: http://csugrad.cs.vt.edu/manuals/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I didn't want to go in there. The glare from the gray standard browser background would burn my eyes, my throat would be parched from the dryness of the content, and, not knowing the terrain, I would be lost. Send me to the new Disney site I cried. But the story was in there, and I had to get it. Software manuals, a whole library of online software manuals. But these aren't your latest Microsoft products, these are the hardcore, the pure stuff: GNU programs for Unix. I feel faint.
Overall Rating: 15
Legal Information Institute
URL: http://www.law.cornell.edu/lii.table.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Another information dump on the over-used superhighway metaphor, this one contains articles on legal topics and the entire U.S. Code in HTML format. This digital-communication-age-wealth-of-information still amazes me, but the poor organization of these pages makes the amount seem overwhelming. One of the first paragraphs on the home page has some of the major resources linked within the text, such as the index of recent supreme court decisions, but these links aren't in the index at the bottom of the page, which looks like a table of contents for the site.
Overall Rating: 15
Dealmakers
URL: http://www.property.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Somewhere in the grayed out fringes of corporate America is a realm called commercial real estate. Those Taco Bells and Marshall's don't just come with prefabricated buildings, you know, an agent has to find store space to colonize. And if that agent is smart, they probably already subscribe to the print version of Dealmakers. The online version is just as massive a compendium of available commercial space as the print version, plus it has the best list of links to real estate related sites on the Web. While an attempt has been made at graphics, I found them ugly, and all these listings could use a little computerized database wizardry.
Overall Rating: 16
PCL Map Collection
URL: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Map devotees know that the charting of any terrae incognitae is much more than simple diagramming: it's art. The Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection Online is an incredible resource for those seeking practical guidance (like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood maps) to the aesthetically inspiring (the early 20th century city map of Antakya in the Levant). With more than 230,000 maps covering every area of the world -- including some nine thousand city street maps, as well as current road maps for each US state and Canadian province -- this site's URL is sure to remain at the top of just about everybody's bookmark list.
Overall Rating: 17
Journal of Biological Chemistry
URL: http://www-jbc.stanford.edu/jbc/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Casual passers-by and armchair scientists will be thoroughly mystified by the boldly obscure nomenclature at this site, which only proves its worth to the bona fide bio chemist. If, for instance, you're into carbohydrates, lipids, and other natural products, you can peruse full articles or abstracts on topics like "Investigation of the Calcium-mediated Association between the Carbohydrate Head Groups of Galactosylceramide and Galactosylceramide...." And, as even the most brilliant science maven might sometimes have trouble navigating the Web, a convenient online handbook helps you waltz through everything at the site, from keyword searches to downloading related charts.
Overall Rating: 17
Court TV Home Page
URL: http://www.courttv.com/index.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
You can't be serious. A television-related site chosen as Professional Site of the Month? We Internet-users are far superior to television watchers, right? We can't denigrate the interactive and information packed Internet by judging it on the basis of a television product that happens to have a Web site. Television is the opiate of the masses! The Internet will save the world! (And we all know that the Internet was really invented by dolphins using extraterrestrial technology.) Court TV's Internet entrant, the Court TV Law Center, is not only a good source of law information, it also manages to redeem television, as much as that is possible. The site's basic utilities are a search engine and a glossary of legal terms. The glossary isn't comprehensive, but it does cover enough ground to clarify any of the cases presented here. The search engine is a good shortcut for finding a particular case without going through any indexes. The home page, like any good table of contents, organizes the site by departments and features. When I was there, O.J.'s face adorned the feature section, with a hyper-link to his deposition in the civil suit brought against him by the Goldmans. Can we ever escape O.J.? Also featured was a special area on the Telecom bill which had recently passed, containing many articles about various aspects of the legislation and what it would mean to Internet users. The 20-plus articles here provided more depth and clarification than you would get from reading the actual text of the bill. The departments include case files, a library, games, a kids section, and a store. Of course, Court TV's idea of games isn't the typical puzzle or maze a lot of other sites offer. It has various historical cases in which you are invited to identify the facts, make arguments, and decide the case. This is the kind of stuff that law students live for. The library section isn't Harvard Law, you couldn't use it as a substitute for Lexis, but it does have articles and files on cases that would be of interest to casual users. Under the Newsmakers reference, you can find out the legal gossip on your favorite stars. Call it pop law, but it is good for really understanding the big cases in the papers, and looking really smart at cocktail parties as you offer your informed commentary.
Overall Rating: 17
ESPNet
URL: http://espnet.sportszone.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
What do you want? You want highlight films? Boom. It's got highlight films. You want play-by-play? Boom. It's got play-by-play. You want player interviews? Stats and box scores? Sports talk? That's right. Boom. You betcha. ESPNET SportsZone has it all -- on your computer, right there, and in your face. Bet your Bulls' tickets on it. SportsZone offers the best, most comprehensive, multimedia sports coverage on the Web today. From video clips to sound files to link after logically placed link, you won't find a more gigantic resource of up-to-the-minute professional sports information. The array and timeliness of the content sets a benchmark to which other news organizations should aspire. Indeed, in one form or another, SportsZone offers all one may find on ESPN's cable TV network. The site is rife with impressive, innovative features. In no particular order: Video clips of amazing plays. You're watching the 5 p.m. news and see Shaq hit the first three-pointer of his career. You book on over to SportsZone, and -- *yes* -- it's the Video Play of the Day. Download the QuickTime or AVI clip, and you've saved Shaqidocious for posterity. Game flow graphics. At this point, SportsZone begins to compete with TV. If your favorite games aren't televised, you can use your computer for real-time statistical accounts of games in progress. You say pretty, constantly updated graphics aren't enough? Then check out the play-by-play descriptions. Celebrity Q&A. SportsZone gets you closer to the competitors by letting you submit questions to select players. And we're not talking back-up tight ends and the third-round picks who play garbage minutes. We're talking legitimate blue-chip names like Ken Norton Jr., Sean Elliott and Greg Lemond. Ride'em if you have to -- these guys are tough, and they'll answer tough questions. Sports chat. Why call up talk radio shows and wait on hold when you can instantly argue about sports with fans worldwide. SportsZone's chat function is quick and reliable, and the level of debate tops America Online. OK. Enough said. SportsZone is the ticket. Pass those Beer Nuts, and quit blocking the computer screen.
Overall Rating: 18
European Rail Travel Index
URL: http://www.starnetinc.com/eurorail/railindx.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
It is very sad to look at this site and reflect upon the sorry state of American railroads. If you are going to Europe, however, rail is the only way to travel, and this site will tell you everything you need to know to make your trip trouble free. It is an amazing resource, packed full of detailed, factual information about the European rail network, Eurail passes, rates, trip planning, and much more. Particularly noteworthy is the detailed information about differences in railroads and eurail pass coverage from country to country. Essential reading for anyone Europe bound.
Overall Rating: 16
Backpacker Guide
URL: http://www.irelands-web.ie/tourism/bpguide/bpguide.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
The Backpacker Guide is not about to replace the traditional travel guide, but if you're planning to travel Great Britain, New Zealand, or Australia on a shoe-string budget, this site will be an indispensable supplement to it. No paper guide can give you up-to-the-minute information on your destination, and what traditional guide would give you a list of cyber-cafes where you can take time out from your travels to sate your net addiction. The information is not so in-depth, and several links did not function, but there are a lot of tips and facts that you would be unlikely to find elsewhere.
Overall Rating: 16
ANZA Travel
URL: http://www.axionet.com/gday/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
I'm a sucker for unusual travel. That's why I like places like ANZA: instead of the silly and overdone tedium of Dickens' London and New York Theater tours, they offer The Vintage Car Club of New Zealand Anniversary Tour and "The Soccer Holiday of a Lifetime." You won't find those at your travel agent's! The tone of the writing is relaxed, in the budget travel style, but note: these trips ain't cheap. Still, visiting the site makes me feel that Oceania is accessible -- even if I can't afford it.
Overall Rating: 16
American Borders Index
URL: http://www.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/features/borders/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Travelogues are like voyages themselves: they can be brilliant, witty adventures into unknown places or they can be hell, and the difference is often made by the quality of your traveling companions. I'm pleased to report that Carla King, author of GNN's serial "American Borders," has created a distinct travelogue of North America, as original as it is well-written. Making her way around the continent on a Russian motorcycle, she reflects on the foreignness of our country and writes up a storm. Lots of photos spice up the tales, but there are virtually no links, even within the text itself.
Overall Rating: 16
Red's Toyland
URL: http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~mizraith/index.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Here at The Net, choosing a site of the month isn't easy. A lot of factors have to be taken into account, and we've assembled some massive spreadsheets to handle all the data and calculations. Then again, sometimes a site has something that we just like. In the case of Red's Toyland, we have found The Official Wicked Hair Dyeing Page not only to be well designed, but full of essential information for our editorial staff style. Mark "Red" Byer and his sister Evi-Lynn put together this wonderful set of instructions, so you get male and female perspectives about taking your hair from its natural blandness to new heights of colorful individualism. The instructions and advice offered go way beyond the quick, back-of-the-bottle blurbs printed on various color products to nuggets of hard-learned practical hints such as "double the maximum time written on the package" that you are going to leave the dye in your hair. As for color choice, "Dark blue and purples last the longest." The discussion gets a little philosophical in the paragraphs debating permanent versus non-permanent hair dyes, and some shocking secrets are revealed about so-called "permanent" hair dyes. 14 popular hair dye products are reviewed on this page, with the authors acting as their own test subjects. It's a little spurious to honor these pages as a site of the month on the basis of one thing that we at The Net can relate to, but wait, there's more. Red is a self confessed LegoManiac, and we can appreciate that (just see the graphics in our April issue). Red has a whole page where he begs anybody that works for Lego that sees it to hire him to do product design. Besides that, there are links to other great Lego sites on the Web. Now, Red does mention the Renaissance Fair on his home page, and we at The Net are not united in our opinion about that, but the link actually went to his sister's RenFair page, so that doesn't count. Finally, one interesting project featured on the introductory page is "The Line Around The World." The goal of this association is to bring people closer together by having people put links on their Web pages to other people's pages in the society. Each person has two links on their page (two points forming a line), so that anyone can follow the links along this line and see many new and interesting people, or, at least, their Web pages.
Overall Rating: 17
The Travel Channel
URL: http://www.travelchannel.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Whether you travel like Paul Bowles or Lady Di, the travel Channel Online is certain to satiate your needs. To begin, the site, an extension of the Cable TV channel, is a pleasure to look at. Sweep through organized, clean pages with beautiful pictures (that are easy on the bandwidth) or rest a while in one of the sites many flavorful sections. The travel Channel has it all; vacation ideas and recommendations, online chat forums, photo galleries, hot topics and of course links to other esteemed travel-related sites. I checked the site at the peak of Mardi Gras, and the special focus on the New Orleans festival ranked as an exceptional treat. First, the Travel Channel makes use of all the latest Netscape tricks -- and it offers a choice: Frames or No Frames. As one who believes Frames are akin to the Anti-Christ, I was pleased with the option. Outstanding. And the info wrapped up in those pages could easily stand on it's own as a respectable Web site. It's fat with details about Mardi Gras history, customs, recipes and travel tips. Plenty of photos, and again, wonderful design. The site offers TWO chat options, in case you wanna exchange woes about a bumpy cruise or get insight on your future travel plans from someone who's already been there. The first chat area is set up as a traditional BBS (bulletin board) in which users post messages to a "topic board" and other users post messages to the same board to reply. It's very much like a Usenet thing. But the travel channel also offers a Frames based Web chat, in real time. Very much like an IRC thing, for those who want more of an immediate dialog. (Warning: It's not terribly fast.) The posting board seemed considerably more active than the Frames chat, but again, it's always nice to have choices. The photo gallery is by far the most exceptional and entertaining aspect of the site though. Not only do we get to look at stunning photographs from around the world, broken into categories -- Asia, Western Europe, Africa, but the photographs are submitted by viewers of the Travel Channel and visitors to the Web site. Tres Cool! Overall The travel Channel should amuse, entertain, and at times, enlighten with advise and interesting articles. It's a definite must for anyone who considers themselves a "traveler."
Overall Rating: 18
Dr. Bob's Home Page
URL: http://ny.frontiercomm.net/~bjenkin/science.htm
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Doctor Bob is a smart one. He'll tell you about the sun, in simple basic terms. He'll tell you about the space shuttle, break down the mysteries of "that amazing ice," and brief you on the facts about tsunamis (giant tidal waves). This is an extremely useful and entertaining Web site for science fans, I just wish he'd learn that dark, heavily patterned backgrounds make it difficult to read thin and light text. Even more the frustrating because the oft unreadable text is actually very interesting.
Overall Rating: 15
Seeds of Life
URL: http://www.next.com/~jmh/SeedsOfLife/home.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The Seeds of Life site is fun! Well, fun if you're interested in learning about seeds. Do you know the difference between a fleshy uniseminate fruit (mmm juicy) and a dry pluriseminate fruit? I bet you're curious now. The top level organization is aesthetically pleasing and technically smart, but the rest of the site isn't quite so design savvy -- don't go there looking for a Mona Lisa. It's science, kids: just facts, links and some neat-o diagrams.
Overall Rating: 16
Flora of China
URL: http://foc.harvard.edu:2048/
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
It starts with a splash of color (though a bit slow). Clicking a little deeper will reveal some somewhat cheesy icons and standard layout techniques, though admittedly, it's done well. There lies mucho content here. Pictures, illustrations and maps lace the pages nicely -- all with size labels so you know how big an image is going to be *before* you click. The site also boasts a hefty search engine, and if that ain't enough, it provides links to other flora search engines at affiliated institutions. Overall, it's a botanist's dream.
Overall Rating: 16
The Discovery Museums
URL: http://www.ultranet.com/~discover/index.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Ahh, an example of how to promote a science museum -- effectively! The layout and top level organization is clean and looks swell enough. More than enough useful information about the logistics of the museum are readily available -- directions, hours of operation, phone numbers and special exhibit information. And the slide show tours offer a strong impression of what you might actually find if you visit the real-life museum. It's extremely well done and a good example of how people can use the Web to enhance local communities.
Overall Rating: 16
Virtual Chaos: A Theory of Everything
URL: http://www.virtualchaos.org/
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
More X-files than science, the authors of the virtual chaos theory, who wish to remain anonymous, propose that the simple statement "1+2=3" permeates all phenomenon, and from this, they have concluded that time begins in the middle heads towards the beginning and the end simultaneously, the former being a red shift, and the latter being a blue shift. Maybe I'm stupid, maybe the Web isn't the right medium to promote such far-flung theory, but reading this hasn't changed my life significantly. Can you solve this puzzle?
Overall Rating: 16
Earth and Universe
URL: http://www.eia.brad.ac.uk/btl/
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
For the astronomy aficionado or hobbyist, the Internet is a great place. There are thousands of NASA pages, and you don't have to be outside in the middle of the night getting eyestrain peering through a telescope. Earth and Universe adds a lot of astronomical visual content to the Web, with pictures of stars in various stages of formation, plus many other cosmic formations. There is also a Telescope Documentation Index with all sorts of articles on telescope systems. Unfortunately, the whole thing is slow as a rock, and the organization is poor.
Overall Rating: 15
Jewish Communications Network
URL: http://www.jcn18.com/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The JCN offers a comprehensive guide to all things Jewish. It starts with a nice layout, smooth organization, and spiffy graphics; unfolding into a breadth of diverse, useful content. The site features current events, scoops the dirt on political candidates, provides a calander, and has loads of links links links. For complete coverage and regular updates, this site is tops.
Overall Rating: 17
World of Coasters
URL: http://www.rollercoaster.com/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
There are two types of people in the world, those that like roller coasters, and those that don't. The latter will get a touch of dread at the mere mention of roller coasters; show them a real one and their knees will go weak. The roller coaster fanatic, on the other hand, will get a wild look in the eyes at the sound of a train racing along steel tracks. A certain monomania overcomes the fanatic at the sight of tracks reaching skyward; all they want to know is: Where's the line start? Roller coasters, with their immediate, motion-driven thrills don't seem like a great fit on the Web. After all, what could be more dissimilar than the programmer, stationary, crunching code and the screaming, maniacal thrill junkie riding out the spectacular drops and sharp, banking turns of a classic coaster track? World of Coasters, however, proves that the Internet is for everyone. While the site is generally maintained by one person, various sections are edited by volunteers, demonstrating the enthusiasm for coasting online. The coaster reviews comprise a good part of the site, with entries organized by ride, park, and author. The site takes reviews from anybody who wants to relate an experience, while some are submitted by regular contributors that have been on coasters all over the U.S. But this is a big site, and most of the content has been contributed by fans. There's also a section devoted to news, such as the construction of new and innovative coasters. Fanatics reading these items probably drool on their keyboards in anticipation of a ride's opening date. Some of the text gets a little bit technical as when coaster manufacturers are discussed. (Apparently "Morgan" is somewhat questionable, while "B&M" is good.) Another section, devoted to stats, details the fastest, steepest, and highest coasters in two categories, wood and steel. The site is a great example of an active, community-driven home page, and has close ties to the newsgroup rec.roller-coaster. The design isn't great, but fits; the logo has a certain amusement park gaudiness. Technically, however, it's great, boasting a search engine, a survey form, and a message board.
Overall Rating: 17
Self-Defense, Street-fighting & Close-Quarter Battle
URL: http://www2.gsu.edu/~gs01cwb/fighting.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jon Phillips
If you're going to win a fight against a vicious street tough, you're going to need a lot more than a few karate lessons -- you're going to need a whole new world view. Christopher Benson helps you mentally prepare for seemingly impossible-to-win fights. This is not a primer on specific moves; rather, it's a guide to overcoming difficult situations with confidence. You'll learn all about pain and fear management, mental explosiveness, and pure, unbridled aggression. Rule Nine may tell the whole story: "Evaluate, analyze and destroy." Lots of text, all of it interesting.
Overall Rating: 15
Fluids Movie Archive
URL: http://www.swcp.com/itsc/movies/
Category: Science
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
One of the best things about the Web, the reason that it's more fun than e-mail or chatting or Usenet, is the multimedia content. But movies can be more than just fun, as this collection of MPEG clips proves. The movies located on this page are all examples of fluid dynamics: color-enhanced movies showing things like a plate being pushed through water. The clip shows how the fluid is pushed around either side, causing it to swirl in behind the plate. The information is somewhat limited here, but remember: a picture is worth a thousand words.
Overall Rating: 16
Shorebird Migration
URL: http://www.utm.edu/~phertzel/migration.htm
Category: Science
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Another example of how the Web can provide an open database that anyone can use, the Shorebird Migration page unites and informs birders interested in Plovers, Sandpipers, Tattlers, and more. The site maintainers get bird sightings from a variety of sources, and diagram them on a U.S. map. The home page isn't beautiful, so don't go here if you are allergic to the standard gray browser background, but the maps are nice.
Overall Rating: 15
Uranium Information Centre
URL: http://www.uic.com.au/
Category: Science
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This Australian-based site is filled with information on the Uranium industry. While some information relates to other countries, the majority is about Nuclear energy and Uranium mining in Australia. While the tone of the site isn't lunatic, it is definitely pro-nuclear energy, with sections entitled, "The Peaceful Atom," and such. An extremely content-rich site, UIC's newsletter is archived here, along with important briefing papers on nuclear issues. Some of the more interesting items are statistics on energy output from nuclear sources.
Overall Rating: 16
Earthquake Info from the U.S.G.S
URL: http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/
Category: Science
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'm well aware that it's not a matter of "if the Big One comes," but "when it comes." This site is "Earthquake Central" with up-to-the-minute information on tremors around the world, tips on how to prepare for quakes, and clear explanations of the science behind (or shall we say under) earthquakes. Besides the facts, some fine infotainment is at your fingertips, too. Worth a quick read, for example, is the "Late Night Musings of an Earthquake Seismologist." Next time I feel a shaking under my shoes, I'm going to "duck, cover, and hold," then wait patiently for this page to load.
Overall Rating: 17
COLD FUSION TIMES HOME PAGE
URL: http://world.std.com/~mica/cft.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Believe it or not. Ever the skeptic I chose the latter, but I'm still interested in exploring the fringes of scientific thought. And it's hard to argue with the site's main assertion: "Cold Fusion is important because even if there is only 1/10 of 1% possibility of its reality, given its low expense and ubiquity,...its safety...and its impact..., it must be investigated." For those with the time, this cleanly-designed journal is the place to begin your investigation into research papers, conference proceedings, and a development timeline.
Overall Rating: 16
Cult of Macintosh (TM)
URL: http://cult-of-mac.utu.fi/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Tired of apologizing for being a priest(ess) in the minority Sac sect? Celebrate your beliefs with similarly afflicted souls at the Cult of Macintosh! Like many churches, the focus here is on good works, and that means tons of Mac-related links to set you on the path to righteousness. Links are separated into 19 categories, and salted with salient commentary and clarifying notes. Search for shareware, read technical notes, find noted Sac industry figures... this is the most complete Sac special-interest site I've ever seen. It is, however, slow, so connect to one of its many "mirror" sites in your area.
Overall Rating: 18
Almanac of American Politics
URL: http://politicsusa.com/PoliticsUSA/resources/almanac/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Want to find out more about your local representative? This is a great place to start. The Almanac of American Politics is a doorstop-size book in print -- huge, and costing upwards of $50 -- and it's one of the most complete references on congressional politics around. The good news is that the entire book is on this Web site, well organized by subject, state, and name. The bad news is that a conservative bias (it's published by the National Journal) colors the writing. It's not offensive, however, and how often can you say that in politics?
Overall Rating: 16
The Genealogy Home Page
URL: http://ftp.cac.psu.edu/~saw/genealogy.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The natural first response to this page is: "There's too much stuff here. My head's gonna explode!" But if you've ever tried constructing a genealogical chart on your own, you'll recognize it as a great help in a difficult trick. There's not much original material here, just hundreds of links in 13 categories, each one involving a different method for unearthing your family's past. It was more than enough to get me going: I was able to find an address for someone researching my "untraceable" family. Maybe you will, too.
Overall Rating: 16
Ken Crane's Laser Disc Super Store
URL: http://www.kencranes.com/laserdiscs/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Laser discs are well-suited to Web shopping: you can search by genre, title or format (letterbox sometimes available), and you can order jackets or sleeves for the discs you have, and for those laserdisc fans who don't have access to a large selection locally, Ken's is a good resource. Besides the usual genres, he offers specialties including X-rated, exercise, Star Trek, karaoke, TV classics, and Voyager Criterion titles. Aficionados will know how his prices stack up, but given the wide selection and choice of delivery speeds (regular, fast, and I've-gotta-have-it-tomorrow), chances are this is one to bookmark.
Overall Rating: 16
Augustine
URL: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
In Latin or English, this site gives insight into the life of St. Augustine, who, in about 400 AD, wrote one of the earliest guides to Christian living and beliefs. Augustine, the saint, is credited with describing God in terms of the Holy Trinity. Augustine, the web site, includes a biography, English and Latin versions of Augustine's beliefs, and ancient artwork depicting the early church lawmaker at work.
Overall Rating: 16
The Abayudaya Jews of Uganda
URL: http://www.intac.com/PubService/uganda/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Perhaps you've studied Ethiopian Jews or heard about the Cochin Jews of India, but have you heard about the Abayudaya Jews of Mbale, Uganda? Well, until 1992, this web site's manager, Matt Meyer, hadn't either. But after visiting Kenya and meeting a Ugandan Jew, Meyer went to Mbale. In this web site, Meyer chronicles Ugandan Jewish history, incorporates music by Ugandan Jews, requests donations to buy a Torah. The site also includes excerpts from Meyer's journal and photos of the Abayudaya.
Overall Rating: 16
USC Muslim Students Association Islamic Server
URL: http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Everything one could ever want to know about Islam is at this web site, including access to an English translation of the Koran, and a beginner's guide to understanding Muhammad, pillars of the faith, and Allah. The site gives an Islamic perspective on the differences and similarities between Judaism and Christianity. MSA criticizes many other groups claim to follow Islam. MSA is a campus organization that can be found throughout the U.S.
Overall Rating: 16
Information about Zoroastrianism
URL: http://palette.ecn.purdue.edu/~bulsara/ZOROASTRIAN/zoroastrian.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
There are more than a million followers of the ancient Persian prophet Zarathushtra, known to the Greeks as Zoroaster. The web site chronicles the history of the prophet, Ahura Mazda or "Wise Lord," and the faith. It also includes photos and essays concerning the problems facing modern-day Zoroastrians.
Overall Rating: 16
Project Genesis
URL: http://www.torah.org/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
This Web site attempts to engage all Jews, Orthodox and non-religious alike, in a dialogue on scholarship and news pertaining to the Jewish faith. An attractive web site with an outer space motif, Project Genesis offers classes on the Torah, ethics, and halacha, or law. There are also hyperlinks to other Jewish Web sites and information about Jewish speakers, seminars, events, and educational programs throughout the U.S. and Israel.
Overall Rating: 17
Campus Crusade for Christ
URL: http://www.mdalink.com/CCC/index.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Home to Christian ministries throughout the world, the Campus Crusade for Christ boasts a Web site that can be viewed with or without Shockwave enhancement. The site also includes a search engine, links to other CCC sites, and a summary of the ministry's perspective on the life of Jesus. It even includes HTML coding that allows you to add the group's logo to your own home page as a hot link.
Overall Rating: 17
Buddhist Studies
URL: http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-Buddhism.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
An unattractive, boring site that just happens to have more than 150 links to some really visually appealing sites on Guatama Buddha, Buddhism, and Asian studies. The links are not necessarily listed in a cohesive fashion, but it's a great resource for those with patience.
Overall Rating: 14
The Holy See
URL: http://www.vatican.va/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Get the latest from Pope John Paul II at The Holy See Web site. Most of the information is available in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese. There is access to The Holy See Press Office, Catholic doctrine and a place to post messages to priests. Also, there are photos of the pontiff.
Overall Rating: 16
The Rapture Index
URL: http://www.novia.net/~todd/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Todd Strandberg analyzes Biblical prophecy as manifest in the latest news, such as the Ebola virus arriving in Texas and volcano activity in the Caribbean, while keeping tabs on modern-day antichrists like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Louis Farrakhan, Bill Gates, and Barney the Dinosaur. An interesting site that weaves news and Apocalyptic assertions with wit and sarcasm.
Overall Rating: 16
SubSITE
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/subgenius/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
This is the only religious site I've seen that fully embraces the medium, with animations of looming heads and lightning-struck brains and mushroom clouds. Not your old time religion, by any means, but good enough for me. Okay, but seriously, the folks behind this site may be taking a once-great gag too far. Don't get me wrong: It's fun, and funny, and all that -- almost as funny as Zen Buddhism -- but somebody out there's actually pushing this stuff, proselytizing as if it were for real! As if it wasn't all just an outrageous hoax! As if they've started to believe their own lies! Huh, you say? Who are they? What in God's name am I talking about? The Church of the Subgenius is what! The Campus Crusade for Bob! The Campaign for World Wide Slack! The whole weird movement of dangerous freaks who, apparently, don't know when to let a joke go! Still in the dark? Go see for yourself (God knows, I can't explain it). Take a drive into the mind of Bob Dobbs; learn all about the fictitious former salesman turned deified, disembodied head; discover for yourself the hypnotic thrall of the slack ethic; bombard yourself with strange, twisted images that have no apparent connection to anything; visit the "Things to Want and Buy" catalog for the latest in DobbsWear and Slack Threads; send checks, if you must, to the First Stangian Orthodox MegaFisTemple Lodge of the Wrath of Dobbs Yeti, Resurrected; do whatever you want,...just don't go to any Devivals fer chrissake, or, if you do, don't tell me about it. I don't want anything to do with it. This site -- great as it is -- is as far as I go. And don't send me any flames denouncing this as an insult to the Religion category; the way I see it, it's no more commercial, no more profane than the 700 Club. But it's loads more fun. Send your flames to Bob.
Overall Rating: 18
Amazon.com! Books
URL: http://www.amazon.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Claiming to be "Earth's biggest bookstore," and offering over a million titles, how could this site be anything but a Site of the Month? Think of it: One million books! So much knowledge, so much reading. Of course, whether "biggest" is necessarily best is up for debate. Also, if the term "bookstore" implies a physical space, does Amazon.com even qualify as a bookstore in the usual sense? Perhaps not, but, then again, nothing on the Internet is usual. The sense someone gets when they search the Amazon.com Web site and find so many books that match their interests, is of a super vast warehouse with miles of book-laden shelves. The whole thing would be completely overwhelming without something as fundamental as a search engine. The core of Amazon.com, finally, is the search engine, which allows four different ways of looking for a particular book. The easiest interface allows the user to search by title, author, and/or subject. The simplest, but least effective method is by keyword, such as a word in the title, or something to do with the subject matter. There is also a search form that surveys all the keywords available and a page with an open field for entering queries in Amazon.com's search language. For general browsing, hyperlinks lead to books classified by awards, bestsellers, and Amazon.com staff picks. The awards section covers some pretty broad territory, from the Hugo award to Pulitzer Prize winners. This section is useful if the reader is looking for a critically acclaimed book, or just trying to answer a trivia question. The bestseller lists have national listings and one specific to Amazon.com, (which, by the by, could provide interesting market research data about what sort of people are actually practicing Internet commerce; that is, if you can judge a person by the books they read.). In the democratic tradition of the Internet there is a section for individuals to write their own reviews of the books Amazon.com has to offer. All purchases can be made online, and each book's entry gives a timetable for delivery.
Overall Rating: 18
Scuba World
URL: http://www.scubaworld.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
This site makes other water sports pages look like fish bait. Design and desire for knowledge (sub)merge to give divers the depth of information they deserve. Check out the directories of scuba equipment manufacturers and scuba instructors. Search for a career in diving or follow links to see the latest weather forecast. Scuba World offers descriptions for 30 diving magazines and additional links to more underwater resources.
Overall Rating: 17
Skate.Net
URL: http://www.crocker.com/~webtrax/skate/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Before you can master a major half pipe, you need a kickin' skateboard. Skate.Net helps find you one by reviewing skateboard decks, trucks and wheels by Alien Workshop, Planet Earth, Venture, Toy Machine and others. Go to the clothing section for reviews on products from Airwalk, DC, Etnies and Vans. Most of the reviews have photos of the stuff so you know why it's dissed or desired. Read interviews with pro skaters Jeff Taylor, Felix Arguelles, and Richard Angelides. Look at photos galore from the Warped Tour.
Overall Rating: 16
USA Gymnastics Online
URL: http://www.usa-gymnastics.org/usag/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
They'll tumble for ya at USA Gymnastics Online. Find out about upcoming and past events such as the 1996 USA Gymnastics Congress and the USA Rhythmic Gymnastics Junior Olympic Championships. Search the list of biographies of famous USA gymnasts and Olympic medalists. read selected articles from the sporting magazines, Technique and USA Gymnastics. Learn about the history of artistic and rhythmic gymnastics. USA Gymnastics Online balances style and expertise perfectly.
Overall Rating: 17
SportsLine USA
URL: http://www.sportsline.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Blue Grrrl
This site is all about the red, white, and blue of American sports -- quite literally, the layout is almost exclusively fashioned after the US flag. It's got your baseball, football, hockey, and golf (as well as soccer, tennis, and thorough Olympic coverage.) SportsLine is part of the new paradigm of subscription based Web sites. Pay $4.95 per month for exclusive member-only content -- daily features, columns, and game coverage (newscaster style), or a one time $39.95 for an annual "box seat" subscription. While I'm wary of any site that charges for access, SportsLine also has a significant amount of free content to offer, such as news, updated (to the minute) scores, and live chats with the players. April's line up held chats with Joe Namath, Kevin Greene, and Michael Lewis to name a few. You can run for miles through the member-only content which, for sports fans, is worth the $4.95. Besides what's already been mentioned, SportsLine offers daily sports feeds from the associated press wire, links to contact sports heroes, and an audio arena, updated every morning at 8:00 AM. The audio section is exceptionally cool because it offers the files in Real Audio, .wav, and Streamworks formats! There are no strategic alliances to force you to use one or the other. Members also get to play fantasy sports games, like chat-based muds and moos -- be the pitcher on your favorite team or score the home run of a lifetime. The fantasy section is actually quite popular, and hosts a well-established community of players. That alone could be worth the monthly fee. Technically the site is running about par with the rest of the corporate lineup. There's some nice use of Forms and Tables; the CGI scripts are exceptionally fast; the chat is supported via Netscape's new chat client; and the transactions in the mall and registration are handled on Netscape secure servers. The baseball diamond animated gif is kind of nifty too. Overall, SportsLine gets a high five and is well worth a regular spot on your bookmark list, with or without the membership. -BG
Overall Rating: 18
Paul Levin's Flying Circus
URL: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~plevin/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Click here for my picture. Click here for my resume. Click here for my OMD tribute page. Yes, this is a vanity page all right (you see after a year we can be nostalgic about hypertext.) While it's slightly more current than last years fashion, with some tables, rasped buttons, and a sound file, it's mostly plain. This doesn't mean I don't like it. Au contrare mon frere, I think it's just fine. And after all, there is a reference to that all mighty goth band of my youth, Joy Division! But the best part? The "Buy A house from my uncle in Alabama," bit, complete with photo. Tres cool!
Overall Rating: 16
3D Site
URL: http://www.3dsite.com/3dsite/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
Where do you go when you need that model of a wooden swan? Who do you turn to for a rendering of a 1950's blender? Have no fear, 3D Site is here, jam-packed to with all your 3d needs. A robust resource for 3D computer graphics, up-to-date job information, and gallery listings galore. Created and maintained by a 3D animator for 3D animators, If 3D graphics are your cup of tea, real or digital, route that browser in this direction.
Overall Rating: 16
W3 Kiosk
URL: http://www.lib.siu.edu/w3kiosk/w3kiosk.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
Hot summer night.....I'm all alone in my bedroom, the lights are dim, the music soft, and the fantasies begin......the allure of a WWW based system for creating remotely modifiable hypermedia applications beckons me once again. If you're distracted by similar longings, just bounce on over to W3 Kiosk. The free W3 Kiosk software allows commands from a server to be sent to a multimedia program through your browser. Translation: when you link from a kiosk friendly web page it sends information that can control all the bells and whistles in a local application. Instant gratification.
Overall Rating: 16
Digital Multimedia Research Lab
URL: http://found.cs.nyu.edu/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
Get out the squeegee. Call the window washers. Amidst the hustle and bustle of NYC emerges the C4DM, on a mission to promote multimedia in New York State through research, development, and educational programs. This is a no-nonsense effort to inject new information technologies into the industries and endeavors that have made New York the economic and cultural epicenter it is. Their slick site provides us with a window into the workings of C4DM. You get just a tease, a tickle, a whisper of what's going on behind those doors, and believe me, my face was pressed up against that window till it got all fogged up.
Overall Rating: 18
Heidsite
URL: http://www.mcn.org/heidsite/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
BAM! Instant *bookmark* material. Heidsite is a pure Macintosh geek energy filtered down to this powerhouse of a site. MacWorld's Jim Heid frontlines this atomically correct site with Mac gems and jewels, tips and trinkets, which specifically target the media production arena. A Fifties-inspired design allows you to dish up your TV dinner and hula-hoop your way into the future. Quite a nice touch. Clean, concise, and crammed with content. What more can you ask for?
Overall Rating: 18
The Imagination Club
URL: http://www.tiac.net/users/rpardi/TheLingoClinic/The_Imagination_Club.htm
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
With a site design instantly reminiscent of the choose-your-own-adventure-genre of paperbacks, the Imagination Club provides a unique and refreshing interface enabling visitors to sneak and slither, poke and prod their way through the services. So, bundle yourself in patience, and throw a little tenacity in the backpack, because this site is definitely worth more than the casual courtesy glance. From design and programming for interactive projects, to Lingo, Shockwave development, animation, and graphics, Imagination charms and seduces visitors into the often hostile and alienating realm of project development.
Overall Rating: 18
Roadside on the Web
URL: http://www1.usa1.com/~roadside/RoadsideWebPage.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Even on a T-1 connection this one is slow -- so slow that an otherwise promising page is nearly undone by sheer sluggishness. Still, if you're a sucker for diner kitsch and want to see some of it online, pour yourself a cup o' joe and wait for Roadside to download. Once you're on, they do warn you about all the graphics. And I should warn you that it's regional, concentrating almost exclusively on great eateries of the Northeast. I visited a cafe in my old hometown of Newport, R.I. and felt like I'd been there. For anyone interested in buying and running a diner themselves, the site is a required stop.
Overall Rating: 17
Europe by Eurail
URL: http://www.eurail.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This is a pretty snappy primer on seeing Europe by rail. Everything from fares and schedules are available, plus basic info on how to plan a trip and what to expect once you're there. Windows users can download EuroData, an itinerary planning program and anyone can visit the Elysees Cafe to share travel tips, relate anecdotes, and the like. Heading up the page is a pretty low-key pitch for two books on the subject, but there's plenty here to get you started for free. Only one problem: dense graphics make for slow-going.
Overall Rating: 17
Tourism, Tunisia
URL: http://www.idsonline.com/tunisia/tour/tour.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Well, it's travel bureau stuff -- is what it is -- but first-rate travel bureau stuff, with lots of idyllic images of art and architecture and brilliant sunsets through palm trees. There's some unexpected stuff, too: a great exhibit of Tunisian postage stamps and a pretty thorough, if unerringly positive, news section. You can get business news, including exchange rate information, and contact numbers for relevant agencies. It's a beautiful, straightforward and intriguing site that will go a long way to convincing you that Tunisia is the place to be.
Overall Rating: 17
Jerusalem Mosaic
URL: http://www1.huji.ac.il/jeru/jerusalem.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A little dry in terms of presentation, this site is nevertheless full of interesting information -- mostly historical material on what may be the most consecrated spot on Earth. Navigable by timeline, from the First Temple period to the current State of Israel, each era can be explored at some length, with close-ups on costumes and personalities, even recipes from bygone eras. Regrettably, all of it suffers from a lackluster design and writing that will remind folks of nothing so much as junior high World Civ.
Overall Rating: 15
The Cool Dude
URL: http://www.louisville.edu/~faalam01/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Fayez is one wild and crazy guy, all right. A native of Lebanon, he claims to have been Internet ignorant just a few months ago. Now he's got a crackerjack page with frames, great links and just a whole lot of panache. Don't be fooled by the title: the whole "cool" thing is just a goofy, tongue-in-cheek ruse, an end run around his own awkwardness. He's an overachieving geek and he knows it. A whole section of his site is devoted to his medical specialty, radiology. (Yep, he's a doctor). Another is a tribute to his beautiful and wildly successful family. He's also a photographer, a music lover (on the lighter, sappier side of the spectrum, of course) and a movie buff. In school he was on the table tennis team and President of the Arabic Literature Club. He was editor-in-chief of his university yearbook. His sense of humor is odd, but healthy. Now, at 28, he's thoroughly engrossed in his Web page. He's also lonely, as evidenced by "the test," ("So you actually think you're cool enough to be my girl? Amaaaazing!") in which the ladies can see how they stack up against Fayez's criteria. It's a funny, self-mocking exercise, mind you, another ruse. Fayez, ultimately, is just so flat-out geeky, he's charming. Don't ask me how that works, but it doesn't hurt that he's a foreigner. You know: vulnerable, doofy, speaks with an accent (I'm guessing on that) -- how could he miss? But none of that really concerns me. Whether or not he gets a date, what I like about his site, aside from the slick, no-nonsense construction, is the quality of the links (all navigable in frames). Like having a newsstand on your monitor, Fayez has assembled some great and varied stuff, including *PHOTO magazine* online, the *Late Show with David Letterman* page, *DC Comics* online, and a whole lot more. Good work, Fayez. Cool, even.
Overall Rating: 18
Pixelfreak
URL: http://www.pixelfreak.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Pixelfreak might not be the freakiest, but it is a solid computer graphics site for the professional right-lober. There's plenty here that you'd expect from any self-respecting graphics site (like, umm, intriguing, well-executed graphics), as well as some of the annoying stuff that you'll find at too many sites nowadays (like, errr, a not-so-interesting use of frames). Still, there's lots 'n' lots of the latest on graphics and animation in five departments--information, reviews, a message board, links, and an interactive job board--that are chock-full of the software, hardware, and resources that matter.
Overall Rating: 17
Hyperstand
URL: http://www.hyperstand.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Hyperstand is the black hole of multimedia development; a site that will entrap developers who just happen by, unaware of the goodies they'll find within. There are daily updates, articles, reviews, and columns, which cover the latest issues, trends, and tools. Search back issues of the print magazine or download the best and latest in development shareware and demos, like audio editors and Netscape plug-ins. The oodles of articles on everything from Hyper-G's server technology to Dimension X are enough to send you into a printing frenzy. And although Hyperstand is the online version of NewMedia magazine, it definitely stands on its own two feet.
Overall Rating: 18
University of Washington
URL: http://www.washington.edu:1180/
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
I did some time at this institution, so I come to this site occasionally just to see what the weather's doing back home. The UW site, however, is far more impressive than the inevitably dreary image from the view cam. A big campus, the "U Dub" is a city in its own right, and the magnitude of this site reflects that fact. Links connect to all the various departments, to campus radio, to student and faculty directories, campus publications, museums, ...there's even a virtual tour of the medicinal herb garden. Anyone interested in the U -- especially anyone considering enrollment -- should come here first. And pay special attention to that weather.
Overall Rating: 16
Tulane Financial Aid
URL: http://www.tulane.edu/~finaid
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
Full time undergraduates at Tulane are looking at a cool $21,236.00 per annum, not including books, room and board, or future tuition hikes. This site lays it all out for you in unflinching terms. Parents and students may flinch, but not the Tulane Financial Aid Office. For those without trust funds to tap into, there are links to other resources here. In fact, the page called "other resources" is a probably a good stop for any college bound folk, paupers and "trustafarians" alike. For those seriously considering Tulane, there is info for visitors, including maps and links to the New Orleans regional transit authority (streetcars!).
Overall Rating: 15
University of the Phillipines
URL: http://www.upd.edu.ph/
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
This is a pretty generous site, with superfluous but interesting material like photos of the Manila campus circa 1933. Most of the information is in English although some segments, like the news briefs, are in Tagalog. Interested in enrolling? U.S. students need a minimum combined SAT of 1200, though exceptions are apparently made on occasion for "mature" students. Visually, the site is a bit dull (The Webmaster apologizes for a busted color scanner), but the info is all here and straightforward.
Overall Rating: 14
School House
URL: http://www.worldvillage.com/wv/school/html/school.htm
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
It ain't Schoolhouse Rock (remember *Conjunction Junction*?), but it rocks nonetheless, with in-depth reviews of a full spectrum of educational software. I don't use the word in-depth lightly, either: screen shots and lengthy criticisms are offered for a growing list of titles that already includes somewhere around, ...let's see, one, two, three, ... a hundred titles. A sub page of the larger World Village site, this one should be bookmarked by any parents with school age kids and a CD-ROM drive.
Overall Rating: 16
Inkspot
URL: http://www.interlog.com/~ohi/inkspot/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
Inkspot and it's print offshoot, Inklings, are resources for professional writers. With an incomplete but growing list of paying and non-paying zines and newsstand rags, plus a free classified section, the site will be of special interest to freelancers. Also valuable are postings concerning online copyright issues, updated information on contest deadlines, and links to other genre-specific journals (Inkspot slightly favors writers specializing in children's literature). It's no competition for the hardcover standard, *The Writer's Market *, yet -- not even close -- but give it time.
Overall Rating: 16
The Official Hair Dyeing Page
URL: http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~mizraith/dyeing.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Chameleons, this is it! As one who has sported hair in every rainbow shade from pink to blue, I have to say the hair dyeing page is on the mark. With discussions of the relative merits of permanent vs. semi-permanent dyes, brand recommendations, and maintenance tips, this page will beyond doubt assist your color change needs. It's not an exhaustive source of info, but it's got the basics that Lady Clairol just ain't gonna tell you. The blending tips are awesome!
Overall Rating: 17
President `96
URL: http://www.pres96.com
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
President '96 is an online game simulating the current, real-world presidential campaign. In the President '96 world, however, there is no incumbent president, just 4 Democrat, 4 Republican, and 2 Independent candidates. Players join the campaign staff of a candidate and advise them where to stand on the issues (only 8 issues in the Pres '96 world), and how to react to news stories that appear on the Web site. It's a fascinating interactive experience where staff cooperation is essential to have your candidate win. The time frame is concurrent with the real elections, so join a campaign soon.
Overall Rating: 18
The Diplomatic Pouch
URL: http://www.csn.net/~mhand/DipPouch/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Diplomacy, a game like Risk only more complex, was easily adapted to a play-by-mail version years ago, and almost any game that can be played by mail can be played by e-mail. This site has instructions and resources for e-mail Diplomacy, as well as a regularly published 'zine with various articles about strategy and rules in the game. The Showcase section features some games currently being played, so visitors can follow their progress. A well-designed site, with lots of content but skimpy on interactivity.
Overall Rating: 16
Tattoos.com
URL: http://tattoos.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Tattooing has evolved from the stuff of hoods and sailors in grimy port parlors to being recognized as the true art form it can be. This e-zine is one of the most comprehensive and professionally-produced body art resources in the mediascape. Reports from tattoo conventions, a rich gallery of ink work, plenty of links to related sites and Real Audio files make this a stop worthy of the most illustrated human beings. Now how much would that little devil cost again?
Overall Rating: 18
SB's Breakin' Page
URL: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~bock/bd/bd.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Pop it, rock it, lock it, and break it. Yes Turbo, breakdancing has come to the Web. Download that Afrika Bambaata AU file, or any of the multitude of old-school samples on the site, trip on some graffiti from back-in-the-day, and try to hit that windmill like Crazy Legs in Beat Street. (Check the video clip if you've forgotten.) Once you practice the moves, throw on your parachute pants and Pumas with the fat laces, and come down to the corner. Just don't be wack and forget your cardboard. (Lost? See the site for the definition of "wack" and other breakin' terminology.)
Overall Rating: 16
The Original Roughstock
URL: http://www.ossinc.net/roughstock/
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I enjoy country music. And before you start making jokes about ten gallon hats and Garth Brooks, you better check out this site. Country-western is as much a subculture as punk rock or hip-hop. In fact, judging from this site it might even be more interesting. Alphabetized images and info about rodeos, Willie Nelson, Clint Black, and a multitude of other country fixtures make me want to buy some boot-cut Wranglers and become a ranch hand. As you read the History of Country Music you too will learn that there's a lot of heart and soul in this oft-joked about lifestyle, even if Garth is affiliated.
Overall Rating: 16
The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension
URL: http://www.intac.com/~dimitri/dh/deoxy.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This is *the* site for budding psychedelic shamans eager to meet the elves that visit us from hyperspace at our most "open" moments. Take a puff on that DMT-filled pipe and click here. Immerse yourself in the hallucinogen-inspired (and hyperbole-filled?) wisdom of Terrence McKenna, ethnobotanist of the next millennium. Let John Lilly introduce you to his dolphin, Peter, that "speaks" English, then allow ex-Mondo 2000 pillars Gracie and Zarkov to take you on another Tryptamine trip. And last but certainly not least, ingest a healthy dose of optimism with the good doctor Timothy Leary. Turn on, tune in, and take over.
Overall Rating: 16
Ecstasy.org
URL: http://ecstasy.org/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This site's creator, Nicholas Saunders, is the author of the well-received *E for Ecstasy*, and an expanded version of that fine text called *Ecstasy and the Dance Culture*. Whether you partake in the love drug or not, any rave/cyberculture info-seeker will dig Saunders' collection of studies related to MDMA and background on Ecstasy research around the world. (Also, the cheesy/cool animated GIF banner is worth a stare.) How toxic is E? You may be surprised, actually. Check here for details. And no, MDMA does not drain you of spinal fluids. But drinking lots of water will not solve all your problems either.
Overall Rating: 16
MedSeek
URL: http://www.medseek.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
Don't like your doctor and need to find one really fast? MedSeek has a search engine containing information on more than 280,000 physicians. Search by specialty, name, or geographical area. What you get is the name of a doctor, an address, and a phone number. The doctors are supposed to put a portfolio on the site, which would give you more info on their practices and medical philosophies, but almost none of them have. When I visited, the site promised to start a CyberClinic, where you can send in questions and get e-mail responses from doctors.
Overall Rating: 17
HealthWorld Online
URL: http://www.healthy.net
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
Organized around a neighborhood theme, this slow-to-download site offers a slew of articles and links designed to help you develop a more balanced, healthy lifestyle. The meat of the site consists of articles written by an assortment of wellness-oriented doctors on everything from nutrition and insurance to self-care. Visitors also find a database of natural health professionals, links to health publications, and a Health Marketplace. The site's overall philosophy seems to be that a simple diet and a high-quality lifestyle will provide the tools to fight illness.
Overall Rating: 16
Disease and Disorders
URL: http://www.mic.ki.se/Diseases/index.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
Don't know how to treat food poisoning? Think you might be allergic to yeast? Can't remember how to care for your contacts? You can find directions to answers for these and a load of other such questions here. Put together by The Library and Medical Information Center at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, it's an extensive and somewhat overwhelming assortment of links to medical information sites (both educational and informational) on the net. Good organization and simple design helps make this a meaningful resource.
Overall Rating: 16
Ultrasound Scans
URL: http://www.hkstar.com/~joewoo/joewoo2.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
This is actually a comprehensive guide to obstetric ultrasound, a diagnostic technique used to assess the gestational age, size, and growth of a fetus. Expectant parents yearning to know more about this technique can learn about the measurements the ultrasonographer will make, the problems being looked for, and the type of technology that may be used. Perhaps most interesting are the pictures of fetuses taken by the creator of this site, an obstetrician and gynecologist (whose bio is extremely hard to read). You can also hear fetal heart sounds, find answers to mothers' frequently asked questions, and browse a good list of links.
Overall Rating: 16
Safer Sex
URL: http://www.safersex.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
This is an amazing resource, geared particularly to parents who want to keep their kids safe in the age of AIDS. As the site notes, safer sex is not about "simply... putting condom machines in schools, or lecturing [kids] on abstinence." Instead, it's about developing and practicing the habits of safer-sex and/or abstinence. The site helps in this effort by debunking sex myths, providing sample scripts for talking with a partner, and offering techniques to help avoid HIV. And it's all done with Web flair (video and audio clips, threaded discussions) and a frank approach that's refreshing and rare.
Overall Rating: 18
WellnessWeb
URL: http://www.wellweb.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Minda Sandler
WellnessWeb is a great idea, and a valuable resource. Its mission is faultless -- to help patients discover the best and most appropriate medical information and support available -- and its philosophy -- that patients should provide more input into the delivery and future direction of health care -- admirable. It's an ambitious and impressive outgrowth of a group of health care providers, patients, and family/friends of patients, who have gotten together and created this hundred-page-long network for patients. WellnessWeb's approach to the topic of Prostate Cancer illustrates the site's compassionate emphasis on empowering patients through knowledge. The page sets the stage for discussion, with critiques and expositions of the controversies surrounding current treatment. Visitors will also find a list of available treatments (which link to supporting material) and the latest news regarding the condition. They can leave an e-mail question for an expert to answer; read first-person accounts of living with prostate cancer; discover tips and insights from patients; and glean even more information from news group postings (WellnessWeb scours 10,000 newsgroups to make sure it doesn't miss anything). Further support is provided through a glossary of terms, and a list of doctors, support groups, hospitals, and books. This exhaustive approach is echoed in the other health categories of the site, which include Women's Health, Elders Watch, Heart Center, and Smoker's Clinic. The Women's Health area reviews various medical tests, like mammograms and Pap smears, talks about illnesses that strike women, like breast and cervical cancer, reviews various hormone replacement theories, and connects you to women's forums and resources. Especially valuable, not just to a patient but also to his or her family, is the Elder Watch area. Here you'll not only find information on such older persons' health concerns as glaucoma, heart disease, and memory loss, but also links to the ElderHostel Web site (http://www.elderhostel.org/) and the Seniorsnet site (http://www.seniorsnet.com/), an in-depth exploration of long-term care. There's also a good overview of living wills. It's not all serious, though. For lighter stuff, check out the Be Happy Be Well area, designed as a Stress Control Menu. There you'll find an innovative hodgepodge of stuff, such as links to sports, travel, and national park sites, a real dialogue about soap dispensation, amusing stories about pets, puzzles, and other stuff to take your mind off illness or disease. And keeping with the goal of patient empowerment, there's a whole Grassroots area that encourages visitors to e-mail in their comments, submit an article, send letters to Congress, and get involved in other actions (e.g., Save the Rain Forests). There are also mega-lists of resources, references, and links to connect you to newsletters, hospitals, books, support groups, databases, and much more. I can't applaud the spirit and the effort behind this creation enough and encourage anyone with health-related questions to visit here long and often.
Overall Rating: 18
AACAP
URL: http://www.psych.med.umich.edu/web/aacap/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has put together a friendly, eye-catching site whose prize is the Facts for Families. These are 51 fact sheets designed to answer all sorts of issues parents may face -- everything from a child's anxiety and bed wetting to long-term illness and attention deficit disorder. Best of all, the sheets are available in English, Spanish, and French. A concise set of links provides more information on psychiatry and medical care, and there's a list of AACAP catalogues that can be ordered over the phone or via snail mail.
Overall Rating: 16
World Health Network
URL: http://www.worldhealth.net/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
With Baby Boomers hitting the 50 year mark, it's likely that longevity products and resources will mushroom. Already flowering on the net are a number of sites designed to help you guard against aging. One of the best I've seen is World Health Network, an attractive site providing reviews of youth wonder drugs (melatonin, DHEA, HGH), previews of new anti-aging medicine books, a longevity test (this is actually a great exercise in self-awareness; I highly recommend it), and conferences on staying young. An excellent resource area provides links to a bevy of health-related sites.
Overall Rating: 18
Roland Users Group
URL: http://www.rolandus.com/rug/rug.html
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Roland is music to any musician's ears. Here you can find out which keyboard, synthesizer, digital sampler or electronic drum is right for your techno pop or riot grrrl band. Even if you're not in a band, the site has numerous articles and interviews with composers and musicians who use the company's equipment, including "White Squall" film composer Jeff Roma and Jazz fusionist Pat Metheny. You can also shop for Roland videos, posters, clothing, books and CDs from the Web site.
Overall Rating: 17
David Cronenberg Home Page
URL: http://www.netlink.co.uk/users/zappa/cronen.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
From its topmost menu, "The New Flesh Directory," this site is well-steeped in the special blend of psychosexual techno-terror that infuses most of Director David Cronenberg's films (Scanners, Videodrome, The Dead Zone,The Fly, Naked Lunch, to name a few). If the biography and filmography aren't enough, the extensive collection of interviews, reviews, articles and images should provide you with hours of entertainment and an all-too-vivid conception of the mind of David Cronenberg. You may find yourself wanting to hop to a lighter site for a breather - say the William S. Burroughs Page or the Official Clive Barker Web Site.
Overall Rating: 18
Movie Poster Page
URL: http://www.musicman.com/mp/posters.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
This page offers a huge selection of movie posters, all for sale, straight off the wire. We're talking collector-oriented, rare and vintage stuff here, not just tattered Tron slicks and life-sized Uncle Buck cutouts. Check out posters for everything from *Apocalypse Now* (the Polish version) to the Woody Allen Film Festival, then buy the one(s) you like best. Just be aware that these puppies cost more than a large popcorn, and the preview images take a while to load. Casual cruisers should stick to the thumbnails or keep a paperback at hand.
Overall Rating: 17
Jayne Loader's Public Shelter
URL: http://www.publicshelter.com/main/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
A co-creator of the ground breaking documentary *The Atomic Cafe*, Jayne Loader uses this Web site (produced in conjunction with a CD-ROM) to continue her exploration of America's history of nuclear naughtiness. The site is a copious core sampling from one of the most highly-charged issues of the 20th Century, but you can be a politically and socially apathetic slug and still have a great time here. That's because Jayne's place (especially the weekly WWWench essay) packs more links than the swing shift at the Jimmy Dean sausage plant. All you hardcore surfers better pack a lunch - you're going to be here a while.
Overall Rating: 18
Cinemania
URL: http://www.msn.com/cinemania/
Category: Film
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Microsoft Network's way station for the celluloid set is jam-packed, attractive, and, at times, even incisive. New feature articles come out every week. When I looked there were pieces on the Cannes Film Festival, the L.A. Independent Film Festival, restoration of old films, and an ongoing tribute to director Krzysztof Kieslowski. All the latest films are reviewed, plus there's a review library and video reviews section. And don't miss Scanners; the weekly column by Seattle-based writer, Jim Emerson, has a *Spy*-like insider's acidity that is all too rare in fluffy movie biz press.
Overall Rating: 18
The Online Movie Club
URL: http://www.sna.com/movies/
Category: Film
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Real-time audio and 3D animations are great, but the real attraction of the Internet is the chance to get something for nothing. And that's exactly what The Online Movie Club does. Consult its listings for upcoming FREE movie screenings, then sign up for FREE passes on the spot. Every listing includes a PR-style summary, in case you're not sure what Twister is about. Movie Club covers Northern California only, so everyone else in the country will just have pay full price. Oh, there are some fanzine-flavored features as well as bar and restaurant reviews, but I didn't pay much attention to them. I was too busy trying to get FREE STUFF.
Overall Rating: 16
Sleep Medicine Home Page
URL: http://www.cloud9.net/~thorpy/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
With its far-reaching, detailed collection of resources regarding the science of slumber (including the physiology of sleep, clinical sleep medicine, patient information, and links to business-related groups), the one thing this site won't do is put you to sleep. Maybe your spouse is keeping you up at night with some high-volume log-sawing, maybe you're a new parent with fears about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or maybe you're a college student wondering whether narcolepsy explains your tendency to conk out during economics class. Whatever your sleep-related questions, this is the place to answer them.
Overall Rating: 15
Novagraphics Space Art
URL: http://www.novaspace.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
From the fantastic worlds of Star Trek and Star Wars to the real-life voyages of NASA's Apollo missions, Novagraphics Space Art sells photographic quality paintings by -- what else? -- space artists. Images include imaginary depictions of planets orbiting moons, exploding stars, spiraling black holes, and a collage of portraits of American astronauts. The Web site also sells art work signed by astronauts and pieces created by Apollo 12 astronaut, Alan Bean.
Overall Rating: 17
Dys-Functional Pottery of John Britt
URL: http://www.erinet.com/claydude/britt1.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Just 'cause it looks like a cup, doesn't mean you should drink from it. Especially if it's a Dys-Functional mug by John Britt called "Honey, I believe you've cut your lip." Britt's site consists of artistic teapots, cups, jars, cans, bottles and chairs. His "dysfunctional" method of creation involves making the masterpieces, then breaking them apart, then putting them back into functional forms. Although Britt offers means to e-mail him, there is no indication that his works are for sale.
Overall Rating: 16
ArtNow Gallery Guide
URL: http://www.gallery-guide.com/content/current/index.htm
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Heading to New York City and wondering what's so special about the Brooklyn Museum? Or how about the Kunsthalle Wein Museum in Vienna, Austria? Well, the ArtNow Gallery has biographies, telephone numbers and addresses of museums from throughout the world. Taken as a whole, ArtNow is an attractive site with links to museums, artists, and exhibitions. Although it has international information, at present, the site has more information on American artists, museums and exhibitions than anywhere else.
Overall Rating: 17
Handshake Project
URL: http://www.mcs.net/~artic/home.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Packed with links that tend to make a visitor go "hmmm!" or "huh?," Handshake Project suffers from a lack of good copy editing. While there are some promising elements here -- even hints of a great site, (what with the continuous video of a handshake and analysis of personality profiles based on the shape and size of a hand) -- its disorganization and syntactical errors are too glaring to overlook. The site links to essays on the handshaking techniques of white-collar businessmen, a global look at the act of handshaking, the transmission of viruses, and a seemingly unrelated religion page. Speaking of copy editing, I don't think the Muslims consider Jesus a "profit." A *prophet* maybe, ...
Overall Rating: 16
Art Crimes
URL: http://www.gatech.edu/desoto/graf/
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
It's not about who is trying to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. It's about the world of graffiti, baby. Featuring urban scrawl on trains, city walls, and digital graffiti from American cities, not to mention street art from around the world, this site provides up-to-date information on graffiti shows and interviews with graffiti artists.
Overall Rating: 16
Chains
URL: http://found.cs.nyu.edu/andruid/CHAINS.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Equal parts art, history, culture, and riddle, Chain invites visitors to unlock a coded message while introducing the West African nation of Ghana. Complete with audio files of vu gbe (drum language), artistic collages, and video footage from Ghana, the site is a hodgepodge of interwoven sites and philosophical musings in an ofttimes weird presentation of flashing words and warnings. If you have the time and patience, it is worth it, but don't visit if you seek straight-forward material on African cultures.
Overall Rating: 17
Art Indices International
URL: http://www.artindices.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Art Indices brings together an art gallery and an interior designer with the goal of delivering art to the office or home. The home page links to the gallery's and designer's pages. While the site is filled with information and services, the presentation is pedestrian and gray.
Overall Rating: 15
Children in Need Leg Wax Page
URL: http://www.aber.ac.uk/~rag994/leg_wax.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Brief and unattractive, yet hilarious and inspiring, the Children in Need Leg Wax page had me cackling out loud. There's not much to it: some thumbnails of "piccys from the excruciatingly painful leg wax," with a smattering of brief text. But it's all good nonetheless. The page chronicles a charity event put on by Aber Rag, the student charities appeal of Aberystwyth University in England. The payoff for just 7 pairs of mens' legs stripped and smoothed, courtesy of Jean and Claire from JB's Hairdressing? A not-so-shabby #1200 (about $1800). BB
Overall Rating: 14
Kubrick Multimedia Film Guide
URL: http://www.lehigh.edu/~pjl2/kubrick.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Heidi Swanson
Quick! Name the contents of the survival kit in *Dr.Strangelove*. How about the stash in Alex's pockets in A *Clockwork Orange*? If visions of black combs and ball pens, prophylactics and pep pills escape you, it might be time for a refresher course at the Kubrick Multimedia Site. From creator, Patrick Larkin, here is a site dedicated exclusively to the work of Stanley Kubrick, the award-winning producer/director of *2001: A Space odyssey*,*The Shining*, *Lolita*, *Full Metal Jacket*,...need I go on? This site functions on a very basic level, its sole objective to provide a reliable source for Kubrick information with all links directly tethered to Stanley Kubrick and his acclaimed body of work. From the get-go the site leaves film interpretation to the viewer, delivering up Kubrick marginalia for its own sake only. No Bells, no whistles, just crisp imagery, bankloads of sound, choice video, and -- like that special toy Grimace-mobile stashed in your Happy Meal -- the added bonus of a super stealthy backstage pass delivering all the dirt on up-and-coming projects. Key words found in the Rumor Mill this week were Cruise, jealousy, Kidman, and sexual obsession. I must admit I have a special place in my heart for any site with a section dedicated to gossip. And as long as we're on the topic of other people's business, how about our host? When did Patrick develop this all-consuming fascination with Mr. Kubrick? Well, at about the same time that I was sneaking into the basement to catch late-night showings of *Zapped* and *Fast Times*, Patrick was catching *A Clockwork Orange* on Showtime. Immediately taken with a filmmaker so engrossed in the zeitgeist, Philip eventually turned his hand to the current project. It's a shame, however, that Kubrick's attention to detail and visual flare haven't carried over into Larkin's realm. In all honesty, after the first pages, the visual and technical quality of the site drops like a barrel over the falls. I think maybe the philosophy here is some kind of Zen acquisition:"Build it, and the graphics will come." But fear not, you're still in for a treat. This site is heads and shoulders -- maybe even an elbow or two -- above most other sites in terms of sincerity and commitment. The content is there, and trust me, if the Kubrick Multimedia Site can't provide you with the fix you need, it will point you to places that can.
Overall Rating: 16
@art gallery
URL: http://gertrude.art.uiuc.edu/@art/gallery.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
With a layout as clean as the linoleum floor in a Mop n' Glo ad, the @art gallery is committed to exhibiting the best in contemporary electronic art. Artists are showcased on a revolving basis, with each exhibition lasting six to eight weeks. Operating from a collaborative foundation, @art is an optimal place for the exploration, generation, and presentation of digital art. A much needed celebration of technology and aesthetics, integrating the usually discrete disciplines of motion, video, text, images, rhythm, and sound. Lean, clean, and mean.....check it out.
Overall Rating: 17
Playbill On-line
URL: http://wheat.symgrp.com/playbill/html/home.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
If following the theatre industry is your gig, Playbill is your site. They give us Broadway. They give us Off-Broadway. They even give us the *Road Rules* version of the *Nation Tour* circuit as it barrels across the heartland with semis full of glistening props and facial powder. Playbill is able to provide a laundry list of theatre offerings ranging from articles and interviews, to casting calls and job listings, plus pics, flix, and general info covering over 1,000 shows and theaters. Packed with content, arching through an electric redesign, and mentioning *Annie* no less than 10 times, it's a rare find indeed.
Overall Rating: 16
The Digital Photography Exhibit
URL: http://www.bradley.edu/exhibit95/
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Lauren Guzak
In much the same way that The National Endowment for the Arts will always be the victim (or benefactor, for that matter) of the changing tides of public policy, so the Web can be targeted by those who wish to restrict its contents. For the moment, though, it continues to be a forum where myriad art forms can be published for a relative pittance. An exceptional example what the Web can do in this respect is the Digital Photography Exhibit, a juried show of some 45 images created by artists working in digital photography. The original Exhibit in 1994 was one of the first art galleries to be presented online. It consisted of both the Web site and the actual show at the Art Guild gallery in Peoria. Defined by the jury as "a two-dimensional image which originated in a lens-imaging device (that) was then brought to completion on a computer," digital photography includes images originally captured by analog film cameras, video cameras, still-video cameras, digital cameras, and 3D-scanners. The artwork itself is diverse, challenging, and representative of a wide range of techniques and artistic visions. If you like the work well enough to put it on your wall, you'll be interested to know that many of the prints are available for purchase. The quality of the images from the 38 artists represented is, in and of itself, enough to recommend this site. But more impressive than its parts is the site as a whole. The functionality and background design are engaging yet unobtrusive from start to finish, and the technology is never invasive of the overall experience; headers, toolbars, and buttons are well-placed, there to let you easily navigate the site, not distract you from it. The "space" that houses the digital artwork was finely crafted by three students-- Kevin Reynen, Danny Jacobs, and Dave Dreghorn--as an independent study project at Bradley University. (Reynen, Jacobs, and Dreghorn also created the PhotoShock v1.1 "Digital Fauxtography" image manipulation project. It's a funny, interactive Shockwave piece with Bob Dole and Bill Clinton at center stage behind podiums. Change the backdrops and/or their looks--from a hippy Clinton to a pea-green Dole-- for some amusing images.) Now in its third year, the 1994 and -95 exhibits are still available for viewing. Enjoy.
Overall Rating: 18
Happy Puppy Game Downloads
URL: http://www.happypuppy.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
It may be ugly, but if you're looking for a jam-packed site filled with forums, cheats, downloads, reviews, and the latest info on games, this is, as they themselves say, the number one spot for PC games on the Web. Run by a group of old-school gamers, this is a site for people who remember the way PC gaming used to be -- not a lot of hipster flash, but plenty of meaty content. Plus, it's called Happy Puppy. What more do you want?
Overall Rating: 16
Pop Rocket
URL: http://www.poprocket.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Pop Rocket, known for their CD game, Total Distortion, has hit the Web with a vengeance. Featured is info on their game, as well as several Shockwave-based arcade-style games that come from -- or are at least inspired by -- Total Distortion. These guys know Director better than almost anyone on the planet, and this site is largely a technology demonstration for their new business, building Shockwave games and interactive ads for web sites. Anyway, it's kind of fun. 3,2,3
Overall Rating: 17
Islamic Architecture in Isfahan
URL: http://www.anglia.ac.uk/~trochford/isfahan.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
This architecture-oriented travelogue lets you examine the mosques, palaces, bridges, and other public structures of Isfahan, Iran, from numerous angles. Approach the imposing Sheikh Lotfallah mosque, step inside and peer down the curving corridor, then look straight up into the ornate dome. Taxi to the main square to get your bearings, then follow the directional road signs or text links to the most intriguing spots. More closeups would be nice, but navigation is direct and easy. The text, while prosaic, provides plentiful information not only on the buildings, but also the builders, religious concepts, and fundamentals of Persian architecture.
Overall Rating: 17
Life on the Prairie
URL: http://www.gps.com/life/life.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
"Well, I was 21 and had no prospects of doing anything. The land was there so I took it." That's how Nora Pfundheller-King-Lenartz, pictured standing neck-deep in a field of wheat, explained her decision to homestead on the North Dakota frontier. Life on the Prairie celebrates pioneers like Nora and Eva Popp, who could "shoot the head off a rattlesnake at 100 feet." All beautifully presented in photo essays and book excerpts, a hard-scrabble existence never looked so good.
Overall Rating: 18
Carl Jung: Anthology
URL: http://www.enteract.com/~jwalz/Jung/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Intended as a primer on the Swiss psychiatrist's oeuvre, this site takes an appetizer-tray approach to its subject. Click on any of 18 big themes, including The Ego, Archetypes, Good and Evil, Dreams, and Man and Woman, and you'll get a selection of quotes from Jung's *Collected Works.* They don't exactly provide an explanation of Jung's thinking or its application, but the site does offer links and references for those who want to learn more. And if interpreting Jung for yourself seems like too much trouble, you can always take the Jungian personality test, which will analyze you in about five minutes.
Overall Rating: 17
No Dogs or Philosophers Allowed
URL: http://www.access.digex.net/~kknisely/philosophy.tv.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Serious but not humorless, this viewer's companion to the TV show by the same name provides articles that give context to the on-air discussions of existential questions. Wondering if time exists? What about the past or future? Are we moving through time or are we simply in time? The No Dogs site will clue you in. You can also buy videotapes of past shows, find out where to tune in for current ones, get a list of books to read, and learn how to participate. Links connect to other philosophy sites.
Overall Rating: 16
Serendip
URL: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Did you know that you have a blind spot in the back of your eye as big as a pencil eraser, and that your brain is filling the bits you can't actually see? Serendip's series of optical demonstration screens will prove it to you, and the text -- plainly written but not dumbed down -- will help you understand it. The blind spot is one of several topics in Serendip's Brain and Behavior section; you can also enter a discussion forum or visit the Playground and try a mind game. The '70s-style graphics on the welcome page may not qualify as groovy, but the content definitely does.
Overall Rating: 17
Left-Wing Lingo, Ideologies and History
URL: http://www.dsausa.org/Docs/Lingo.html#pic
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This site introduces the complex history of left-wing ideological movements. Web-author J. Hughes' simple layout and cogent writing draw together movements ranging from Populism to Communitarian Socialism. His brief explications of varying theories and praxes link out to relevant and consistently rewarding sites. Unfortunately, Hughes makes the common blunder of placing his text on a white background (making it harder on the eyes), and his family tree of U.S. Socialist History is too large to read on most monitors. Nevertheless, this site makes superb educational use of the Web.
Overall Rating: 16
U.S News Online
URL: http://www.usnews.com/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Readers of the print version of U.S. News will want to check out its well-done Web version, which offers more than just the same stories for free. Here, feature articles run with links to related pieces that sometimes date back several years. Furthermore, there's a search engine to probe the archives. Those eager to correspond with other readers about current events are invited to post their comments in the Talk Back column. And to top it all, the site hosts spacious audio and video archives. There's even something called a chat infobank to enlighten the IRC-illiterate.
Overall Rating: 16
Discovery Channel Online
URL: http://www.discovery.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Discovery Channel Online strikes a fine balance between a tight layout, subtle graphics (featuring the popular push-pull logo animation), and consistently engaging articles and photos. A calender motif thematically groups the stories, so a piece on Timothy Leary's proposed Internet suicide is found on the Saturday Technology page, while Science Wednesday features a hypertext essay all about Alan Turing, chaos theory, and artificial life. In keeping with the Discovery Channel's programming philosophy, there's really an embarrassment of riches here. Well-written features on nature, history, people and exploration round out this outstanding and inexhaustible webzine. The only complaint is all the download time.
Overall Rating: 18
douglas gerlach's invest-o-rama
URL: http://www.investorama.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Who is Doug Gerlach? Don't know, but his appealing and useful personal investment site is a boon to anyone who plays the market or is just getting started on a portfolio. Mysteriously, there isn't any info on Doug's credentials, but the guy seems on target. Excellent organization takes you to a monthly growth stock to watch, a variety of feature articles, an "Ask Doug" Q&A, lots of topical meta-links, info on dividend reinvestment plans, and a place to add your own links. Doug, tell us who you are so we can thank you properly.
Overall Rating: 18
California Avocado Commission Online
URL: http://www.avoinfo.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
In 1958, 4.9% of US households bought avocados; in 1995, 40.9% did. This may explain how it is that the California Avo Commission has such built an attractive, fun page to promote the American/West Indian fruit. There are recipes here for every taste: kids, guacamole fans, diabetics, dieters, and gourmets. There's info on nutrition, crop size, how to ripen and peel them. Trade statistics and industry factoids share space with an avo fan club, news for growers, and lots more. The page can be viewed in English or Spanish, with graphics or without. Would that all trade commissions touted their products this well.
Overall Rating: 18
CPSR
URL: http://snyside.sunnyside.com/home/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Take note: for good links about computer privacy, encryption, Internet censorship, and responsible computing practices, come to the CPSR page. The (US-based) group is a "public-interest alliance" of computer scientists and others who watch the impact of computer technology on society. Public policy development and legislative watchdogging are the group's main activities. You can find articles, newsgroups, and other web sites related to encryption, the Communications Decency Act, gender and computing, Caller ID and assorted other issues which affect the online community. Membership info too. A deceptively simple site that goes down deep.
Overall Rating: 15
The Tech Classics Archive
URL: http://the-tech.mit.edu/Classics/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
From Aeschines to Xenophon, this site (maintained The Tech, MIT's student newspaper), offers a searchable archives of almost 400 classical Greek and Roman works. Nothing good on tv? Well why not plug in and peruse the Hippocratic Oath, or print out the entire Iliad and leave it on the coffee table. Browse the index by author, title, date or translator, and share your opinions with other classics-cravers via the commentary section. A real plus: The Tech has taken the big, bulky source files of these works, restyled them to be more readable and broken them down into smaller, downloadable chunks.
Overall Rating: 17
The Scoop Children's Book Reviews Home Page
URL: http://www.friend.ly.net/scoop/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
This site is a must-hit for all teachers and any parents who want their children to read more than just the instructions on the Nintendo box. It features reviews of the latest in children's literature, plus a number of related sections dedicated to educating and entertaining young people: Educator Resource Center, Readers' Top Ten List, Library of Past Issues, Activity Center, and even a even a Scoop Chatroom. While some of these sections (the Activity Center, for instance) could use a content infusion, the overall quality of The Scoop's offerings should be a boon to book-loving families and teachers.
Overall Rating: 16
Rats To Cats
URL: http://www.ratstocats.com/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
The Rats to Cats site Is an HTML Stack made by people Who think that cats smell Each page is a quatrain Of cruel denigration Insulting the honor Of the feline persuasion They don't like cat hygiene They don't like cat habits They find cats lethargic 'Cept when breeding like rabbits They claim cats are sneaky And evil and selfish That they'd gladly trade friendship For a mouthful of shellfish Each verse is portrayed By a well-rendered sketch To thoroughly illustrate The anti-cat kvetch This site will quite surely Drive cat lovers batty It's cute and amusing But a little bit catty.
Overall Rating: 16
Remote
URL: http://www.randomhouse.com/site/Remote/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
Remote is the electronic emissary for David Shields' novel of the same name (Random House, 1996). Like the book, the site is a collage of lists, essays, letters and other texts that reflect upon the disassociating nature of our hyped-up, high-speed, data-driven electronic society. The byproduct of this megamedia blitz is an ailment Shields calls "information sickness." At the site, you can share your dreams of Kurt Cobain, compose a bumper sticker, sample passages from the book, or review Shields' extensive literary resume. Dawdle in the data too long, however, and you might wind up with a bit of info sickness yourself.
Overall Rating: 17
The Libyrinth
URL: http://www.microserve.net/~thequail/libyrinth/libyrinth.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
The Libyrinth looks at 20th century authors who deal with themes of the library ("symbolic of a multitudinous cross-referencing of resources") and the labyrinth ("symbolic of a prose style that employs many winding paths through a shifting veil of reality"). So far, there are complete sections on only four authors (Jorge Luis Borges, Umberto Eco, James Joyce and Gabriel Garcia Marquez), but they are well-researched, well-linked, and definitely deserving of the high-falutin' postmodernist characterizations quoted above. Look for Libyrinth sites focusing on Franz Kafka, Ken Kesey, Milorad Pavic, Gene Wolfe, and others in future months.
Overall Rating: 17
A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang
URL: http://www.io.org/~buff/slang.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
So you want to talk like a roscoe-toting flatfoot with a beezer full of tiger's milk? Well check into the Hardboiled Slang Glossary and in no time you'll be ready to chin down with hard goons and wise-headed shamuses. Culled from the classics of hardboiled detective fiction (works by Hammett, Spillane, Chandler and others), this lead-thrower's lexicon is a good read itself. No fancy graphics, no special search engines, just phrase/definition, phrase/definition, phrase/definition. Like any square joe, this glossary cuts right to the chase and leaves the song and dance to flimflammers and wrong numbers.
Overall Rating: 15
Tweak
URL: http://www.tweak.com
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The Web has lead to many online magazines, but until now I would have said the only one that mattered was Word (http://www.word.com). Tweak is a zine that rivals Word for design quality and content but has a style all its own. The creators may feign humility, insisting as they do that they "are not the next big thing," but their creation belies them. Think of it as punk rock in 1976, lounge music in 1990, or rockabilly in 1950; which is to say, the edge. Tweak opens up with a "splash" page, (the closest thing a virtual magazine has to a cover), featuring a random image. My first hit opened with what looked like an Aztec statue. A later visit turned up an ostrich. The splash page is timed to roll over to the main index page where the true innovations of the site are unveiled. One is a slick little Java applet that opens an extra Navigator window containing a menu bar . The independent navigational tool is a nifty alternative to Frames. Tweak consists of four sections: First Person, Muck, Exon, and Phone Tag. Muck's icon is a rake, which should clue you in to the nature of the content. The only article available on my visit was a deconstructive expose of Disney's ToonTown, unraveling the values implicit in the Magic Kingdom's newest installment. Admittedly, this is the kind of content that will sit best with the cynical gen-Xer set. Exon is devoted to flouting the Exon Amendment, also known as the Communications Decency Act. Articles here include a detailed description of drug use and a tribute to masturbation. Again, not for everybody, but then that's the cutting edge for you. Phone Tag is devoted to "Interviews with people we could get a hold of." The people reached include Kim Deal, of The Breeders, and Paul Barker, of Ministry. First Person embodies the mission of the magazine, to include a personal perspective in journalism. The anecdotal stories there are about disparate events like a mistaken police raid and a 30th birthday -- real stories about real people, well-written and executed. So visit Tweak often. Make the site so popular that it starts getting big, fat advertising revenues. Make the editors so wealthy that they'll trade in their youthful ideals for families and four car garages. Then, fifteen or twenty years from now, maybe some young punks will sneer at them. For the moment, they're not trying to cause no big sensation,...just talking 'bout the generation.
Overall Rating: 18
ULURU- Interactive Cyberopera
URL: http://www.orbitex.ch/uluru
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
ULURU is the Aboriginal name for Ayers Rock, a massive hunk of sandstone in the Australian desert. It is also the name of this ambitious trek into avant-garde transmedia art. Since the project began several years ago, Austrian-Swiss composer Robert Bachmann has melded minds with musicians, digital artists, dancers, and installation artists to expand this masterpiece into a diverse collection of works. The creation of the ballet, symphony, and the Web site, for example, are part of the performance. ULURU is fractal art, where every element represents the whole. Lose yourself in this beautifully complex system where the process is the product.
Overall Rating: 18
Cage on the Internet
URL: http://www.emf.net/~mal/cage.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The late John Cage is the father of experimental music and possibly the most influential avant-garde artist of the 20th century. Fans and initiates can peruse the massive list of the artist's works on this site. If the fifty or so links to Cage resources aren't enough, ease into "Silence," the anything but quiet John Cage email list. Years ago, performance art queen Laurie Anderson asked Cage if he thought things were getting better or worse. His answer? Things are getting faster. If only he could be online.
Overall Rating: 18
Grateful Dead
URL: http://www.dead.net
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Jerry Garcia may be dead, but the Dead is not. The enduring Deadhead subculture thrives on the Web. Cyberspace, after all, is a fine place to communicate with the extended family. Whether you're a fan or not, this page is worth a visit. Read about the new projects of the living band members, give a hearty "hey now" to other fans via a linked IRC channel, and, yes, drop some cash on some Deadwear (no bartering). It's good to see that the Heads have a strong online hub for the post-Jerry leg of this long strange trip.
Overall Rating: 18
Bob Marley
URL: http://softrax.com/pub/marley/marley.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
With a long and detailed biography of Bob Marley, complemented by beautiful images of the man and his musical family, this page is a finely tuned introduction to the rich culture and teachings that Marley lived, loved, and conveyed through music. The frames are a bit tight, but effective in keeping the hypertext-rich site organized and easily navigable. A worthy tribute, and home to Detroit's Marcus Garvey Records, you can order almost everything you need to get into the Reggae spirit here. Almost everything.
Overall Rating: 17
Ubu Web
URL: http://www.dnai.com/~obo/ubu/
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Back when Pere Ubu formed in 1975, "alternative" was synonymous with "weird." This band is still just plain weird. To get an inkling of what I mean, visit Ubu Web, the group's "Avant Garage Online," for release details, deep Ubu history, and "Media Priests of the Big Lie," a trippy narrative by Ubu vocalist, David Thomas. A beautifully designed page, but oddly enough, totally visual. Ubu cites the degradation caused by compression as the main reason for not "downsampling." The second and farther-reaching rationale? "Soon enough you will be living in a world in which all art is nothing but software and no objects have value and no ideas have value."
Overall Rating: 17
Sub Pop
URL: http://www.subpop.com
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Adam Douglas
Few record labels have attained the status of culture. That may be a dubious distinction, but remember, most independent record labels are lucky if they can leak out a few copycat records before filing for bankruptcy, let alone make the Big Time. And to actually be at the forefront of a musical movement, to spawn a new sound,...a culture even? Well, that's exactly what Sub Pop did: It was Sub Pop that blew the top off the whole disaffected-white-boys-in-flanel culture of late 80's Seattle; Sub Pop that nurtured Soundgarden; Sub Pop that exposed the now-legendary band, Nirvana, to the world. There was a time not long ago when you could hardly walk into a record store without overhearing some long-haired kid talking in reverential tones about "Sub Pop." The Seattle label has always been about its bands, first and foremost. The sleeves on the singles reflected that fact: They were homogeneous, featuring a black and white photo of the band in (very) live action -- often tumbling off the stage or onto one another -- with a white bar across the top bearing the the band's name, song titles, and the Sub Pop logo. So while the focus was on the group, the sleeve was always instantly recognizable as Sub Pop's. And for many music fans, that fact alone made it worth a listen. The Web site, while livelier than those grunge-era sleeves, fulfills the same purpose: focusing on the bands, without letting you forget who is behind them. The deepest section of the site is the discography. You can search for your favorite Sub Pop band by catalog number or band name, or just trawl through the vast sea of bands to see what's out there. A quick haul turned up some old favorites (Mudhoney, Tad), some new (Jale, Sunny Day Real Estate), plus a few surprises, mostly in the form of the highly collectible "Singles Cub" (a 7" record a month ). You can download many of the A-sides (samples or full-length). If you've ever wondered what early Greenriver sounded like, here's your chance. The rest of the site is made up of (selected) band histories, including an interesting anecdote about the Rev. Horton Heat, up-to-date tour information, a plethora of photos, and the omnipresent MegaMart, where you can shop for all your favorite Sub Pop merchandise. You can even find out how to book a band or get a job with the label. The site is pleasing to look at, all retro graphics with linoleum-style backgrounds. Like everything Sub Pop does, the pages are economical and unselfconscious. There's no attempt to, like, force it down your throat; they know they're hip and they're mellow about it. So if you haven't heard from Sub Pop since the whole grunge thing got out of control, take a look-see. There are loads of great bands at this site just waiting to be discovered. Which is what Sub Pop's all about, right? Nothing but great bands. Download one today and see for yourself.
Overall Rating: 17
Web Active
URL: http://www.webactive.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Take an activist approach to the Web with this site for the Caesar Chavez in all of us. Web Active scans the Web for politically savvy and informative sites. The editors here make a special effort to identify grassroots causes and efforts, and feature them on the site. Here you can take a Real Audio trip inside the heads of Web editors wanting to make a difference, like the infamous Guerrilla Girls or the executive director of Hands Net , Sam Karp. There's a section just for lynx-only users, and a list of activist projects you can participate in such as saving Mt. Graham or protesting the pending execution of journalist, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Overall Rating: 17
Web Review
URL: http://gnn.com/wr/
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Web Review focuses in on sites that utilize the Internet as a way to disseminate information. One recent article outlines how certain reports from the Gulf War snuck onto the Web, while being ignored by the traditional media. Another columnist picks apart a Christian group's allegations of child porn available on CompuServe. Most of the articles and site reviews on Web Review are not political in nature, but are concerned with technology news. However, as Congress begins to legislate conduct on the net, look to Web Review for extensive coverage of the issues.
Overall Rating: 17
Sinn Fein
URL: http://www.serve.com/rm/sinnfein/index.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Most of us get little exposure to the Northern Ireland conflict outside a few reports of car bombing incidents. Sinn Fein is the one of oldest political parties in Ireland and, now with a Web presence, hopes to enlighten the outside world as to the history behind the conflict and the current state of Irish politics. You can read about the Irish revolution, here, or for a recent update of political events, have a look at the weekly Republican newspaper, An Phoblacht/Republican News. In the Election Headquarters, visitors can vote in polls on various issues.
Overall Rating: 15
ACLU Freedom Network
URL: http://www.aclu.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
This database from the ACLU is a dream come true for law students, activists and everyday citizens who want to know more about an issue before heading to the voting booths. You can read about the latest trials and news related to school prayer, AIDs discrimination, the death penalty, and reproductive rights. Every section has a link to press releases, Associated Press news headlines, other Web sites, and a summary of the history behind the issues. Voters can see an overview of congressional attitudes and the general tone of Congress. Students can download "Express Yourself: The First Amendment," a unique interactive software program which explores freedom of speech as it relates to students today.
Overall Rating: 17
The Perot Periodical
URL: http://www.brainlink.com/~nota/
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The rich business man gone political candidate is not without representation on the Web. The Perot Periodical, an independent quarterly, tracks Perot, his United We Stand America movement, and other independents in politics. Read why Perot has such a following in an age where people choose to trust millionaires over politicians. This journal does its best to look at the truth behind Perot's hyped political campaign and analyze why so many voters were interested in his "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" approach to leadership. Other articles explore why Perot's image haunts the 1996 elections and how Libertarians think Perot uses the fourth party as a "Rich Man's Plaything."
Overall Rating: 16
The Brookings Institute
URL: http://www.brook.edu/
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The nation's oldest think tank, the Brookings Institute, functions as an independent governmental analyst and critic. Political pundits can read recent work by Brookings scholars on current topics such as capitalism in Peru, educational standards in America, and the future of the nation's capital. Other articles and documents at The Brookings Institute site showcase alternative solutions to country's problems. Visitors to the site can also read research report summaries from scholars interested in various aspects of social reform.
Overall Rating: 15
IGuide
URL: http://www.iGuide.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
The on-line, interactive equivalent of TV Guide, IGuide is one of the most attractive and well-organized web sites I've seen. Not at all a rehash of old TV Guide stories, its pieces are original and distinct from the paper publication. IGuide goes out of its way to make its links interactive and incorporate multimedia elements. For example, its crossword puzzle area gives sound and video cues in addition to written ones. The page also features top news stories, reviews of Web sites and other media, as well as chat rooms and bulletin boards. Substantive, (though the material is light, mainstream fare), and eminently navigable, this is a great site.
Overall Rating: 18
Popular Mechanics
URL: http://homearts.com/pm/toc/00pmhpc1.htm
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
A web site for Do-It-Yourselfers (DIY) or folks who just like to read about how things are done. The site includes articles from the print publication of the same name and serves as a pitch for the newsstand version. The site also links to a search engine that combines resources from other Hearst publications such as Home and Garden, Good Housekeeping and Redbook. So, after you've spent hours reading about how to lay down a hardwood floor, you can hyperlink over to the search engine and plug in "curried lamb" for a dinner recipe.
Overall Rating: 17
MoJo Wire
URL: http://www.mojones.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Named after labor organizer Mary Harris Jones (1830-1930), Mother Jones, or MoJo, is the kissing cousin of its paper publication, established in 1976. MoJo Wire is a political "magazine of investigation and ideas for independent thinkers," according to its information page. It bills itself as the first general interest magazine online, having established itself electronically in November 1993. Articles from issues dating back to that inception date are retrievable here. Features include Roger Ebert's and John Sayles' list of top 20 political films, pieces on the tobacco controversy, Newt Gingrich's ethics and Congress' major financial donors. There is also a search engine and bulletin board.
Overall Rating: 17
As-Sayf Oriental Dance
URL: http://www.ivo.se/as-sayf/englishindex.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
As-Sayf sets out to prove that Oriental dance is more than pretty smiles, shaking bellies and swaying hips. This site focuses on a five-member troupe of Swedish women, led by Kay Artle, who have studied dance in Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, England and the U.S. As-Sayf, a word meaning sword in Arabic, introduces various dance styles and music from the region, with original content and links to other Oriental dance sites on the net. You can also check out the many pictures of the As-Sayf dancers.
Overall Rating: 17
GardenNet
URL: http://trine.com/GardenNet/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
So, you don't know when to properly propagate your geraniums? No problem. Cheryl Trine's web site, GardenNet, offers gardening tips, book reviews, a garden e-zine, and an on-line garden shop for avid gardeners and beginners. Trine plans to implement a search engine for the more than 1,000 entries in the question-and-answer area of her Web site. Even if you don't have a green thumb, you might enjoy reading some of the on-line essays in GardenNet magazine, which has more than 200 issues. The current issue and the first 20 issues are available for visitors to the site.
Overall Rating: 17
Sniper Country
URL: http://www.net-connect.net/~daveed/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Sniper Country, managed by military trained snipers, highlights the qualities of a good sharp-shooter and provides an area for these sure-shots to assemble and share their expertise. Sniper Country examines the history of such "hall of shame" snipers as John F. Kennedy assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, and "hall of fame" sure-shot, Carlos Hathcock, who won the Wimbledon Cup for high-powered rifle marksmanship. The site explains the appropriate mental attitude, equipment, and physical well-being of a military trained sniper. It even includes poetry submissions by snipers. Hmmm...
Overall Rating: 16
Frontline Online
URL: http://www2.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
"Literate television," says Frontline's David Fanning, "combines reporting that does not speak down to the viewer and filmmaking that avoids packaging news in the disposable, formulaic patter of standups and sound bites. It raises and addresses questions without skirting complexity." The award-winning PBS series expertly uploads its ideals to the Web, filling its elegant pages with rigorously researched and cross-linked stories on subjects ranging from the ongoing Shakespeare Mystery to the ascendancy of Jesse Jackson. Transcripts are downloadable, gratis, within 2 weeks of broadcast and many pieces are accompanied by RealAudio files, like the one about WACO, which features a conversation between Koresh and the FBI. A real treat for fans of independent journalism.
Overall Rating: 18
Fresh Cup
URL: http://www.freshcup.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
In the old days of snail mail it was a lot easier to keep a secret. Various cliques, cabals, and professional associations had their own journals, catalogs and house organs that, when sent to the wrong person, provided an unexpected and intriguing glimpse into an unknown world. In these changeful days of cyberspace, journals are being published online, so getting information an inside look at one of these secret societies is no longer confined to happenstance. A little idle surfing and, suddenly, you're immersed in the arcane world of animal husbandry, say, or salvage diving, or, in this case, the specialty coffee business. For a trade publication that has migrated to the Web, Fresh Cup looks great. Usually people don't take the time to design such a clean, crisp presentation, but coffee sellers probably have a little more energy, and waste a lot less time sleeping than the majority. (Actually, to give credit where credit's due, the site was designed by Siprelle & Associates). Fresh Cup doesn't break any new ground in online publishing, mind you, but it does transfer the print publication paradigm very well, handsomely interspersing text and graphics. In other words, a Java or Shockwave enabled browser isn't necessary. The content is written for people in the business of buying and selling specialty coffees; Ethiopian Roast, Kona Gold, Sumatra Blend, etc., as opposed to Maxwell's, or Folger's. And, of course, Fresh Cup is based in the Pacific Northwest, where gourmet coffee is as common as water. The site not only publishes articles from the print publication, such as a monthly list of movers and shakers in the coffee world, but also gives information on trade shows and -- something coffee enthusiasts should appreciate -- recipes. The concept of coffee recipes was new to me too (you just put the coffee in the filter and run hot water through it, right?), but every cafe and espresso stand, is competing to come up with the ultimate mix that will keep the customers coming back. To wit, the Mocha Frost, which combines espresso, chocolate milk, and licorice, among other things, to add a little frosting to the caffeine experience. Fresh Cup adds a new dimension to the offers a look at a world few of us knew was out there, but that most of us appreciate, especially in the morning.
Overall Rating: 17
Jinn
URL: http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn/
Category: Media
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Jinn, the "Genie of Culture," is the online, biweekly news magazine of the Pacific News Service, a journal which purports to examine the world "through the lens of culture rather than of politics." Looser in style than straight reporting, Jinn's writers (an able and ethnically diverse stable of talent) write personal narratives and essays which strive to tap a deeper vein than most news media. The editorial has a decidedly Pacific/Californian perspective, seeing its home state as a cauldron of all American social phenomena. Fair enough; what other state could produce Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown, Jello Biafra and Jerry Garcia, Berkeley and Hollywood? Think about it.
Overall Rating: 16
National Endowment for the Arts
URL: http://arts.endow.gov
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Blending the practical with the poetic, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) site serves artists and art lovers alike. Check out guidelines for NEA grant applications, links to other art organizations that might fund your creative efforts, and articles on bread-and-butter subjects such as electronic payment for art and writing posted online. You can also read new stories and poems by NEA fellowship winners, or get information on community art projects. Think about the 67 cents or so you kick in each year to support the NEA, and wish that all your tax dollars were so well-spent.
Overall Rating: 17
The Old Bus Page
URL: http://www.bcn.net/~limbo/70-deluxe.JPG
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The people who drive Volkswagen buses are an odd lot, from funhogging gearhounds to dedicated Deadheads, and suckers for the open road, everyone of `em; that is, if they can keep the damned things running. Buy a bus and the next thing you know, you're a shade tree mechanic. The Old Bus Page, "dedicated to the preservation of the VW Transporter," is a meta-page with links to everything from procedure pages, like the "Rustoration FAQ" to vanity sites, like Dan Lundgren's excellent Volkswagen Saga. There are links to late model bus sites and other air-cooled VW pages as well, most of them very good.
Overall Rating: 15
Sea Magazine
URL: http://www.gsn.com/sea.htm
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Sea Magazine is a publication devoted to powerboating in the western states. As such, the potential audience knows just who they are. They should come here. No fancy multimedia elements, but good clean graphics and an adherence the print paradigm. Nothing new about it, but it works, as the content's not half bad and is presented in such a way that reading it online doesn't seem like such a task. Articles range from product reviews to travelogues to opinion pieces on topics such as the future of Alaskan fisheries. A pretty serviceable zine, all in all.
Overall Rating: 16
ArchNet
URL: http://www.lib.uconn.edu/ArchNet/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
A branch of the vast WWW Virtual Library project, ArchNet is a simple, elegant resource page for archaeologists, housed at the University of Connecticut. An exceptionally well-presented page, the content is accessible in a number of formats: in text only, with Frames, or in any of several European languages. Similarly, the material can be viewed by topic, geographical region, or in the table of contents. All this makes for a degree of customization rare to the Web, and for researchers, students, and casual visitors alike, the experience is sure to be enhanced. Like any good library, ArchNet has resources for everyone, from the curious child, to the student interested in a career in archaeology, to the professional archaeologist. ArchNet has a software archive for researchers; programs available include statistical applications, mapping software, even a program for analyzing arrowheads. Educators will find excellent links to course materials from the University of Connecticut, plus online tutorials, and information on college archaeology programs. The less focused visitor will doubtless find plenty of mind broadening diversions here, as well. While, visually, the ArchNet interface may not be anything to brag about, the site is still better than most of its counterparts in the humanities and reference categories. It transcends the default gray, at least, and boasts an icon-driven table of contents. But the real measure of the designs success is its functionality. There's a wealth of information here, to be sure, and navigating in Frames makes it very manageable, more like the "real" library experience, i.e., as if everything were really under one roof. The ArchNet database can be easily searched with *Excite!* Search results are may be grouped by confidence or subject and are assigned values accordingly. Like most resources on the Web, this project is growing daily; as such, regular visitors will want to check in with the News and Information Systems segment periodically. New sites are listed there as well as news about the project. By policy the site does not include links to commercial endeavors, and all sites are reviewed for the quality of their content. All told, this is a commendable effort on the Web and simply should not be missed.
Overall Rating: 18
Hawai'i -- Independent and Sovereign
URL: http://hawaii-nation.org/nation/
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
I must admit, I would not have been inclined to take this site seriously were it not so well done. For anyone interested in online activism, nationalism, direct democracy, or even just the land under their feet -- the *aina* as Native Hawaiians call it -- this site is a required stop. The case and the cause are stated here in no uncertain terms: "In 1893, the United States illegally overthrew the Hawaiian government. Until today, the Hawaiian people lack a recognized form of self-governance. In 1996, we have a choice. The Native Hawaiian Vote asks all Hawaiians, 18 and over, in Hawaii`i and oversees - 'Shall the Hawaiian people elect delegates to propose a native Hawaiian Government?'" Not a pressing question for us *haolis*, but before you dismiss the notion pretentious and delusional, (as Newt Gingrich has), you may want to review some of the material here. For instance, did you know that the United States Government has formally apologized for the overthrow of Hawaii's last monarch, Queen Liliuokalani? (Students of history may recall that the queen acquiesced only under duress.) There is at least one international legal expert who thinks that the wording of the apology could provide grounds for secession and independence. And while I concede that it's unlikely to happen, I was impressed by this electronic plea for independence on several counts. First of all, the site is lovingly constructed, with all the latest gadgetry in place; Frames and animations have been put to fine use here. Secondly, the graphic design, while by no means a showstopper, is a serviceable platform for the information, and competent enough to attract the idle Web surfer. Finally, and most importantly, however, the argument for sovereignty is convincingly thorough and presented in a tone that is serious without ever becoming hostile. In fact, the tenor of the site is vaguely reminiscent of Bob Marley's music: hopeful and defiant without being bitter. And for those who think of "virtual communities" as comprised of people with diverse backgrounds from around the globe, this is a fine counterpoint: A real world, cohesive community using the Internet as a central medium, a meeting place, a virtual piece of turf, and a rallying point. I have no idea how many Native Hawaiians check in with the site or even support the cause, but the foundation is in place and its solid. Time, I guess, to raise the flag and see who salutes.
Overall Rating: 18
Ride!
URL: http://www.ridemag.com/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Well, if you have a 17" monitor (or bigger!) this page looks great. If you have a T1 connection, it loads in only a minute. But egads, talk about overdone for the wee bitty consumer with a 28.8bps modem! Count on cooking and eating a full bag of microwave popcorn before this puppy loads. Content-wise it's huge too, with all sorts of useful info, regularly updated. Chats, software to download, job postings and horse industry news, all at your beck and call. The history of the Equestrian series in the feature section was super interesting too. GiddyUp.
Overall Rating: 17
Juggler's World
URL: http://www.hal.com/services/juggle/jw/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
At first I didn't get it. What are all these squares for and what is Juggler's World? As it turns, Juggler's World is a magazine that the staff has decided to archive fully on the Web. And, after popping through the extensive content that's there already (15 issues fully hypertexted and more to come soon), I decided it was actually a very clever way to organize that much data. Bonus: as big as the images are, the download is relatively quick. So if you are among the fans of all things that spin from the juggler's hands, check this one out.
Overall Rating: 16
Consumer World
URL: http://www.consumerworld.org/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Consumer World is a mega-site of useful links to all things consumer-related: phone and zip code directories; Better Business Bureau ratings, federal consumer publications, legal references, etc.. Rather than scroll through all the links, you can jump to subject areas. And, though it's a big site, this is a handy way to keep track of Panasonic 800 numbers, Popular Mechanics Car Buying Facts, HUD Asset Sales, state consumer agencies, and lots, lots more.
Overall Rating: 16
Welcome to Masala
URL: http://www.millworks.com/masala.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
A truly *mast mast* (Hindi for "very cool") Web site that gives insight into the pop culture and on-line businesses of India. Read about Bollywood, India's answer to Hollywood in Bombay, it's hottest movies and rising stars. There's an on-line glossary of pop Hindi expressions. Also, listen to tidbits of Punjabi beats that have become the rave of *desi* (native Indian) clubheads in London. A section called Saffron details Indian on-line businesses and companies seeking global business connections. There are also links to Calcutta's "intellectual, romantic and night-life." All this and some garam-garam ("Hot! as in really HOT!!!") recipes make the site complete.
Overall Rating: 16
Key West Paradise
URL: http://www.keywestparadise.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Vivid, low bandwidth images of tropical sunsets and crystal blue waters are sure to attract northerners, fed up with snow, to Key West Paradise. A beautiful site detailing the history of The Conch Republic, a "nation" of sun and paradise in the Florida Keys, as well as everything from accommodations to weather in Key West, Fla. Targeting potential tourists, this Web site has brief bios and price information on hot spots in the Keys. There's even a free beer coupon for Barefoot Bob's!
Overall Rating: 17
Travels with Samantha
URL: http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/samantha/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Phil Greenspun is one of those people who you're going to love to hate. A computer nerd who teaches and advises electrical engineering and computer science undergraduates, he also travels extensively, takes magnificent photographs, and writes with flair. His Travels with Samantha Web site is an on-line account of the summer he spent traveling throughout North America. There story has beautiful women, fighting bears, francophone Canadians, Harley-riding North Dakotans, flood survivors, and people with AIDS. Interestingly, Greenspan's home page begins with others' criticism of his writing and "poor attempt to reflect America."
Overall Rating: 16
Scott's Page of Evil
URL: http://rampages.onramp.net/~scottgl/mainevil.htm
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Do not go to this site if you're easily offended. Scot attacks a wide range of targets here, including religion, politicians, the French, actress Andie MacDowell, and musical group *The Spin Doctors*, all with a dash of humor. He blames the latter for the downfall of alternative music, declaring, "They are an Evil [sic] that should be cleansed from the earth and they will be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes." Surprisingly, The Spin Doctors' bassist, Mark White, responds by thanking Scott for a link to the music group's home page. Evil is just a fun read, not spooky at all.
Overall Rating: 17
Zola's Home Page
URL: http://www.halcyon.com/zola/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
A potpourri of links from the mind of Zola! There are nearly 100 links immersed in Zola's narrative about a trip to France. Zola scolds net surfers for spending hours in front of a computer instead of enjoying RL (real life) adventures such as playing Frisbee, golf or paintball (all three of which she provides links to). She also has links to claim-to-fame Web sites such as The Fishcam and Capt. Kirk Sing-a-long. If you don't feel like zipping from home page to home page, just read some of the colorful quotes Zola provides from the likes of 18th century poet Novalis to Mahatma Gandhi.
Overall Rating: 16
The Sexuality Library
URL: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~sfpse/ftpsite.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Only humans have a Website for it, however. If you have sex-related questions, ideas, or interests, check out the Sexuality Library. Created by the Society for Human Sexuality (a "Sex-Positive Registered Student Organization at the University of Washington"), this site provides a detailed and diverse collection of literature on everything from bondage to birth control, from safe sex guidelines to polygamous Christian groups. The Library is the place to go for honest, open-minded insight into all facets of 20th century sexuality. Seekers of cheesecake GIFs (and surfers under age eighteen) should look elsewhere.
Overall Rating: 16
Galaxy
URL: http://galaxy.einet.net/galaxy.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
Galaxy, another World Wide Web resource index, unfolds from the foremost, general categories through level after level of increasing specificity in an impressive display of deep content. Blast off from the Leisure and Recreation list and eventually wind up at the Judo Information Site, the Pyrotechnics Home Page or Janet's Country-Western Dance Hall Page. This site is list-city, with no graphics and, consequently, not much personality. But you're not dating the darn thing, so who cares? Of course, if you want to feel more connected to Galaxy, they welcome submissions in all categories, via a quick, easy e-mail form.
Overall Rating: 15
Martindale's Reference Desk
URL: http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/~martindale/Ref.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
One can only imagine what Jim Martindale's house looks like. If his Website is any indication, every time the poor guy wants a cup of coffee he must have to climb over heaps of papers and publications, navigate through teetering mountains of gauges, beakers and monitors, while ignoring a cacophony of noise from telephones, tvs, radios, and fax machines. One can be sure, however, that Mr. Martindale is no stranger to the joys of java (the drink, that is). How else could he have created such an informative, educational, eclectic site? If there is an answer to that question, you'll probably find it somewhere in Martindale's Reference Desk.
Overall Rating: 16
UK and Ireland Genealogy
URL: http://midas.ac.uk/genuki/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
The UK and Ireland Genealogical Information Service (GENUKI) is a huge collection of historical data from the UK and Ireland. You can dig into censuses, church records, obituaries, public records and a lot more, focusing your investigation on a specific county or all of England. If wading straight into all this information sounds a bit daunting, don't fret. GENUKI is much more than a hodgepodge of old records typed into a server by hunchbacked undergrads. Its creators also provide a well-written, informative guide to genealogical research that will have you digging up your family's roots in no time.
Overall Rating: 17
The Virtual Reference Desk
URL: http://thorplus.lib.purdue.edu/reference/index.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
Need to find out a zip code, a phone number, how to spell a word, what time it is in Buenos Aires, or how many pecks equal a bushel? The Virtual Reference Desk will definitely steer you in the right direction. It's an impressive collection of links to massive electronic information resources (each link has a brief, clear description of the site). There are usually a number of choices in each category (three different major yellow pages servers, for instance), so you'll probably uncover exactly what you want to know. It's up to you to put that information to good use.
Overall Rating: 16
Libweb
URL: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Libweb/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
Libweb fans love to point out its most obvious positive qualities: Frequently updated links to over 900 library servers worldwide, finding aids, digital collections, extensive catalogs, and a lot more. Libweb is information access in its most effective form-a true testament to the usefulness of the Internet. It's a real shame, then, to think that so many visitors neglect one of Libweb's most compelling features: It allows you to talk, run, laugh, eat, scream and dance in the library! There aren't even any overdue fines (unless you forget to pay your ISP).
Overall Rating: 17
Electronic Journals
URL: http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
Electronic Journals is a sub-section of the massive WWW Virtual Library, offering access to every kind of electronic publication imaginable. From college research journals to underground art e-zines, this is the place to go for periodical readers who just can't stand the ink. You'll be grateful for the intermediate screen that comes between each specific site listing and the site itself. This transition page offers a paragraph describing the site, making it easier to decide whether or not you really want to invest the connection and download time just to browse the Virtual New Age Poetry Review.
Overall Rating: 15
Developer's Resource
URL: http://www.mind.net/jfs/devres.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Another list of resources linked by a Web developer for others of his ilk. There's an affability about this site which raises it above the morass of bone-dry developers' nodes. Of course, there's a good variety of links to resources covering everything from programming languages to graphic formats and other developers' pages. But what stands out are Devres' unique features like the developer's survey form and the hilarious top ten programmer's quotes ("It should all work."), which alone make it worth a visit.
Overall Rating: 16
The Art of HTML
URL: http://www.thecoo.edu:80/~menon/html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Here you'll find an introduction that invites you to learn just how "fun, easy and generally intuitive" HTML is. Scroll down across a long table of HTML resources to find pointers to everything from beginner's essentials to CGI form techniques. Maybe you just want to find a designer to do the work for you? No problem: they're listed. If, on the other hand, you maintain an HTML site yourself, you can submit the url and it'll be reviewed for inclusion within 24 hours. Simple and effective.
Overall Rating: 17
The GNN Hosting Service
URL: http://www.gnnhost.com/index.htm
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
GNN (Global Network Navigator) Hosting Service is a subsidiary of America Online that sells Web space and authoring tools in a "total solution" package. Rent space and you can plug your information into a template and upload a Website in no time - without learning a jot of HTML. My sampling of such "cookie-cutter" domains revealed them to be more than serviceable. From vanity pages to dedicated lines, GNN's T3s do a good job of supporting its growing clientele. The company owes much of its success, no doubt, to the smooth copy and crosslinks that define this seamless website.
Overall Rating: 17
Tokyo Journal
URL: http://teleparc.infoweb.or.jp/tj/ Travel
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
TJWEB is the technically well-prepared and remarkably rich online presence of *Tokyo Journal*, the monthly devoted to anglophone expats living amid the chaos of Asia's premier megalopolis. The issue I viewed boasted an appropriately framed table of contents that directed me to features on the English-teaching craze, the perils of sunbathing in Australia, and an enlightening interview with a Yakuza-busting cop. The nightclubbing guide is quite detailed and reminiscent of London's indispensable weekly, *Time/Out.* Generous of content and well-balanced with graphics, I'd recommend this page to anyone headed for Sony-town.
Overall Rating: 18
Travel Org
URL: http://travel.org
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
A commercial site, this one is actually pretty useful and worth a look. At logon, the viewer is presented with graphic buttons for ten or so regions in the world, plus a list of travel agencies and airlines (the commercial part). Each region is split up by country. Having landed in a destination, one has the option of reading accounts on various expeditions, perusing a photo journal, viewing demographic information, or linking to an updated satellite weather map. The agencies are listed alphabetically with little information as to what they offer. But, overall, not a bad place to start when the cabin fever rises.
Overall Rating: 16
Green Tortoise
URL: http://www.greentortoise.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Beautiful Places at Bargain Prices aboard Sleeper Coaches with Fun People! So reads the ebullient text under the logo banner. Bout says it all, I'd say. But although well known in certain circles up and down the West Coast, the Green Tortoise probably draws a blank in most parts. So if your curious, go here for the quick and dirty run-down of the Greyhound alternative's package tours -- prices, schedules, dates and contact numbers are all in place at this no-nonsense Web site. Read the "Why Green Tortoise?" bit, then the "Why Not Green Tortoise?" to decide whether or not it's for you.
Overall Rating: 14
No Shitting in the Toilet
URL: http://www.magna.com.au/~nglobe/nsitt/contents.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
A self-declared "celebration of everything that is perverse about travel," this site will be a favorite with veteran travelers everywhere, right down to the scatological title. After all, what traveler hasn't suffered bathroom mortifications to the point where it no longer seems odd to discuss the subject with perfect strangers? Folks who wouldn't have said "shit" if they'd had a mouthful prior to traveling are suddenly going on and on about some intestinal crisis that struck them dumb and blind near Delhi. Travel does that to people. I'm not talking about package tours, you understand, but ,rather, travel of the backpack and flophouse variety; travel on the cheap to what are, let's say, sketchy destinations. As such, tourists with no inclination to venture off the beaten path won't find much to like at NSITT. It'll be about as appealing to them as venison to a vegetarian. Fair enough. More adventurous travelers, however, will find more relevant content here than in a month of Sundays elsewhere on the Web -- and all of it original. The creator of the site is an anonymous Aussie with incurable wanderlust and experience to spare. His observations on travel are wonderfully pithy; he's never self-indulgent, and the writing is full of hard-won wisdom and droll one-liners. "I defy anyone to gaze upon a plate of Ugali," he writes in a section on swindles, "and claim that they haven't been ripped off. Even if they got it for free." His site is no design marvel, but it is clean and consistent, better presented than a good many large, commercial sites. Speaking of which, NSITT even boasts a few advertisements; no small feat, considering the potential for it to offend, what between the title and the icon, a variation on the universal symbol for prohibited behavior. Neither of those things -- the title or the icon -- are gratuitous, I should quickly add. Inspired by an actual sign, hand-painted on a water closet somewhere in China, the title sums up the author's notion that "travel is never as you expect. You end up in situations that defy logical and rational thinking. Yet you end up having a brilliant time, not in spite of these situations, but because of them." I couldn't have said it better myself.
Overall Rating: 16
Toaism
URL: http://fourier.bme.med.ualberta.ca/~fwang/taoism.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The *IChing* gets top billing over the *Toa te Ching* here. For those who don't know, the *IChing* is an ancient fortune-telling device, similar to, but more sophisticated than, the old "Magic Eightballs" that were so popular back in the 70's. And not surprisingly, you can get a software version of it here. For the true foundation of Toaism, however, go to the full text of Loa Tze's *Toa te Ching* (available in Chinese or English). It can be read in a sitting and is full of what sounds like equal parts undistilled wisdom and inscrutable nonsense, rather like the site as a whole (lots of tangential links and whatnot). I came away from it with this: The sage ignores abstraction and holds fast to substance. Words to live by.
Overall Rating: 16
All Along the Watchtower
URL: http://home.sol.no/jansh/wteng/jwindex.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
As far back as anyone can remember, Jehovah's Witnesses have been going on about our impending doom -- the curtain call, the grand finale, Armageddon -- even going so far as to name dates: 1798, 1829, 1914, 1975... Yet here we are, still waiting. Which pretty well settles it for me, but if you're a door-to-door Witness yourself, have some doubts, but need convincing, pay this address a visit. There are numerous counter arguments to JW doctrine on these pages, and although some are overlong and convoluted, the facts are well-documented and the evidence overwhelming.
Overall Rating: 15
Christ in the Desert
URL: http://www.christdesert.org/pax.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
The monastic life never looked so good. Home page to a Benedictine cloister in northwestern New Mexico, the Christ in the Desert site is like an oasis, a welcome break from all the hundreds of dry, graphically bereft religion pages out there. The artwork alone makes this site worth a stop, from the Santa Fe-style illustrations to the tremendous exhibit by photojournalist, Tony O'Brien. (For slower browsers, there's a text version, but the images are worth the wait). For the curious, there are brief asides on monastic topics such as Gregorian Chants, psalms, liturgies, and scriptoria, as well as a look at the various handicrafts produced by the brothers: candles and greeting cards, quilts and woodcarvings. Links also connect to scholarly resources. In the news section, visitors can keep up with the monastery's construction project: a hay bale structure being erected by paid laborers, volunteers, and, of course, the monks themselves. Workshops are being conducted simultaneously in "sustainable building." Visitors who wish to stay at the Abbey are encouraged to e-mail for reservation materials, and there's ample information provided online as to costs, rules, schedules, and the like. Be advised: two days is the minimum stay and, unless you're ready to take the solemn vows and don the robes, the maximum is two weeks. And while you can't bring your Walkman, the PowerBook will probably be all right. The most surprising feature of the site has to be "scriptorium@christdesert," the registered trademark of the monastery's fledgeling Web design business (the Benedictine's believe in working for a living, if you didn't know). That's right, the brothers are taking this show on the road; or rather, inviting the world to bring it to them. There it is, brothers and sisters, the modern world. Monks in cyberspace. Jesus Christ, what's next?
Overall Rating: 18
The Geometry Center Welcome Page
URL: http://www.geom.umn.edu/
Category: Science
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Geometry Center is a happening math research and education outpost at the University of Minnesota, and their home page offers much more than the definition of an isosceles triangle. You can even play with nifty Java or frame-based math programs. Orbifuld Pinball, for instance, is a nerdy-but-fun approach to exploring the effects of negatively curved space. Download math shareware packages, including plenty of graphing apps, and peruse the Geometry Reference Archive for formulas galore. The next step in high-tech sliderules.
Overall Rating: 18
This is Mega-Mathematics
URL: http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Number news and notes from our friends at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. But rather than bog us down with odd symbols and complicated formulas, Mega-Mathematics throws down visual problems, twisted games, and strange anecdotes to teach the rules of logic, graphing, and other mind-bending mathematics. Beautifully-designed and organized so you can go as deep as you want into each subject or lose yourself entirely in this seemingly infinite collection. Infinite? What does that really mean? Look here to find out. Allegedly the site is geared for elementary school children, but I learned more than a few things.
Overall Rating: 17
NOAA Live Access to Climate Data
URL: http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/fbin/climate_server
Category: Science
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
While too complex for the layman, this site looks to be a technical wonder for meteorologists, climate researchers, and other weather folks. Using HTML forms, the user can search a comprehensive climate database to check sea surface temperature, wind speeds, sea level pressure, or other environmental variables. Enter your choice for view and time information, and the FERRET scientific analysis and visualization program coughs up the data for your review. Sounds great, if you're an oceanographer studying ocean temperatures along the equator or something. Otherwise, ...
Overall Rating: 17
Satlab Server
URL: http://satftp.soest.hawaii.edu/satlab/
Category: Science
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
For the last six years, the Satlab Server has been a dependable home for satellite images of Hawaii and the Central Pacific. The geographically privileged folks at the University of Hawaii are kind enough to provide satellite images and tidal news from the islands. Not excited by the view from a polar-orbiting or geostationary satellite? Then check out the live camera images of the islands to see what you're missing. The weather and wave info is enough to make any mainland surfer green with envy.
Overall Rating: 18
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
URL: http://www.whoi.edu/
Category: Science
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This Web locale for the country's largest indie oceanographic institute contains a wealth of information on all areas of marine research, including ocean physics, biology, and chemistry. Besides WHO's own research reports, oceanographic aficionados can drown in the searchable Mariner Library System and check out the specs on WHO's research vessels, from the DSV Alvin submersible to the 279-foot Knorr, apparently one of the largest academic research ships in the US.
Overall Rating: 16
Boston Marathon Central
URL: http://www.boston.com/sports/marathon/index.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
Wannabe marathoners who marvel at how *anyone* could run 26 miles in 2 hours, 9 minutes (as this year's Boston Marathon winner, Moses Tanui of Kenya, did) will find some answers here. This well-designed, easy-to-navigate site is jam-packed with training tips and diaries, not to mention a searchable database of statistics, video clips, hour-by-hour coverage of the race, and maps of the course. What's especially exciting is the high level of interactivity built into the site. Send in tips, debate the merits of eating breakfast before running, and even vote on the best Boston marathoner of all time. And try waffles an hour before you start your next long run.
Overall Rating: 18
Soccer America Online
URL: http://www.sportsite.com/SA/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
Maybe soccer can't count as many American fans as the native version of football can, but this site is designed to make sure that interest in the fast-paced international game keeps growing. Created by the Soccer Industry Council of America, it promises to be "the place to go for the latest news on American soccer." For the fastest updates, click on News Briefs, which takes you to a list of results from the latest games, but if you're interested in specifics, there's are departments for college, national, professional, and international teams. Best of all, you can interact with soccer fans from around the globe, in the Graffiti threaded discussion area.
Overall Rating: 16
Tennis Worldwide
URL: http://www.xmission.com/~gastown/tennis/index.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
Though it doesn't have much of design sense or technical savvy, Tennis Worldwide offers trivia, tips, background, and news of the sport from tennis "netters" worldwide. Probably most useful is a comprehensive set of links to tennis-related Web pages, organized around such topics as tournaments, organizations, personal tennis pages, resorts, and more. There's also a chance to converse with players everywhere ("I think the ATP ranking system is ridiculous"), send in rule questions, find out about tennis camps and software, and even arm yourself with tennis jokes (which I won't repeat here).
Overall Rating: 14
Cornell University's CU-See-Me
URL: http://cu-seeme.cornell.edu/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
In case you haven't heard, Cornell University's CU-See-Me is popular server-client architecture that lets you use your computer for videoconferencing. Its home page underlines the software's potential by showing screenshots of schoolkids and scientists getting busy with the bandwidth. Here, you'll find all the information you need to join in the fun. Read the white papers, download the software (yes, it's FREE) and check out the calender of online events. You can also subscribe to a discussion list. In short, a futurist's dream come true.
Overall Rating: 18
HTML Converters
URL: http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HyperNews/get/www/html/converters.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
There are a lot of file formats in the big old world. If you want to convert them to-or-from HTML, then this is the place to go. A bare-bones list with short descriptions points you to myriad programs, addressing all platforms and conversion scenarios, from MS Word to Postscript and C++. Our webmaster keeps his page updated and provides links to other lists of converters, one of which he claims is even longer than his! If you have an html problem add it to his message list, and some one will respond.
Overall Rating: 16
HTML Design Notebook
URL: http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/People/Connolly/drafts/html-design
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
These pages come from the Web Consortium (W3C) - the industry thinktank devoted to maximizing the Web's potential. W3C's major players include CERN, the European Lab for Particle Physics (where the Web was conceived), and MIT's Lab for Computer Science. Consequently, these pages are visually bare but extensively cross-linked and dense with fascinating papers on the latest r & d. From the prehistory of system chaos to the future of HTML, you'll find it all here. Ironically enough, many of the links are outdated and need to be readdressed! Still, it's an inspiring site.
Overall Rating: 17
Multimedia File Formats
URL: http://ac.dal.ca/~dong/contents.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Do you sometimes wonder, "what is a PDF all about?" Or, "how can I watch that damn movie I downloaded?" Maybe you want to know how to e-mail a Mac document to a PC? If so, this is the web-guide for you. File formats are clearly explained in terms of usage, mode of compression and transmission, and parsability across platforms. Each chapter provides links to select sources. Coverage extends to foreign language viewers and editors, including Chinese and Russian. Webmaster Allison Zhang writes clearly and her website delights with its expert use of Frames and dashes of pastel.
Overall Rating: 18
Access Excellence
URL: http://www.gene.com/ae/
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
If you thought all biology was about dissecting frogs, you should visit this site immediately. Sponsored by biotech firm Genentech, it's an online network designed to both provide students with a better understanding of the praxis of biological sciences and to help science teachers who have "a wealth of ideas" but no way to share them. The site's use of a beehive metaphor as its organizational structure is appropriate, given an array of resources and activities so rich, it's hard to know where to start. Want to get a hold of creative lesson plans? The Activities Exchange area offers ideas developed by Access Excellence Fellows. Here you'll find everything from how to conduct acid rain research and do a nutrition analysis to backgrounders on plant anatomy and the means for identifying Streptomycetes with antibiotic properties in local soil samples. There's a nifty graphics gallery with clip art and photos to download, and text files with all kinds of interesting lesson strategies and information. The Probeware section is a perfect example of what this site does best. A problem is presented: Biology students collecting data have to deal with the limits of a 45- or 55-minute class period, which interrupts their experiments and inhibits their understanding of biological processes . Solution? Computer technology -- in this case, computer-assisted data collection -- is the one suggested here, followed by equipment list, and numerous classroom experiments and activities to take advantage of it. Frequent visitors stay abreast of the latest developments and breakthroughs in science in the What's News area, which also gives monthly updates of science programs and events on TV, radio, and the net. Then there's the Resource Center, with links to other biology sites, plus information on events, competitions, and conventions from science education resources nationwide. Living up to its mission of being an online biology teaching network, the site offers discussions designed by teams of Genentech and other scientists -- a recent one focused on the science of amber -- and the chance to post messages to other educators in the Teachers Lounge area (registration required). There's also a career center, in-depth articles on the biotech "revolution," explorations of the ethics of biotech research, and real-world applications for biotechnology (e.g., the creation of new drugs, the clean-up of damaged ecosystems). All is presented with a clean look that's easy on your eyes, and there's a great search engine to help you find what you want quickly. This is a fascinating spot, even for non-educators and those whose student days are long gone.
Overall Rating: 17
Design Architecture
URL: http://www.cornishproductions.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
To get the most from this site, you'll want to plug in your Real Audio Player, and your VRML viewer. Featured prominently here are interviews with renowned architects regarding their latest work, VRML models and other digital media showcasing architectural design. At this viewing there is still a lot of construction underway at the site, and although the links page boasts 700 entries, it has a lot of room to grow. Those in the field will be especially interested to in the call for submissions. The site's own design architecture could also use some work; the logo banner may be its finest touch.
Overall Rating: 17
American Express University
URL: http://www.americanexpress.com/student/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Apollo, American Express' figurehead, sports a pair of Raybans at the gateway to this site targeting college students/recent graduates. While rich in information, there's work involved in unearthing the most useful nuggets from its many layers. The scope is ambitious, covering credit cards, travel, careers, personal finance, and movies. Sections of particular interest are: "Wanderlust," for online flight reservations and ticket purchases; "The Money Pit," which features resume templates, interview tips, and skills assessments; and "The Right Thing," highlighting non-profit opportunities. For students seeking travel tips, summer internships, or career guidance, this one is worth the visit.
Overall Rating: 17
Kellogg's Cereal City
URL: http://www.kelloggs.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
High tech marketing meets good old-fashioned cereal at the Kellogg's page. Kids will find fun activities here, and the folks may even appreciate the site's funky fifties aesthetic. Activity spots include Kellogg Kitchens (who knew there were so many ways to use cereal?), the rec room -- with downloadable screensavers and electronic greeting cards -- and the lounge, where kids can color in Tony the Tiger, Toucan Sam, and other Kellogg's characters. A fun, interactive, and lively place for kids to spend time, it's Grrreat!
Overall Rating: 17
World Game Institute
URL: http://www.pacificrim.net/~wgi/
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Despite its playful-sounding title, the World Game Institute is no joke. Inspired by noted scientist and social philosopher Buckminster Fuller, the Institute was founded to "provide the perspective and information needed to solve the critical problems facing global society..." The site probes all these problems (famine, disease, overpopulation, deforestation and more) with incisive, well-documented research and data. Even skittery surfers should stop to check out the "What the World Wants (and how to pay for it)" chart. It's a powerful representation of the mixed-up priorities in our military-minded global economy. The institute also conducts workshops and conferences in the corporate and educational communities.
Overall Rating: 16
Whole Frog
URL: http://george.lbl.gov/ITG.hm.pg.docs/Whole.Frog/Whole.Frog.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
The Whole Frog Project offers an online alternative to a classic high school biology experience: dissecting a frog. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Labs use high-resolution MRI images and sophisticated 3D rendering software to create a virtual amphibian whose parts can be viewed at a variety of depths and angles. The site is jam packed with information about both the biological and technological details of the project. It also includes study guidelines to help teachers create engaging lesson plans (which combine physical and computer sciences). Best of all, the Whole Frog Project is completely free of scalpel hazards and the queer smell of formaldehyde.
Overall Rating: 15
100 Options Directory
URL: http://www.jodi.org/100cc/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Looking for some spicy links? Well buckeroos, this index is muy caliente. From bondage to sabotage, crime scene evidence to corporate expose, the Jodi top 100 lists (cc, ultra, and light) are your underground, back-alley entrances to the info interstate. Savor the flavor of the electronic subculture du jour via this speedy connection. There's no telling where the flashing links will send you, so your first visit will be an adventure. Any way you slice it, only a real square would pass up Jodi's links.
Overall Rating: 17
George Eastman House
URL: http://www.it.rit.edu:80/~gehouse
Category: Art
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
"You push the button, we do the rest" is a slogan George Eastman conjured up in 1888 to tout his new Eastman Kodak photo process. The saying applies equally well to the Web, including this page devoted to the Eastman House. Besides full info on the museum, gardens and grounds (operating hours, directions, fees), you'll get a taste of the current photo exhibits and film programs, discover the GEH library, and have a choice between several Eastman bios. You get selected links to film, photography and Rochester sites, too. If you care about the origins of photography, bookmark this one.
Overall Rating: 17
The Holocaust Memorial
URL: http://wahoo.netrunner.net/~holomem/ Art
Category: Art
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Located in Miami, Florida, the Holocaust Memorial is an outdoor space with several sculptures for contemplation. The online tour is very simple, very moving: there's just one greyscale photo per page accompanied by a quote or descriptive commentary. Several of the sculptures are stark representations suffering humanity; there's also a garden, a path, a small, domed building for meditation. Using a Java push, the creators built several on-screen warnings (from the "Ministry of Information Control") that lead to a page of other Holocaust resources on the Web. A thought-provoking experience.
Overall Rating: 18
MCI WebSite Services
URL: http://www.mci.websitesvcs.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Everyone wants in on the web action, and MCI's no exception. This straight-ahead page comes right to the point: the company's web site division can help you assess your web needs, design or build a public or private site, obtain domain names and "vanity URLs," offer secure transactions, and so on. In three cleanly-designed screens, you'll see the scope of their business. The only lack is contact information; all you get here is an e-mail form. Phone, fax and snail mail details would round out the picture.
Overall Rating: 17
ESRI
URL: http://www.esri.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) is home base for several geographic information systems (GIS) software tools used to build applications for planning, land use, facility management, sales territories, emergency routing and the like--applications which need multiple views and dynamic data combinations. This friendly and appealing site contains not only background on ESRI's products, but tech support, data scripts, and links to sites demonstrating GIS and spatial relationships.
Overall Rating: 17
Tampax
URL: http://tampax.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
As a topic usually spoken of only in hushed tones between mother and daughter, behind closed doors, it's refreshing to find the Tampax site so full of frank, clearly written information, lots of Q&As, and numerous ways to send questions and comments. Geared to young teens, the appealing graphics depict racial variety in a cheerful, "clubhouse" atmosphere, and there's no hard sell. (There's a text-only option too). Women past the the target age seem to have a universal reaction: "I wish there had been something like this for me when I was younger."
Overall Rating: 17
Dermatology in the Cinema
URL: http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~vcr/Dermcin.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Brilliantly perverse! Dr. Vail Reese, a dermatologist, has compiled a resource on skin conditions featured in movie characters. For example, as Reese points out, movies use film disease to represent evil: Willem Dafoe's crystal clear complexion in Platoon vs. Tom Berenger's scars. You can even learn the official medical term for what caused W.C. Fields to have his trademark bulbous nose. Did you know Richard Gere has Becker's nevus on his shoulder? If I ever need a mole removed, I'm going to see Reese.
Overall Rating: 17
Ask the Dietician
URL: http://www.hoptechno.com/rdindex.htm
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Registered dietitcian Joanne Larsen knows her four food groups and then some. In this simple but effective site, you can read questions and Larsen's intelligent and helpful answers about vegetarianism, alcohol, fiber intake, and dozens of other diet-related topics. You can even email your own food query to her. My favorite question so far: " I'm hearing a lot about junk food lately. No one has given a definition of what foods are junk. Can you give me a list of junk foods?" Larsen's response is detailed and revealing. And yes, gum *is* a food, and a junky one at that.
Overall Rating: 16
Small World Software Web Sports Game
URL: http://www.smallworld.com/games/sports_games.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
There are many different kinds of sports fan; there are those that dream of being the quarterback, the defensive kind that identify with the shortstop or goalie, and then there are the control freaks who would be the true kings of the sports world: the owners. Small World has six games on their Web site where players can own basketball, baseball, football, and hockey teams. Throughout a "season," players pit their team against others. The strategy comes in picking and trading team members. And for the high-brow types, Small World has a golf game. The bad news is that it costs a whole $40 to own a team for a season.
Overall Rating: 17
Virgin Interactive
URL: http://www.vie.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Virgin Airlines, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Records...will we ever stop seeing new Virgin enterprises? Virgin, Great Britain's answer to Microsoft, has put together some really cutting edge Web page design in its efforts to get into the hearts and minds of people all over the globe. The latest entrant is Virgin Interactive, the computer game division. Of course, with Virgin, computer games mean Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn, along with the old standards of PC and Mac. Virgin distributes a number of titles, including such award winners as The 7th Guest and Command & Conquer. And once Burst, the newly formed games development group, gets its titles out, Virgin Interactive will have some amazing exclusive content. The developers of the Web site are definitely keyed into the different levels of Internet user. The home page offers three alternatives for exploring the site; Normal mode is just text and graphics; Shocked, of course, gets you a few Shockwave elements; and Ultra-Shocked is where the site designers pulled out all the stops in music and animation. Unfortunately, the bandwidth required to run in Ultra-Shocked mode is impractical for anyone without a direct connection to the Internet via T1 or better. Nevertheless, the structure of the site is the same no matter which option is chosen, so people going the low-bandwidth route only miss out on the sound and action. The core of the site is, of course, the game titles. With over ten games featured, and even more for sale, Virgin does a pretty good job of pulling at the old purse strings/wallet chain. Each featured game has its own area of content, including a description, screen shots, movie files, and demos. The *In The Werks* section features games that are in production, a great resource for getting early notice on releases. The site looks great, with squeaky clean graphics and an overall aesthetic that I might, if pressed, describe as post-industrial/dental. The shocked versions make use of a wild menu bar of TV monitors flashing, scattered images interspersed with index headings for the site. At the same time, a techno soundtrack accompanies the shopper through the pages of games.
Overall Rating: 18
GameSpot
URL: http://www.gamespot.com
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
GameSpot is all about reviews of games for for PCs, with some news thrown in. It sounds like a narrow topic, but it isn't. Just ask anybody that plays PC games. For one thing, there are all sorts of gamers, from the kids who grew up with Doom to the older military experts who appreciate the exquisite detail of a good flight simulator. GameSpot covers all the categories, with reviews of interactive movies, action games, role-playing, and more. The reviewing criteria is professional and consistent, and reviews include information about what kind of machine the game was played on.
Overall Rating: 17
Girls on Film
URL: http://www.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~gof
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
For film fans that just can't deal with Siskel and Ebert, this site mixes poignancy and levity to offer a smart girl take on film and other cultural matters. Example: Start with a revealing article on movie rape scenes, glance at the Bad Coifs column to read about wrong hairstyles, and jump into the ocean of film reviews to really get into the celluloid mood. Lots of information and a definite attitude that has no online (or offline!) rival. Girls On Film is the old *Sassy* meets *Entertainment Tonight* at a *Bikini Kill* concert.
Overall Rating: 17
The Virtual Film Festival
URL: http://www.virtualfilm.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Are you going to miss the schmoozing and screenings at your fave film festival this year? If so, the Virtual Film Fesitval may ease your misery. Chat rooms, film clips, press releases, and director dirt are all there for your viewing pleasure. (Indie filmmakers pay a small fee to promote their work online, but in that racket anything can help.) Since it launched last year, the VFF has reported from Berlin, Cannes, South by Southwest, and other biggies. Not a replacement for the real thing, but who can be everywhere at once? Of course, the best thing about a *virtual* film festival is that you can instantly turn it off without having to hide in your hotel room.
Overall Rating: 17
BizWomen
URL: http://www.prnewswire.com
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Combining pointers to women-oriented business resources, practical advice from female entrepreneurs, moderated mailing lists, a chat room, and access to a Web page of one's own, BizWomen bills itself as the professional woman's one-stop online shop. In fact, shopping is one of the many options available. Despite its size, the site is easy to navigate, thanks to good use of Frames. Technology-section icons are arrayed in a vertical window that makes them accessible without squeezing the text. The wild overuse of exclamation points gives BizWomen a "go, girl!" quality that's a little too peppy for my taste, but that's a minor kvetch.
Overall Rating: 18
Interactive Nest Egg
URL: http://iddmz4.iddis.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Bursting from the computer screen in a blizzard of logos, Interactive Nest Egg is a highly sponsored effort to cover pretty much all aspects of the care and feeding of your finances. Try Nest Egg Magazine for articles on general financial topics, from picking a broker to dealing with a spouse who's clueless about money; Smith Barney's Wall Street Watch or Tradeline Investor Center for daily updates on stock performance; or Web Finance for news about the Internet and Wall Street. The graphic flurry may blur your vision, but clicking on the text-only version should help you get your bearings.
Overall Rating: 17
The Tax Prophet
URL: http://www.taxprophet.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Improbable though it sounds, the Tax Prophet makes taxes entertaining. In addition to answering commonly asked tax questions in a series of FAQs adapted from his newspaper column, San Francisco tax attorney Robert L. Sommers delivers sharp-witted analyses of tax issues. In one instance he calls former presidential candidate Steve Forbes "the messiah of inherited money," and his flat-tax plan "The Wealthy Slackers Relief Act." He considers the tax protester movement proof that P.T. Barnum was right about a sucker being born every day, and dares to ask the question, "Using trusts to avoid paying taxes-will this work?"
Overall Rating: 16
TaxSites
URL: http://www.best.com/~ftmexpat/html/taxsites.html
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
It's difficult to fathom the amount of excellent karma accruing to the person who maintains this site. More a subject-oriented guide than a standard index, TaxSites gives you access to all kinds of tax information available from all types of net sources, including newsgroups, mailing lists, newsletters, and Web sites. Each entry is thoroughly annotated, with descriptions containing additional links to related resources. Careful organization and a search tool make TaxSites easy to use despite the quantity and variety of its content. If you're looking for tax information online, go here first.
Overall Rating: 17
Swedish Cursing
URL: http://www.bart.nl/~sante/enginvek.html/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
The Swedish Cursing site is a powerful educational resource with more depth and detail than most 20-dollar Berlitz books. Its approach to teaching Swedish cursing is well-organized, breaking cursing down into subgroups (the devil, god, the damned, etc.) with specific lessons for each group. All curses are thoroughly explored, complete with etymology, a number of examples in context (with translation) and even audio files so you can be sure you're saying it right. Miss this site and you'll have cause for expressions like Jaevlar! Fan! and Helvete!"
Overall Rating: 17
Laurel and Hardy
URL: http://www.sirius.com/~sramsey/TheBoys/LandH.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Referred to here affectionately as "the boys," the famous duo made over a hundred films together between 1919, (*The Lucky Dog*), and 1951, (*Atoll K*, their last picture). You can get the complete filmography here, read the Laurel and Hardy FAQ (they were married seven times between them), and download classic pics and sound files ("Well here's another fine mess..."). True buffs will also want to join the Sons of the Desert and bookmark *Hog Wild*, the electronic fanzine. As a bonus, you can link directly to a Little Rascals (Our Gang) page.
Overall Rating: 16
Baked Potatoes
URL: http://www.sonicnet.com/baked/bakedreviews.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Back in the 70's, "Cheech" Marin and Thomas Chong proved once and for all that stoner gags are hilarious, and -- what's more -- that what was funny high could seem just as funny sober; that is, as long as everyone got the context. Baked Potatoes has taken it a step further, reviewing films in the same context in which Cheech and Chong made them. The results are entertaining, with wisdom and wisecracks aplenty. Of Terry Gilliam's *Brazil*, for example, they write, "watching this flick stoned is like being lost at the back end of Bourbon St. during Mardi Gras on two hits of acid. Trippy effects. Nutty characters. No fun at all."
Overall Rating: 16
Movie Sound
URL: http://homepage.seas.upenn.edu/~psun/msound.htm
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
This guy, Perry Sun, cares so much about cinematic sound that he's almost a bore on the subject. His page is on a mission to educate and enlighten visitors as to the nuance and niceties involved in the craft, and although the effort he put into it is apparent and admirable, his enthusiasm isn't infectious. Still, if you've been wondering how they got the thing in that one scene... from that, ... that movie you saw?... to sound just like... you know.... then this is your page. VCR and laserdisc junkies will want to read up on the right way to wire the home theatre for suround stereo.
Overall Rating: 15
The Internet Movie Database
URL: http://us.imdb.com/Search/USA.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
In the Age of Info, you'd think good databases would be a dime a dozen. And maybe they are. But I've never found one that piqued my curiosity and held it like this one did. If I didn't have to break away to write this review I'd still be in there, running around like a rat in a maze -- a happy, contented rat, finding cheese and water around every corner. It's so simple: no slick interface, no Java scripts or animated GIF's, just tons o' data, all thoroughly cross-referenced and hyperlinked. A highly recommended stop before a trip to rent a video. Afterward you can give a little something back to the IMD by rating the film yourself.
Overall Rating: 15
Whales
URL: http://curry.edschool.Virginia.EDU/~kpj5e/Whales/
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Whales (and dinosaurs) intrigue kids everywhere, and some industrious teachers in Virginia have tapped into that phenomenon here, where all lessons originate from and revolve around the same subject: whales. Lesson plans range from math word problems involving whales, to the history of whaling, and whale literature. From humpbacks to blues, baleen to toothed, all young marine mammal enthusiasts, parents and teachers will like this one. It's a simple, yet creative example of educational possibilities on the Web. Hopefully, with time, the creators will add more sound and images, and bring the standards up to match the content.
Overall Rating: 14
ChronicIll Net
URL: http://www.calypte.com/ci_home.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Hypochondriacs should avoid this one like botulism. Light, cheerful reading it ain't. Ever heard of Pemphigus Vulgaris? You remember Job and the plague of sores? Not pretty. Then again what illness is? As such, I was surprised to see the spry graphics here, the icons for everything from AIDS to the Gulf War Syndrome looking like little kids' party napkins. Click on one of them and you're sent to articles that are both grim and technical, albeit informative. If you are afflicted, God forbid, with any of these heartbreaking conditions, by all means, come here. Learn, share, and grab what solace you can. You'll find news on the latest cures and treatments as well as articles by and about survivors of disease.
Overall Rating: 16
Throttle
URL: http://members.aol.com/blackgate/index.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This is a web-mag for fans of traditional pen, paper and dice role-playing games, done by the proprietors of Black Gate Publishing, whose flagship product is a game that seems loosely based on the Immortals of the movie Highlander. Along with a dash of Libertarian philosophy for good measure (complete with link), there are also articles on the 36 types of plots for RPGs, the role of the woman adventurer, English titles in the 18th and 19th centuries, game reviews, links to company web-sites, and lots more stuff that will be of interest to the serious RPG fan.
Overall Rating: 16
The Riddler
URL: http://www.riddler.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
No fanzine style here -- this is a 100% corporate sponsored trivia and word gaming site. You watch ads, win virtual "caps" which you can later trade for prizes -- everything from Snapple stuff and Riddler mouse-pads to a Toyota 4X4. The puzzles are pretty fun (some Java, some not), and the site is slickly designed, (and the games are pretty fun), but I found that the service ran a little too slow, and I got sick of all the ads. Still, it's fun to collect and trade the caps, even though you know you'll never beat the geeks who live on this site, winning everything.
Overall Rating: 17
The History Channel Classroom
URL: http://www.historychannel.com/classroom/classroom.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
If you're a teacher looking to incorporate more engaging material into your curriculum, The History Channel Classroom is a good place to start. There are resources to help teachers plan classroom discussions and research projects based on The History Channel's shows, with a convenient Classroom Calendar for planning. The network sponsors awards' programs are designed to support quality history education in America's schools; to wit, the History Channel Awards for National History Day honor the Best Senior Media Project and the Outstanding Contribution in History Education. A very good site, even if it does smack of self-promotion.
Overall Rating: 18
MayaQuest '96
URL: http://www.mecc.com/mayaquest.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
MayaQuest began in 1995 as an attempt to merge hands-on exploration with online interactivity. A team of five people bicycled to ruins in Mexico and Central America, met with on-site archaeologists, and shared their experiences via the Web with over 1 million kids, teachers, and regular netizens. MayaQuest is intended to include and empower those who cannot physically participate in this adventure through chat, team updates, news, and the multimedia experience. The site is Shocked for those who have Netscape or Internet Explorer, and a new expedition will begin in March, 1997.
Overall Rating: 18
Communication Arts
URL: http://www.commarts.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Lauren Guzak
Strictly speaking, Communication Arts, "the essential creative resource,"is a professional print journal for graphic designers and others in the visual arts. The magazine is so rich and engaging, however, that even non-aesthetes are apt to snag a copy off the newsstand now and then. Now the impressive design magazine is online. Communication Arts' primary function is to showcase the best in design from around the world, examples of which you can find in the Exhibit Online. There's an open solicitation for work to display -- commercial artistic endeavors from packaging to direct mailers, shopping bags to CD covers. Following are background information, creative credits, and convenient thumbnail images of featured projects. Showcasing the best in design is not Communication Arts only function, however. This site is packed with resources for designers "to enhance their work and careers and [serve as] a catalyst for bringing community to visual communicators around the world." Resources include links to relevant hardware and software Web sites (including FTP sites where you can download software upgrades); a listing of the latest digital products and services; and a national database to find service bureaus that can output your work. The Business and Career section has a job board with listings for jobs offered and wanted, both of which had a fair amount of up-to-date activity. The Legal Affairs subsection, with posted articles from the Communication Arts' legal affairs columnist, Tad Crawford, addresses issues of copyright ownership, usage rights, and contracts--subjects which have been blurred as designers move into electronic media. Articles that were posted when I visited covered topics such as structuring your business, properly registering copyrights, and getting permission to use celebrity photographs. There's also a searchable database of design firms, advertising agencies, photographers, illustrators and multimedia developers whose work has appeared in Communication Arts over the last two years. And if you're looking to do research on a specific subject, you can turn to the database of books on design, advertising, and technology that have been reviewed in the magazine over the last five years. Communication Arts also sponsors a number of annual competitions, including the Interactive Design Competition , the winners of which are distributed on CD-ROM each year. Ultimately, professional designers and anyone else with an eye for smart graphics will find CA to be a treasure of information, tools and ideas.
Overall Rating: 17
The Art of Tibetan Sand Painting
URL: http://www.chron.com/mandala/
Category: Art
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
As much a humanities site as a showcase for this mysterious Tibetan art form, the whole experience here is an intriguing one. Bolstered by streamed audio of the monks' otherworldly chanting and links to background information on Buddhism and Tibetan politics, the sand paintings are given a depth that most art on the Web lacks. Sadly, the event on which the site is based has long past (February), the sand long since tossed into Houston's Buffalo Slough. Hopefully the page will stick around a while as a monument -- an appropriately ephemeral and transitory one -- to the effort. Despite the unfocused quality of many of the onscreen images, the beauty of the work still shines through.
Overall Rating: 17
Matchbox
URL: http://www.matchboxtoys.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Lauren Guzak
As a child I spent many a Saturday afternoon playing with my brother's matchbox set, pushing the little die-cast wonders through the underbrush of the deep shag in my father's house, humming the theme to Speed Racer. Former Matchbox owners will do lots of reminiscing as they cruise around this site, but that's just a pleasant by-product of the experience. The real draw is all of the great cars and tracks, from the Matchbox Originals (a tribute to the first line of vehicles produced some 40 years ago) to the Torque Spin Racers that run on towering three-feet tall Zero G tracks. You can even give the tracks a virtual test spin in the Zero-G VRML environment! Starting with the Mega-Showroom, you'll find four different product lines: the 1-75 Line, Super Rigs, Premiere Collection, and Originals. The original and classic models are great, but I was really turned-on by the high-tech stuff, like the Super-Flex Chassis system. "Whip through super-tight hairpin turns with ease," utilizing this newest Matchbox car technology which features "independent twisting halves that give these racers incredible handling." Or check out the Anti-Grav Racers, which have a "two-position aerodynamic body with extending rocket flame features, unique gravity-defying features, and a self-leveling cockpit." Not to mention the Zero G Rail Ripper, which is both a laser track and an adjustable jumping set (!!!) with special track connectors that let you reconfigure up to six different jumps. Should you be looking for a higher degree of interactivity, you can create your own personalized vehicle in the Custom Auto Body Shop. Take your basic pick-up and add all of the details to taste--from the engine style, to the paint job and decals. Other activities include the "Get in the Fast Lane Contest," where the Grand Prize Winner gets their name on a Matchbox model. Last year's winner, ten-year-old Kyle Wieder, had his name emblazoned on the #7 blue Thunderbird Stock Car, "an honor that's generally limited to race car drivers and superstars." There's also an Ask the Expert, FAQ, and Collectors' Links. This site could have you back on your knees in the shag, humming that old tune. Go Speed Racer, go.
Overall Rating: 18
Soviet Archives Exhibit
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/expo/soviet.exhibit/soviet.archive.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
This thoroughly engrossing site, based on the first public display of the former Soviet Union's declassified internal records, lets you examine an ink-smudged letter from Lenin condemning the educated classes as "lackeys of capital," a telegram from Andrei Sakharov, and numerous other personal and official communications. The document images, accompanied by English translations and explanations of the historical context, are divided into sections such as Attacks on the Intelligentsia, Secret Police, and Perestroika. You can take the guided tour through the entire exhibit, or jump around to individual areas of interest.
Overall Rating: 17
PersiaNet
URL: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~sebrahi/PersiaNet.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Recipes, links to political organizations, English and Farsi versions of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam - this repository of all things Persian will connect you to just about every conceivable Internet resource related to the ancient land now known as Iran. The introduction orients you with a map and provides extensive hotlinks to basic information. Click on a list of topics to explore subjects such as film, travel, human rights, and documents related to the Iran-Contra affair. All the material is elegantly presented and neatly categorized. It's also thoughtfully maintained - green dots alert regular visitors to new links.
Overall Rating: 17
Ellis Island
URL: http://www.i-channel.com/ellis/index.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Studded with vintage photographs and quotes from immigrants who passed through Ellis Island, this electronic tour of the former gateway to America is touching as well as enlightening. Find out why many immigrants left the inspection line covered with cryptic chalk marks, why some were asked to solve puzzles, and why most exited the island with tags pinned to their clothing. Portrait icons embedded in each section connect you to audio clips of immigrants talking about their experiences; the navigational icons, while equally charming, are unfortunately not so obvious. Unless you're clairvoyant, you won't know where you're going until you get there.
Overall Rating: 17
Lattitude 28 Schoolhouse
URL: http://www2.opennet.com/schoolhouse/
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Sponsored by OpenNet Technologies, Lattitude 28 is really just a page of links to educational resources by subject; that is, except for two sections devoted to the Internet in the classroom. While there is no mention of screening the links, a quick quality survey suggests that they are. Additionally, visitors to the page are invited to submit their favorite education urls. Links are organized by category, and there is also a listing of other schools on the Internet. Like most such sites, the links make it worth the bookmark, even if the page itself is nothing special.
Overall Rating: 16
KidPub
URL: http://escrime.en-garde.com/kidpub/
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
KidPub is a page where youngsters can submit their stories and poems for publication, and if you go there, you'll be surprised by what you find. The works range in tone from funny to poignant to downright profound, with a sophistication that doesn't rely on big, fancy words. Consider this poem, for example, from the site by Amanda S. Beattie, called *Bad Aim Dive*: "With a twist of her hip/ And a double back flip/ And also a bend of her knee/ She fell straight down/ And went "splat" on the ground/ For terrible aim had she." Good, isn't it?
Overall Rating: 16
Plugged In
URL: http://pluggedin.org
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
There is a lot of talk about the haves and have-nots with respect to society and the Internet, sociologists speculating that the underclass will be left behind in this so-called information revolution. The folks at Plugged In are trying to do something about that. A community center in East Palo Alto, Plugged In is trying to bridge the chasm between the wealth of Silicon Valley and the blight of its next door neighbor by offering computer classes to kids and teens. The fruits of their labors are exhibited at the center's Web page, where kids develop and execute digital projects with the help of their teachers and corporate sponsorship. It's a model program, well worth a visit.
Overall Rating: 18
The International Kids Space
URL: http://plaza.interport.net/kids_space/
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
"Of the kids, by the kids, and for the kids," The International Kids Space uses the Internet to its best advantage by providing a place for kids to interact with each other in a meaningful way. The graphics are a bit coy at first glance, but they aren't representative of the challenge and creativity involved in the activities. Particular highlights are the Kids' Gallery, Web Kids' Village, and Story Book, where kids can write original stories, or take part in an interactive writing exercise in which they assign meaning to a fixed set of symbols and incorporate them into stories they create (sort of a rebus in reverse).
Overall Rating: 18
The Environmental Careers Organization
URL: http://www.eco.org
Category: Professional
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Environmental Careers Organization (ECO) provides placement, career planning, product information, and research resources for people interested in careers in the environmental field. The cornerstone of their efforts is the Environmental Placement Service, a program that matches recent grads with internships across the country. The program is explained in great detail and is definitely worth exploring for environmentally conscious youths in the job market. You can request an application to the program and jump to useful links like the Environmental Internship Clearinghouse, and the Science Global Career Network. Key information is presented succinctly, and organized intuitively.
Overall Rating: 17
IntelliMatch
URL: http://www.intellimatch.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Internet's answer to the classifieds, IntelliMatch matches online resumes with online employer requisitions, simple as that. Pretty nifty though, eh? This is a great resource for people pursuing employment, whether you enter your resume into the system (it takes about an hour and involves some work), or just browse through "Hot Jobs" for listings and descriptions of a wide variety of jobs indexed by category. There seems to be a particular emphasis on the Bay Area computer industry -- 8 of the 9 featured company banners hail from San Francisco and environs.
Overall Rating: 18
Advertising World
URL: http:www.utexas.edu/coc/adv/world/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
This site from the University of Texas at Austin's Advertising Department, features advertising-related links and lots of 'em. With 72 index categories, and numerous links in each, there must be thousands of sites hot-listed here. Advertising enthusiasts take note: They've done a lot of work so you won't have to. The index is extremely comprehensive, and could only be improved by adding a search engine (there is so much information here it is almost overwhelming).
Overall Rating: 18
You Can with Beakman and Jax
URL: http://www.nbn.com:80/youcan/
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Jok Church teaches kids science with his characters, Beakman and Jax, in a weekly comic strip and on the television show Beakman's World. The Beakman approach to science is wonderfully practical, answering all those perfectly perplexing questions that kids ask like, "Why do feet smell?" and, "How do you make paper?" The explanations stress the importance of each question up front, accompanied by experiments that kids can perform in order to grasp the concepts themselves. Perhaps best of all, the experiments and questions are all archived on the Web site making it a worthy addition to any kid's bookmark list. The site broadcasts two positive slogans, "You can" and "A good question is a powerful thing," which encourage kids to follow their curiosity to its most favorable end: Knowledge. The site begins with a "You can" experiment designed to give kids some insight into how a computer monitor works. This particular demonstration employs a graphic with 8 horizontal white lines against a green background. Visitors are instructed to stand across the room and blow a raspberry while looking at the screen, making the image jiggle. Beakman explains that the monitor is constantly redrawing the image, and that rattling your head like that allows you to see the normally invisible redrawing action. Another section features 50 questions that kids have sent in, with appropriate experiments and explanations. One question asks "Where do dreams come from?" Seems like a pretty tall order, but Beakman's answer is simple: they come from you. Two experiments lend considerable insight into the workings of the unconscious. In the first one kids are told to write the name of an object on one side of a piece of paper, then, on the other side, a list of all the things that object reminds them of. The disparity gives kids a hint at the difference between the conscious and unconscious mind. The second experiment involves active dreaming, which, although it may seem like a pretty self-aware exercise for kids, is handled in a way which is easy to apprehend. Other sections of the site include pictures from the Hubble telescope and links to good science sites on the Web. All in all, this is a rich resource that not only teaches kids facts, but teaches them how to learn and reason for themselves. Excellent. Now someone tell me why the sky is blue.
Overall Rating: 17
NrrdGrrl!
URL: http://www.winternet.com/~ameliaw
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Riot Nrrrds of the female persuasion, this site is for you! Join the ranks of Jan Brady, Janet Reno, Lisa Simpson, and other strong grrrls pictured on the NrrdGrrl home page. In fact, you don't even need to join--as the site says, "a NrrdGrrl! is any woman who wants to reclaim the meaning of the word normal. Because normal does not mean the same as everybody else!" Link to the pages of other modem grrrls pages, check out some of their ezines, and dig into Grrowl, the NrrdGrrl! Web zine. I laughed (and screamed) out loud at a true story of watching the Miss America Pageant in a dorm.
Overall Rating: 17
GaySource
URL: http://www.gaysource.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
GaySource is a monthly magazine for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. This month's "cover" story is an insightful interview with comedienne Lea Delaria. Inside are travel, health, spirituality, gay pride, and other information-filled departments--there is something for everyone here. Add the chat rooms, relevant links, and reader-feedback areas to make GaySource a fine example of what an "interactive magazine" can really be. And they even have ads!
Overall Rating: 18
Gourmet Connection
URL: http://www.norwich.net/gourmet/link1.htm
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The name of this Web site doesn't tell the whole story. Yes, it's devoted to gourmet food, but more interesting is its focus on healthy gourmet food. Check out healthy recipes, nutrition information, and even a section called The Diabetic Gourmet. There's also plenty of useful culinary tidbits. Do you know how to prevent an apple's skin from wrinkling during baking? Find out in "Kitchen Tips and Healthful Hints." The feature article titles are great too! Examples: "Mad Cow Disease: A Sobering Wake Up Call" and "Parsley Isn't Just A Garnish." I'm hungry!
Overall Rating: 17
The Boston Phoenix
URL: http://www.bostonphoenix.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Beantown's newsweekly, The Phoenix, has a smartly designed online presence. If you're from Boston, you probably don't require an introduction to the periodical, and if you aren't, you probably don't care. The design is slick enough to merit a look-see, but the reviews and articles, while competent, are not much different than what you'd find in Anytown, USA. The rag has a definite gay and lesbian connection, so you could come here for a dose of the local queer scene, including personals. But, primarily, this is a journal for Bostonians of any stripe or creed who want the lowdown on the club scene, literary happenings and all that.
Overall Rating: 17
Zora Neale Hurston
URL: http://pages.prodigy.com/zora
Category: Literature
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Here's a welcome reminder of the literary prowess and charisma of a cultural pioneer. If you've never read anything by Hurston, follow the link to chapter one from *Their Eyes Were Watching God*. You can also browse a gallery of impressive photos or read from a wide-ranging, if uneven, selection of essays on the author. Whether you're a high school student or a Hurston scholar, this site is a good place to enrich yourself. A handy list of links will take you to sites relating to African-American art and culture.
Overall Rating: 16
The Complete Shakespeare
URL: http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/works.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The plays and the poems are all here, unadorned and well-organized. Their conversion to html is thorough. Footnotes, for instance, are replaced by links to a glossary. In addition to the works, there's an effective bulletin board system (Hypernews) which gives devotees a forum in which to query each other. The current debate regarding "the Authority question" is especially lively. There's even a link to Bartlett's familiar Shakespearean quotations. Even though the search engine and the glossary could use some work, these pages remain an essential resource on the Web.
Overall Rating: 17
Seamus Heaney
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/dykki/poetry/heaney/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This site has all the simplicity of Heaney's poetry. A single photo of the smiling Nobel Laureate presides over a table of links. These lead you to poems spanning his entire career from book one to his most recent, *Seeing Things*. Each poem is complimented by a downloadable audio file of Heaney reading it in his resonant brogue. Another page provides an ample biographical sketch along with thoughtful annotations to the archive. The inclusion of the commencement speech Heaney delivered last year at UNC provides an alternative glimpse at the poet's wisdom.
Overall Rating: 18
Proust Said That
URL: http://www.well.com/user/vision/proust
Category: Literature
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Proust Said That may be the most radical project on the Web, devoted as it is to inspiring interest in a *Remembrance of Things Past*. The Marcel Proust Support Group is a boho San Francisco clan that formed to read the work in toto. P. Segal's loving documentation of their activities has made PST one of the most affecting literary sites around. Its elegant pages contain everything from Proust-inspired recipes and travelogues to the young Marcel's replies to the questionnaire that bears his name today. If you love Proust, you will adore these pages.
Overall Rating: 17
A Celebration of Women Writers
URL: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/Web/People/mmbt/women/celebration.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Here you have a bare-bones list of Women writers. The only prerequisite for being listed is to be a woman and a writer, which doesn't mean that all the greats are listed, nor that all those listed are great. As a matter of fact, there are glaring omissions. The celebration is ongoing and requires your participation. Provide the busy, newlywed webmasters links to electronic texts by, and about, your favorite women writers. Their list is enormous, of course, and branching out every day.
Overall Rating: 14
Oyster Boy Review
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/ob/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Years back, when I was still too full of vinegar for my own good, I swore off all poetry as toothless and inane. All poets, I thought, were people who had nothing to say but insisted on saying it anyhow, touchy-feely types whose brains had flown South for the Winter and stayed there. As I got a little older, (around sixth grade, I guess), I made allowances for a special few: I read and liked a short list of poets that included Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and e.e. cummings. These days, I take a more charitable view of the form, stopping short of open-mike night at the corner cafe. I still require some screening. As such I was happy to discover this literary journal from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which boasts the work of poets with preposterously southern names, like Jeffrey Joe Nelson and Izzy Gage, not to mention some excellent poems with titles like, "Songs for the Drunks," "Snakes among the Children," and -- my favorite -- "A Gorilla on Anti-depressants ain't no Good Gorilla at all." *--And that Prozac did him wrong-- --That Prozac did him wrong, I'm saying.* A lot of the work here has that kind of hard-boiled, mocking refrain to it , not to mention a distinctly southern rhythm. The great, half-strange charcoal illustrations add to that ambience. I have to admit, though, that what drew me in at first wasn't the poems at all, but a sub-page about Harry Crews, an old favorite and author of *A Feast of Snakes* and *All We Need of Hell*. Talk about hard-bitten prose, Crews' fiction is a fierce blend of the profound and the perverse, something between pure pulp and high lit, and the Crews page is one of the best author sites I've seen on the Web. There's also a tribute page to the late Charles Bukowski, patron saint of gutter drunks and fist-fighting poets -- a carbon copy of the Crews page, really. Bukowski fans should check it out. But neither of these personalities make the site by themselves. As with most things, a literary journal is only as good as the sum of its parts. And in this case the parts are excellent. As of this review only four issues of the Oyster Boy Review are online, but I, for one, will check in as content increases.
Overall Rating: 17
National Public Radio
URL: http://www.npr.org/
Category: Media
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
One of the many things a Web site can be is an online supplement to an "offline" media program. An inveterate public radio junkie, that's how I use the National Public Radio site. Let's say I want to know what the topic of discussion is for the day on *Talk of the Nation*, for example, or what the next book-of-the-month selection is; I just stop in at npr.org and check the program listings. Ray Suarez's talk show is just one of many programs on NPR, of course; *Morning Edition*, *All Things Considered*, and *Fresh Air* all have similar offerings. What's more, there is a strong audio component to the NPR site. Making extensive use of Real Audio, the site allows you to listen to audio files without long download times. From the top of the main menu, for example, you can get streamed audio of the day's news updates. It's an easy way to catch up online, without having to turn to the newspaper or other print sources. It requires the Real Audio Player, of course, but, no worries, you can download it online at or just travel via hotlink to the Real Audio page from the NPR site. Keep in mind that while there are gopher files available at npr.org, the complete NPR audio files are archived at Real Audio. With Real Audio installed on your machine, you can listen to past programs in their entirety, offline at your convenience or while you continue to surf. The sound quality leaves something to be desired here, but it's a pretty impressive capability, nonetheless. Other features of the site include links to NPR member stations, around the country and overseas, information on ordering tapes and transcripts, and NPR's own style guide online -- a worthwhile bookmark if, like me, you're prone to forgetting the difference between "further" and "farther," "flaunt" and "flout." If you listen to public radio and haven't yet discovered npr.org, you're in for a treat.
Overall Rating: 18
Kapow
URL: http://www.kapow.com
Category: Media
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Kapow is an ongoing "multimedia fiction" mystery whose plots feature the net along with the more traditional, mysterious human clients and evil stalkers, all bedeviling private detective, Mace Broade. There are even live performances with actors; fans participate in solving the mystery. If you like serial plots (updated twice weekly) and would get a charge out of following Mace telnetting to a mysterious IP address, you'll like Kapow, a good-looking postmodern mystery where even Java plays a part. Listen to Mace's voicemail on his answering machine; study the mysterious spreadsheet he hacked into.
Overall Rating: 18
EON-4
URL: http://www.eon4.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
EON-4 means "earth after the discovery of extraterrestrial life." This site is a paean to deep space probes and proof of E-T's. The design and literary style of EON-4 are terrific. You'll have trouble separating NASA fact from Website fiction, which is part of the fun. The Earth-Alien Contact Hub is updated daily; investigate the "inbound transmissions" (including photos and sound files). Daily outbound messages to the EXPLOR team further the story. You must register to get news of "new alien technologies" and "requisition" for merchandise. All qualifying sentients report to EON-4. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 18
Internet Card Central
URL: http://members.tripod.com/~MargaretC/cards.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
An Internet card is a virtual postcard you send via email. A certain Margaret has thoughtfully collected a huge batch of sites offering cards. Bookmark this if you like sending your friends messages along with images; you're bound to find one you like from the scores listed. Pick your favorite holiday, vacation or destination spot (tourist bureaus have evidently caught on to the marketing value of Internet cards), dogs, cats, flowers, cartoons. Then there are classic Ferraris, Japanese kimonos, Megadeth Christmas wishes, animated and audio cards. You can even seal a card with a virtual kiss.
Overall Rating: 16
Ulom PBEM Home Page
URL: http://www.vivanet.com/~coenep/ulom.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons aficionados will want to check out the Black Heart of Ulom, a D&D story module. Serious fan Paul Coene has built a page for a "Played By E-Mail" (PBEM) game based on an elaborate story line with lots of photos and graphics. As a devotee would, he has borrowed a few elements from another D&D campaign called Greyhawk, but assures us that the rest is all original. You can link to detailed sketches of several characters and additional backstory, and of course send e-mail to further the plot.
Overall Rating: 16
Hitch!
URL: http://www.ionet.net/~twilken/hitched.shtml
Category: Media
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
It's the world where we live, brothers and sisters, and it's weird as hell. At the Hitch! site you can read a fair sampling of articles and outtakes from the journal which chronicles modern absurdities, from garden variety oddities to truly bizarre social phenomena. At the site you get chiropractic mishaps, a philosophical deconstruction of Mentos, dead-pan interviews with the washed up and/or semi-famous, and much more. And where do you think all this hip social criticism hails from? You got it: Oklahoma City, USA. A good stop for offbeat, heartland humor.
Overall Rating: 16
American Recordings
URL: http://american.recordings.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Just like some of the acts on the label, the American Recordings site goes for that lean, mean, dark and evil ambiance. Luckily, lurking behind the black screens and occult iconography are layers of tasty content. Read bios and discographies for every band on the American roster, listen to sound files, view video clips and send e-mail. There's tour info, freebies, a complete American discography, previews of upcoming releases, and even a special section of "stuff that makes you want to puke." Non-label-related levels, such as the Web Wide World of Music and Virus e-zine are equally chock-full of goodness.
Overall Rating: 18
Roots of Lounge
URL: http://www.gonix.com:80/rol/
Category: Music
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
For a little historical context to the furor over "smooth jazz", look no farther than the Roots of Lounge home page. So retro, it's the next thing, this site offers a long look at "highly orchestrated instrumental pop music," "the sound track to suburbia," tracing its evolution from the swing period to its heyday in the late 50's and early 60's. The treatment is largely tongue-in-cheek; with links to the "History of Muzak" and the "TV Themes Home page," Lounge is sufficiently camp to satisfy even this musical snob. The "Lounge/Not lounge" (Athens-Lounge, Sparta-Not Lounge) bit is just too funny, as are the reviews of suggested listening. The jazz link is no good, but then again, jazz is real music.
Overall Rating: 16
Classical Net
URL: http://www.classical.net/
Category: Music
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Purportedly out to help the uninitiated understand the repertoire, Classical Net has its work cut out for it. Smartly designed and organized, Classical Net is both visually pleasing and intellectually satisfying. The Recommended Listening Section is designed to help a listener explore the Western canon, each according to their tastes. Demystifying classical music isn't easy, but this site makes great headway. The Classical and Romantic Periods are well covered; while the Modern Music section is very much under construction. Classical Net is soliciting writers to help finish the gargantuan task. Help them out; a resource like this deserves completion.
Overall Rating: 14
Citizens for a United Canada
URL: http://www.sasknet.com/~world/cuc.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
When the upper half of North America threatens to split along post-colonial cultural lines, little notice is taken here, south of the border. It's a big deal, however, to Anglophones and Francophones under the Maple Leaf. This nascent page isn't much to look at, but as a point of reference for those who would like to research the Unity side of the Quebec's issue, it is a useful document. Most of the links are bilingual, and are set up as rhetorical arguments for discussion and review rather than dogmatic fiats. Too serious to break for a Kokanee, eh?
Overall Rating: 14
A Guide to the U.S. Congress
URL: http://policy.net/capweb/congress.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Quick -- name your congresspersons...if you've ever hesitated to answer this question, maybe you should peruse CapWeb's guide to Capitol Hill. Once inside the Beltway, your options are a tour of the House, Senate, Library of Congress, related D.C. attractions (like the Smithsonian Museum) as well as links to the judicial and executive branches. Pin down your senator on her latest speech, review your congressman's official positions topic by topic, critique their haircuts, educational credentials, military portfolio, and grinning family members; then e-mail 'em direct! When you get tired of all the red-white-and-blue pages, download some of the fabulous black-and-white historical images and movies in the Library of Congress' huge digital inventory.
Overall Rating: 15
Turn Left
URL: http://www.cjnetworks.com/~cubsfan/liberal.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Hang a louie and get inducted into the realm of unabashed liberals rallying for the comeback of '96. Start with the basics--a concise list of political labels, from Anarchist to Fascist. Find new friends among an alphabetical index of other confirmed lefties; rate the Congress; evaluate Clinton and the Demo's as they put their best digital foot forward; link to leftist E-zines, special causes, international progressive sites, and such oddballs as Mothers Against Jesse (Helms) in Congress and Republicans for Clinton. Comes with its own interactive, threaded BBS and a message board for posting your thoughts. This site gives the L-word a good name--Mike Dukakis, are you watching?
Overall Rating: 17
Newt Watch
URL: http://www.cais.com/newtwatch/
Category: Political
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
If you're one of those who feels that the "Newt" named Gingrich is an affront to amphibians everywhere, you'll be much amused by this humorous, content-filled, and well-drawn site. The Monty-Python-Through-the-Looking-Glass graphics engage the eye as well as the text engages the mind. There are pointed critiques of Newt's positions, full texts of all of the ethics complaints against him, and lists of many of his individual and PAC contributors. Gawk at Newt's "Toadies"--twenty freshman congresspersons who vote in lock-step with him. In case you miss the point, these Republican Revolutionaries' heads morph into a grinning Gingrich right before your eyes. Slither on, Newt!
Overall Rating: 18
National Rifle Association
URL: http://www.nra.org
Category: Political
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
An issue as complex as gun control deserves that all sides be heard. I've never been a big fan of the NRA, but their version of the story is argued compellingly and quite convincingly here. Download speeches, statistics, voter registration information, the latest news (with no pretense of objectivity), or e-mail your representative pro-gun propaganda. This site is very engaging, bursting with links, and has just about as much point-and-click action as you can get without pulling triggers. If this page is any indication, the NRA has definitely got its act together. Here's hoping the other side does too.
Overall Rating: 16
Free Tibet
URL: http://emma.manymedia.com:80/tibet/
Category: Political
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
"Free Tibet!" is perhaps the least understood political slogan in the United States. I can't say that I knew anything about Tibet beforehand, so this site was really interesting. No gimmicks, no flashy tech tricks, just lots of information, text, speeches, history, and all that stuff, well-organized and accessible. The built-in search capability is a great feature. View messages from the Dalai Lama, date and time of the next solidarity event, or read current events from the other side of this increasingly tiny planet of ours. Very nice page.
Overall Rating: 15
Proximus Corporation
URL: http://www.proximus.com/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Damn near every issue of Popular Mechanics since 1965 has had an article on the car of the future which invariably has a video screen that allows the driver to pinpoint his or her location on a map, or scroll through various electronic maps to find the best route. Unless you buy your automotive accessories from The Sharper Image, though, you probably don't have an electronic map viewer on the dashboard yet. You do, however, have one on your computer. Proximus Corporation has put together a giant digital road map of the U.S., and licensed it to various Web directories, such as Yahoo!, Lycos, and InfoSeek. And while the Proximus home page itself is nothing to look at, it does links to all the licensee interfaces. Proximus has its own well designed interface that licensees can use, but some, like Yahoo!, have chosen to design their own. In any case, the functionality is basically the same, whatever the interface. Here's how it works: The first page allows you to enter a street address, city, state, and zip code. Clicking the submit button will then load another page with the map interface and a map of the requested vicinity. The exact location of the street address is marked with a red "X." Proximus claims you can find any address in the U.S. this way. The default map size is a 17K GIF image, but you can choose the medium size, 22K, or the large size, 28K, depending on how much time you want to spend downloading the thing. The interface also has a "zoom" feature, so you can see how many cross streets there are between point A and point B. Or you can zoom out to find the nearest freeway offramp, etc. Clicking on the sides of the map will show you the next quadrant in whichever direction you choose, which means, I suppose, that you could click your way across the entire country. On some of the licensee sites there is an added feature that allows visitors to search for the geographic location of an e-mail address or domain name. As far as e-mail is concerned, the efficacy of such a search is problematic given the imperfect nature of e-mail registries on the Internet. And then, of course, there are all the deeper questions that arise in the face of this technology. Sure, the Proximus service is a boon for party hosts and their guests -- no need to sketch out the obligatory party map anymore, just type your address into the map server, print, and voila -- but it's also a windfall to net-savvy party crashers, repo men, and stalkers. Those who cherish their privacy above all else will, no doubt, find this one disquieting.
Overall Rating: 17
International Soccer
URL: http://www.vol.it/RETE_/homerete.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Rete is bookmark material for serious international soccer fans. You can access a graphical or text-only version in English, Italian, Spanish or Dutch. There are scads of links: to scores and stats, national, team and local club matches (and they appear to be kept current). Check out the Quicktime movies of goals and other cool maneuvers, or search the (1.6 gig!) database for players and scores. Free registration entitles you to an e-mail newsletter and chat access. The winning touch is a page featuring scores of links to other soccer sites, by country as well as by club and server.
Overall Rating: 17
The Mountaineers
URL: http://www.cyberspace.com/mtneers/home.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Formed in 1906, The Mountaineers is a membership organization based in Seattle that supports and educates people who do serious mountain-climbing and hiking. The site is an excellent compendium of the things they stand for: conservation, skill-building, exploration, and resource sharing. You can order topographical maps of the areas throughout the Olympic and Cascade ranges, browse the newsletter archive, link to many related sites. The only obvious omission is a section for up-to-date climbing reports.
Overall Rating: 15
Rock 'n' Road
URL: http://www.rocknroad.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Rockclimbers looking for new territory to explore will find a valuable bookmark at Rock n' Road, the online climbing guide to cragging areas across North America. Based on a book by the same name, the online version allows you to zero in on a region via clickable map, then search the localized map and database for climbs according to type, difficulty, and quality rating. There's a link to The Weather Channel for each area's reports, and a place to add your own material (photos, information, and updates) as well. A marvelous resource for craggers andywhere on the continent.
Overall Rating: 18
MLB@Bat
URL: http://www.majorleaguebaseball.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The domain name says it all: this is the official site of the major leagues, and they stop at nothing to please ball fans: The latest scores (from completed games), weekly roundups, league and team standings, a photo of the day, players of the week, broadcast and season schedules, other baseball sites -- you name it, MLB has it. Well-designed and easy to navigate, the site is one by which to measure all others.
Overall Rating: 18
Golfweb
URL: http://www.golfweb.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Golf has a rich and well-organized Web presence at Golfweb. There's a ton of info here on current and recent tournaments and stats, upcoming matches and tours. Of course there's a pro shop featuring everything from putters to wedges, plus books, videos, shoes -- even golf software. And Golfweb wants to see you again, which explains the sweepstakes, weekly opinion polls, and a growing list of other golf links.
Overall Rating: 17
The Order of Saint Benedict
URL: http://www.osb.org/osb/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The brothers and sisters of the OSB have assembled an impressive web of primary and secondary materials concerning the monastic life. Here you can browse dozens of meticulously cross-linked texts ranging from the definitive Rule of Benedict to a secular article on "celibate passion." A meta-list of global associates and a monastic e-mail directory make this quite a site. Should a monk in Rome happen to die, or martyrs be found in Algiers, you'll hear about it here in detail. Compliance with HTML 3.2 adds to the pages' ecumenical flavor. If anything is lacking, it's a searchable index.
Overall Rating: 17
Mormon Matter
URL: http://www.greyware.com/authors/wpshunn/mormon.htp
Category: Religion
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Bill Shunn was born and raised a Mormon. These pages get a lot of mileage from his apostasy, last year, at the age of 28. You can read puerile jokes about B.Y.U co-eds or browse an irreverent glossary of Mormon terms. But the main attraction is Shunn's memoir of the missionary adventure that led to his expulsion from Canada. Of its 28 chapters, the couple I read were insightful and funny, and apparently controversial among Mormon cybernauts. Chapters from Shunn's unpublished sci-fi novel are also featured as are links to his "virtual home."
Overall Rating: 16
Scientology
URL: http://www.scientology.org
Category: Religion
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Massive amounts of information lurk beneath the sanitary splash page. Start with a light introduction to founder L. Ron Hubbard or browse a searchable index of texts ranging from *Dianetics* to "Hatewatch: Germany '96." Downloadable quicktime clips will guide you on a virtual tour of the church's L.A. headquarters. You can even tap a RealAudio broadcast of Scientologists John Travolta and Leif Garrett performing Hubbard's musical opus, "The Road to Freedom." The depth and details of this site make it a fine model of rhetorical savoir-faire online.
Overall Rating: 17
Intellicast
URL: http://www.intellicast.com/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This is NBC News' online guide to weather and skiing information. A straightforward interface links you to an up-to-the-minute database of material ranging from full-color satellite maps to four-day forecasts for the world's major cities. The ski-link gathers snow reports and related information from resorts all around the States, Canada, Japan and Europe. In many cases, local snow-phone numbers and lift maps are available. You can also link to an online ski-shop. Once this site makes it past the initial stage of construction, it promises to be a handy resource.
Overall Rating: 16
WWW Virtual Library -- Latin American Studies
URL: http://lanic.utexas.edu/las.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Another far-flung branch of the vast WWW Virtual Library, this one, devoted to everything between the Rio Grande and Cape Horn, is housed at the University of Texas. The site's design is plain as oatmeal -- plainer, even -- with information organized along the most basic lines. Data is grouped under two headings: the country index and the subject index. The links are extensive and seemingly authoritative. The emphasis is, of course, on academics, and scholars will find conference announcements here, and a long list of research institutions. Also, like any good virtual library, it has search capabilities built-in (WAIS). Latin American nationals may want to check their country's folders for magazine pages and other popular media.
Overall Rating: 15
U.S. Gazetteer
URL: http://tiger.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
An online marvel, the U.S. Gazetteer allows visitors to type in a city and state in the U.S. and pull up an inline, interactive map of that location, along with 1990 Census information. I typed in Galveston, TX as a test case. Automatically, the gazetteer gives me the population (59070), the map coordinates, and zip codes. From there you can go to specific census figures (I discovered that Galveston claimed one Aleut resident, circa 1990) or to a color map of the island generated by the Tiger Map Service. You can move the map's center with the mouse or by entering new coordinates, as well as zoom in and out on the image. Talk about the world getting smaller...
Overall Rating: 17
IRIZ - The Electronic Boddhidharma
URL: http://www.iijnet.or.jp/iriz/irizhtml/irizhome.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
There is something so un-Zen-like about this, "the largest collection of Buddhist primary text materials on the Internet." Zen is a slippery critter, of course, all built-in mystery, questions and no answers -- you can't download the sound of one hand clapping, after all. But all that aside, the IRIZ site, part of the Zen Knowledge Base Project, is a disappointment for anyone seeking inspiration to go with their enlightenment; visually, it's a dud and while there's a lot here, it's relatively hard to access. But then this was never the place to look, anyway; to paraphrase an old teaching: If you meet the Buddha on the Info-bahn, kill him.
Overall Rating: 14
European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN)
URL: http://www.cern.ch
Category: Science
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
It ought to be obligatory for all committed netphreaks to make the hadj to CERN, the WWW's Mecca: This is where the Web was invented just a few years back. Web development may have evolved beyond CERN's initial impetus (you can link to au courant sites from here), but the main business of the European Laboratory for Particle Physics remains: smashing atoms and naming the bits after obscure literary entities. Serious physicists can review arcane research projects with enchanting titles like,"Study of the isospin symmetry breaking in the light quark sea of the nucleon from the Drell-Yan process." The light quark sea, far out.
Overall Rating: 16
UW Fish Collection
URL: http://artedi.fish.washington.edu
Category: Science
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The UW Fish Collection is part of the University of Washington's School of Fisheries. With over 230,000 fish in their collection, this Web site has plenty of support for its databases and ichthyological resources. Make sure you take a peek at the Featured Fish of the month. When I looked, Axoclinus Carminalis was in the spotlight. Sure beats a goldfish. By the way, if you happen to find a strange looking fish washed up on the beach, you can take it to the Fish Collection for identification. Freeze it first though--directions are on the site. Nobody likes a smelly dead fish.
Overall Rating: 16
ChemWeb
URL: http://www.softshell.com/SSO_HTML/ChemWeb/chemweb.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
By Web page design standards, this is a dog. The site itself only has a few pages, and the home page is a bit too long for it's own good. Not much in the way of colors or graphics, it does get high marks for accomplishing product distribution. The product in question, ChemWeb, is a brilliant tool for diagraming chemical structures and saving them in GIF files, easily publishable on a Web page. ChemWeb has a tool pallet that includes all the standard shapes for chemical symbols, a built in periodic table for easy element selection, and utilities for calculating things like the mass of your chemical equation.
Overall Rating: 15
TruCost
URL: http://www.trucost.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Do not, under any circumstances, buy a computer or any hardware or software without hitting this site first. TruCost, "Your one-stop shopping center for the lowest computer and software prices," has an astounding catalog of computer equipment from more companies than you knew existed, all available at dealer cost. No hype, no flashy photos; just specs, and prices. Even if you're not ready to buy, you'll be impressed by TruCost's exhaustive list of links to vendors and toll-free numbers for service and support. Best of all, TruCost won't cram your mailbox with redundant catalogs three times a week.
Overall Rating: 17
Hot Hot Hot
URL: http://www.hothothot.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Internet's first "Culinary Headshop," Hot Hot Hot will tantalize both your mind and your tastebuds. You can search their extensive catalog for a range of hot sauces and salsas and either order directly from the site or by phone. Also featured are tasty tidbits of information about chiles and other fiery concoctions. The design is top-notch, with vibrant, primitive graphics against a tabasco red background. Easy to use, fun to read, and great to look at, this is a must for spicy sauce devotees, and friends searching for gift ideas.
Overall Rating: 18
Planet Hawaii
URL: http://planet-hawaii.com/~ph/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
A cosmic pineapple greets visitors to Planet Hawaii, the Web site for hip island-hoppers. It's not the laid-back, sun-soaked Hawaii I'm familiar with; rather, Planet Hawaii (available in both Shocked and non-Shocked versions) provides not only the traditional tourist info, but destinations for the alternative set as well, such as Honolulu's premiere cyber-cafe, the Hawaii International Jazz Festival, Hawaiian Wellness Holidays and Metaphysical Vacations, and Hawaii Modem Gamers Group. The Hawaiian Eye transmits live pictures from the Island of Oahu. Clever, upbeat text is complemented by energetic graphics with lots of punch.
Overall Rating: 18
BR Online
URL: http://www.ultranet.com/~brol/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
BR Online Travel, dedicated exclusively to travel in Brazil, provides prospective visitors with an abundance of useful facts and links, as well as a taste of the country's sights and sounds. Categories include: Tickets from USA to Brazil, Brazilian Links, and Travel & Tourism Links. Another section, Ecotourism Packages, features tour and lodging information for wilderness areas like the Amazon, The Pantanal, and Jericoacoara, a fishing village that boasts one of "the ten most beautiful beaches in the world." Rich in content, BR Travel Online's navigation is simple and intuitive, and the graphics are appealing without overpowering the content.
Overall Rating: 18
National Park Service
URL: http://www.nps.gov/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Planning a trip to a national park this summer? This is the logical first stop to get your bearings. National Parks and historical sites -- and not just the major ones -- are indexed alphabetically and by region, and links to each one provides information on a variety of topics, including hours of operations, peak seasons, common sense safety rules, camping and lodging, reservations, and historical highlights. A unique feature allows you to search National Parks by theme, in case you or the kids wants to learn about something or someone specific while you vacation.
Overall Rating: 17
Lonely Planet
URL: http://www.lonelyplanet.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
The footloose philosophy that gave birth to Lonely Planet in the early 70s still characterizes the publisher whose motto has always been: "Don't worry about whether your trip will work out. Just go!" But after publishing more than 150 guides specializing in low-budget travel to out-of-the-way places, Lonely Planet has proven that its well-worn feet are also planted firmly on the ground. This useful and utilitarian site is the publisher's online passport to the planet, offering "practical, reliable, and down-to-earth travel information for travelers who want to explore beyond the usual tourist routes." Visit the *Destinations* area for a clickable map of the world. Each subsequent click (on a continent, a country, a city, and so forth) takes you farther down the rabbit-hole, providing background information on your chosen site, a list of attractions, a slide show, travelers' reports, and a chance to order (via a fax-back form) Lonely Planet's print guide for the destination in question. So while the site is not an HTML version of the print guides, there's still a lot to glean here. The Postcards section lets you read the letters, postcards, and e-mail that Lonely Planet receives each year from people on the road. You're cautioned to regard any tips, (never cross the border to Egypt after 3 p.m., as there are no more tour buses and cab drivers will "use this opportunity to rip you off"), as hearsay since they haven't been fact-checked yet. Still, it's a great way to share travel experience and advice with others (there's a "mail to" link). *On the Road* provides first-hand impressions (in both text and photography) of travel from Lonely Planets' authors and photographers. Plus, you'll get good photography-taking tips here. Since part of Lonely Planet's mission is to encourage travelers to strike out on their own, away from the usual destinations, it offers a *Detours* section chronicling and illustrating trips to particularly remote areas of the world, like Ulaan Baatar, Easter Island, and Timbuktu. The site is rounded out with a good set of health resources designed to keep you safe from upset stomachs and blisters, serious ailments and minor ills. A text-only version will please those who just want the hard info fast and easy. Go here to plan your next trip, or just to take a mini vacation from daily life.
Overall Rating: 18
CROSS-PLATFORM PAGE
URL: http://www.mps.org/~ebennett/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This page provides information on converting image, video, audio, data compression, and data encoding formats across common computer platforms. It's not much to look at, but jeez! There's an incredible amount of information here, available in English or Japanese with other translations a possibility in the future. Includes pointers to FAQ files and to a seemingly infinite number of useful toys for geeks. Even someone on a text-only browser like Lynx could make great use of this page, which is a little strange for a Mac-generated site.
Overall Rating: 15
HOTLIST ANYWHERE
URL: http://www.cntfl.com/hotlist/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
If these folks aren't in it for the money, they're missing a sure thing. Promoted and financed properly, this site could be right up there with Yahoo! or Infoseek. Hotlist Anywhere allows its users to access their bookmark/hotlist files from any computer on the Internet, for free. Surprisingly, only 610 people are using the service so far, even though it appears to be pretty much bug-free. This site would be particularly useful for those with multiple Internet accounts. Be the first on your block.
Overall Rating: 17
Yale C/AIM WWW Style Manual
URL: http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/StyleManual_Top.HTML
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This is one of the most venerable and respected webmaster reference sites on the Internet, and with good reason. As they put it, "The advice you will find here is aimed at the practical concerns of bending and adapting a relatively primative authoring and layout tool (HTML) to purposes it was never really intended to serve (graphic page design)." They accomplish their goal with, you guessed it, style. Very few things on the Web are sublime enough to make a webmaster's heart go pitty-pat, but this site certainly will.
Overall Rating: 18
Virtual Jerusalem
URL: http://www.virtual.co.il/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
As a "citizen" of Virtual Jerusalem, you not only have access to one of the largest, best-organized data bases on Jerusalem and Israel, but you can also set up your own Web page, participate in polls, contests, or exchange political opinions with other citizens. The "neighborhoods" design may be a little gimmicky, but it, nevertheless, makes everything run smoothly and quickly. Stop by the culture neighborhood for upcoming shows, or hit the retail section to order gifts and merchandise. So much news! Five daily radio broadcasts, news summaries from all the leading Jerusalem dailies, and in-depth political coverage from Virtual Jerusalem' s own City News. Tourist information is also plentiful. Every city should have a page like this.
Overall Rating: 18
Cambodia
URL: http://www.cambodia.org
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Despite being relatively low-tech, this site is a valuable resource, providing an extensive, if not exhaustive, set of links related to Cambodia. Read US. Embassy postings, find out the proper way to sneak across the Thai border, visit the Digital Archive of the Cambodian Holocaust, download Cambodian fonts, or search the Columbia University database of rare Asian books. The possibilities are endless; unfortunately, on my visit, so was the waiting.
Overall Rating: 15
Botswana Focus
URL: http://cy.co.za/atg/stbrob.html/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Landscapes, wildlife, sunsets, mountain ranges, and panoramas galore -- compliments to the designer(s) of this beautiful page. Beyond the superficial looks, Botswana Focus is also a great introduction to the central African nation. History, current events, stats, maps -- the whole nine yards is served up quickly and with style. This is more than just an electronic brochure, mind you, (tourists need not worry, however; they will be amply provided for). There are also focus articles on conservation crises, links to magazines, and resource databases for more research. If you need to know something about this Botswana, look for it here.
Overall Rating: 18
Les Pages de Paris
URL: http://www.paris.org
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Whether you're planning a visit or simply daydreaming of one, this site has something for you. With over 7,000 pages of information, things move a little slowly, but most of it's worth waiting for. The City-o-Lite Site has its own little magazine, Paris Kiosque (very cutesy throwaway schlock) as well as straight up tourist information, i.e. hotels, hostels, schedules, monuments, pictures, and the like -- more info than you'll ever need, and no scowls if you speak French with an accent.
Overall Rating: 17
La Paranoia
URL: http://www.paranoia.com/
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Paranoia is at the front lines in the war against censorship and government regulation on the Internet. They don't just talk in the abstract about freedom of speech, either; they exercise it. Paranoia has compiled information on all sorts of illegal and subversive activities, from how-to's on scams and hustles to the low-down on the narcotics your mamma warned you about. The design is smart, though text-intensive, and the user Web pages are enough to merit a visit. Granted, acid-trip yarns get kind of old, but I'm impressed that someone took the time to cull the good ones from countless hours of USENET chit-chat.
Overall Rating: 17
Bomb
URL: http://www.bombsite.com
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Most modern magazines feel the need to create an online presence, and Bomb is no exception. The pluggable version of this lit/art/culture mag is fully endowed with all the articles of its paper-based parent, plus the chance to engage in further discussion with and about featured people and events. This is both a positive and a negative quality. On the one hand, you get insightful, in-depth coverage of a range of contemporary creative types-for free. On the other hand, even the most interesting 1,500-word magazine article, when read on-screen, can give you a headache.
Overall Rating: 17
XXX Fruit
URL: http://www.echonyc.com/~xxxfruit/
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
You can find XXX Fruit on the racks, but it makes a righteous vapormag as well. Online issue number one, entitled *Witness: Exquisite Corpse*, takes Johnny Cochran's opening argument for the O.J. Simpson trial and turns it into an electronic "exquisite corpse." Every line links to spinoff spiels and squeals from a variety of cyberconscious cats and kittens, plus other essays and sites connected thematically to various key words. The prose is cerebral and socially concerned, with a hint of high-concept mumjum- altogether a dense and webby delight for postmodern hyperhoppers.
Overall Rating: 16
Zeen
URL: http://members.aol.com/zeenzine/zeen.html
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Despite its technical savvy and stylish on-screen appearance, Zeen is firmly grounded in the grassroots tradition of Xerox-based, punk-powered personal publishing that originally spawned the term zine. Like any zine worth its toner, Zeen is chock full of angst-ridden rants, unwanted advice, regional in-jokes, disturbed amateur art, and loads of pint-sized, punchy reviews -- of books, movies, records and other zines (with mailing addresses and urls when available). Zeen is irreverent and unpolished, a refreshing alternative to the legions of cybercool "cutting-edge" e-rags cluttering up cyberspace. There is, of course, an old-school paper version of Zeen as well.
Overall Rating: 17
Federation Internacionale de Football Association (FIFA)
URL: http://www.fifa.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
The international governing body of the sport of soccer, FIFA oversees the world's single most popular sport. Many Americans still scoff at that last designation, unimpressed even by the `94 World Cup, hosted on their home turf. It's boring, they are bound to say. Not enough scoring. (Nevermind that a nation enamored of sports as leisurely as baseball and golf should think to call anything slow.) I think this attitude goes deeper than a mere disinterest in the game. It's just a theory, understand, but I think it's more symbolic of a general parochialism -- the old, isolationist tendencies that keep us an ocean's length from even those countries we share our borders with. We'd rather not attend that wild party, known in the rest of the world, as "football." Football hearkens back to the old country, and as we all became, across generations, "Americans," we tried to -- had to -- forget our heritage. And so we invented our own, new games; baseball, basketball and football -- the American version, that is -- are all homegrown pastimes, don't forget. Well, whether or not that tossed-off theory holds water, I think its time we got back into the game -- *the* game -- with its overtones of war drama (a not so subtle element in light of British hooligans and South American stadium riots) where nations pit their champions against the other side's champions and root as if the last tatter of national pride rode on the outcome. Everyone gets drunk, the country shuts down, and either mourns or celebrates in unison. It's cathartic. We could use a good catharsis. But that isn't even what I like so much about it. Let me tell you what I like so much about it: I like the fact that in international soccer, teams invariably play according to the national character; that is, the style of play is as true to the country as it's food, language, or style of dance. Thus the World Cup champion Brazilians play as if they were dancing samba: loosely, gracefully, and exuberantly. The Germans play as if they were building Volkswagens or Mercedes Benz's; not much flair or imagination, but they get the job done, solidly. Cameroon plays a straight-ahead, fast game, amiably and with no discipline at all. Colombian football is just plain reckless, the goalie abandoning his post once a game to play the ball to midfield. And on and on. Want to know about a country, watch it's soccer team. At the FIFA site you can educate yourself as to the sport's illustrious history while keeping up on the latest results of contests around the world. Women's soccer is prominently featured as are international junior competitions. There isn't much in the way of multimedia here, or even an abundance of photo images (the latter would be a welcome addition), but as the `98 World Cup in France approaches (qualifying matches are already underway) this is one for fans of the sport everywhere to bookmark. See you in France.
Overall Rating: 18
Crash Site
URL: http://www.directnet.com/Crash/
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
*So you say you want a revolution, we-ell you know...* The kids at Crash Site, part of the Big Gun Project (which is really big), play at apocalypse, nihilism, and destruction, (emphasis on the word, "play"). Despite all the jawing at this site about militias (they "heart" them) and guns, (they heart them, too), and revolution, they're really just disaffected kids, fresh out of college or the suburbs (N.B. I don't really know their backgrounds, but I'd bet my shoes on it), badly needing to vent some spleen. The pages are all rife with the same unrelenting dissent and dread of the future. And something else, a kind of "white rage," that would be laughable if it weren't so persistent. I don't mean to suggest by "white rage," that this is some sort of skinhead prop or anything. No, it's less focused, and takes aim more at that amorphous thing called "the system," than any race or creed. So, that's part of it: the *rage* part. The *white* part has something to do with the panoply that finds its altar here, and something I noticed about it: the cultural icons are almost exclusively white. Consider: The Beastie Boys and House of Pain, two white rap bands -- one Jewish, one Irish -- are, unofficially, Crash Site emblems of rap. Charles Bukowski and Kathy Acker are predictable literary heroes, but where are Leroi Jones and Ralph Ellison? Militias figure largely in the Crash Site trope, but Malcolm X and the Black Panthers? Absent. Which isn't to say that you won't find any black voices or emblems, here, but to show which way the balance leans. Crash Site is page after page of challenging, in-your-face imagery (the graphics are consistently impressive, some of the best on the Web) and argument. Most of it is stuff that, to put on the jargon, I ain't down with. Not at all. "We'd like to say we dig all militias, but along with espousing admirable values of violent overthrow,... many of these cuckoo-birds promote a goofy neo-christian anti-semitic viewpoint." So starts one argument. It ends like this: " Would we want to have these folks ruling? No. But that's not really the point.The time is well nigh to split the whisker, roll your own, and start a militia." All right, sure. Then what? Crash Site, finally, is long on gripes, short on answers. Clicking on the hypertext that reads, "Join the Crash Militia!" brings you directly to the free merchandise page. Posters and stickers. Dissapointing to say the least. If you've read this far, you're probably wondering why I deemed this a site of the month in the first place. Fair enough. I've been asking myself. I suppose it has something to do with respect for effort. Reluctantly, I have to admit that the scope of these pages is impressive, even if the quality of the rhetoric sometimes flags. There is a strident sincerity behind the project, which, even if I find it wrong-headed is good to see in a generation (my generation) known for its apathy. So, while I hope they never find anything to aim their guns at, I also hope they keep it up. If I don't often agree with them, I never find them boring.
Overall Rating: 18
Heavenly Creatures
URL: http://www.666.org/heavenly
Category: Film
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
"*Heavenly Creatures* is simply the best movie I have seen in my lifetime," writes the creator of this site. That doesn't begin to convey the site's depth of information about and level of adoration for the movie from New Zealand. Apparently this based-on-actual-events movie has quite a following online. Be prepared for an overload of information. It contains images from the film, an in-depth plot summary, mailing list details, character biographies and lots, lots more. Practically every other word in the plot summary page has a link to an appropriate frame from the film. Why watch the movie? A visit here and you can save a trip to Blockbuster.
Overall Rating: 16
Jaws - The Home Page
URL: http://www.winternet.com/~tandj04/jaws.html
Category: Film
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Just one look at the *Jaws* movie poster on the home page and you may be afraid of the water again. There's an ocean of information to wade through, without any fancy graphics to slow you down, (or enhance the experience). The pages are pretty spartan, design-wise, but if you want your *Jaws* facts in large, er, bites, this is quite a mouthful. There are reviews, links galore and audio and video downloads to see those jaws in action. And, yes you can download the Jaws theme song.
Overall Rating: 14
Disney Pictures
URL: http://www.disney.com/DisneyPictures/
Category: Film
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
So what if this site is slick? So what if it is big business? So what if the pages take hours to load? This is cute, lovable Disney! Who could ever hate Disney? (Aside from Southern Baptists of course.) So kick back and wait as you bring up well-designed and information-packed pages about Disney's latest animated movie, *The Hunchback of Notre Dame*. The site features information on other recent theatrical and home video releases such as *Toy Story*, *Muppet Treasure Island*, *1001 Dalmations* and many more. Discover factoids from your favorite Disney movie or download video and audio clips. It may be a small world after all, but this is one large, satisfying site.
Overall Rating: 18
Musei Vatican
URL: http://www.christusrex.org/www1/vatican/O-Musei.html/
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
I came to this site and found the "Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality"--according to the Pope, who, if memory serves, has taken a vow of chastity and remains as innocent as the day he was born. Hmm. Contradictions notwithstanding, this is a great site to surf. For the pious among us, there's daily news updates from the Holy See, all the latest papal ecunemicals, plus news from around the world. Take a virtual tour of the Vatican. Search through photo archives of everything from sacred art from some of the world's oldest churches to shots from China's Tianemen Square Uprising. If you need a reason to skip Sunday mass, look no further. Amen.
Overall Rating: 18
ArtNow Gallery Guide
URL: http://www.gallery-guide.com
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Importing the simple design of its popular print series, ArtNow's site arranges current information on museums, galleries, artists and art fairs. Given the large number of European and stateside venues, the extent of the cross-linking is impressive, allowing you to exit to particular home-pages where available. With respect to "art fidelity," the few images included are frameless and well-compressed. The search engine that attempts to tie it all together sometimes leads to mis-anchored or unrelated links, but the site is easy enough to navigate without it.
Overall Rating: 16
The Flying Pig Awards
URL: http://www.ccnet.com/~cccorlew/pigs/pigs.html
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The Flying Pig is sponsored by the laid-back, beer-drinking photo staff at the *Antioch California Ledger Dispatch.* Attuned to small-town assignments and hackneyed editorial, their criteria favours photojournalists shooting in the "real world" as opposed to, say, the theatre of war. The result is a list of winners arranged in categories such as "Person in an Office" and "Bowling." Mail-tos invite photographers to use the page as a gateway to their peers. The jury's concession to spectacle comes in the form of a special award for Tomas Ovalle's photos from the Burning Man festival, which alone are worth a visit.
Overall Rating: 14
Children with Diabetes
URL: http://www.castleweb.com/diabetes/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Here, you can ask an experienced team of doctors anything about diabetes and your query will be promptly posted with a reply and archived for future visitors. Enter webchat rooms arranged for kids, teens and adults with diabetes, or diabetes II. Make a friend online. Search a massive database. Follow crosslinks to detailed information on everything from pump varieties to experimental treatments. You're even invited to upload your wisdom to their FTP site. A strong sense of community, coupled with CastleWeb's elegant design, makes for a highly effective presence. Aesthetics: 3 Content: 3 Smarts: 3
Overall Rating: 18
The Red Cross
URL: http://www.icrc.ch/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
A dense site-tree branches out to absorbing articles on every aspect of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Read the history of its humanitarian mission from the 1860s, through the Geneva convention, to the present. A world map links hyper-archives on crisis centers including Kabul and Sarajevo. A photo gallery illustrates the committee's campaign against landmines, which account for a quarter of its relief work. The spartan CERN aesthetic orders this inspiring and informative web page.
Overall Rating: 17
Outbreak
URL: http://www.objarts.com/cgi-outbreak-unreg/dynaserve.exe/index.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Outbreak provides in-depth information about emerging diseases for the interested layperson as well as the medical/health professional. It also provides a world-wide collaborative database to collect information about possible disease outbreaks. You can browse and contribute to field reports covering everything from an Ebola outbreak among Texan monkeys to Lassa Fever in Sierre Leone. This is another one of those ambitious websites whose seriousness and momentum merits the CERN aesthetic. Download a flood of papers. Link to Usenet groups. Register to stay current.
Overall Rating: 17
Reuters Health Info
URL: http://www.reutershealth.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
These pages are an effective carryover of Reuter's information services into the health industry. The well-balanced home page highlights top medical stories on a daily basis. Headlines like "Intra-Arterial Vitamin C Improves Endothelial Function In Smokers" link you to detailed reports. Comprehensive news is available in categories ranging from clinical to legislative, and pharmaceutical. Archives are accessible via a powerful search engine. If you're feeling playful, you can test your diagnostic skills against a weekly Clinical Challenge. An invaluable resource for health professionals and students. Aesthetics: 3 Content: 3 Smarts: 2
Overall Rating: 17
Prostate.com
URL: http://www.prostate.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
A cheerful EKG flashes across a nifty home page. Frame-savvy and server push make for a smooth ride to in-depth information on prostate cancer. "Journal Club" provides summaries of wide-ranging medical articles that are available in their entirety. Highlights from the Prostate Cancer Conference include research on topics such as the benefits of drinking green tea. A bulletin board allows serious discussion to develop into a full-fledged support group. Shareware is provided by outside agencies and drug information was on its way at the time of this review. Aesthetics: 3 Content: 3 Smarts: 3
Overall Rating: 18
The Art Machine
URL: http://www.theartmachine.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
So, you really want your website to look like a bad 60's revival? Then point that tie-dyed browser in the direction of The Art Machine, an archive of textures and images free for use with websites and other computer-generated art. In an effort to uphold their reputation as recipients of the coveted *Funky Mama* award, our friends at Art Machine work diligently to crank out 64 new textures each week. All of which are 100% guaranteed to aesthetically corrupt your site. This site is worth a peek if only to experience the one-and-only mating sea-urchin animation.
Overall Rating: 15
Cosmic Baseball Association
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/cosmic/cba1.html#top
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
This is the kind of site that exemplifies what I like most about the Web: it accomodates the weird, wacky, flippant, impulsive and idiosyncratic nature of the human Nerd. What worries me is the claim that the CBA has been in existence since 1982. What if Mickey Mantle, William Burroughs and (Jeremy) Boorda were on the same conceivable Other-world playing field? Requisite to being a player in this metaphorical quadrangular league is a contribution to the counterculture; recent death is a co-factor in selection. Actually this site takes a lot of maintenance, and once you peer past the novelty a strange cohesiveness becomes apparent. Well-linked to the pages of these ethereal major leaguers.
Overall Rating: 16
Durian Online
URL: http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~durian/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
There is a big, smelly fruit that grows along the Malaysian peninsula and the Indonesian archipelago. It's a pendulous and prickly item the flesh of which is so fetid that it's banned in many public places. And yet to a lot of folks the fruit is ambrosia. Fresh, the segments are hawked at bus stations as a cool refreshment. In frozen form, it's a favorite ice cream flavor. Lesser grade specimens can be distilled into an intoxicant. Intrigued? Point your browser to Durian Online for an introduction to the forbidding fruit of the East.
Overall Rating: 15
Poultry Page
URL: http://www.cyborganic.com/people/feathersite/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Colonel Sanders eat your heart out: this is a guy who really loves his chickens, and just about every other kind of poultry he can get onto his farm. Initially just a poem to the exotic specimens he breeds, the site has become a minor clearing house of information on varieties as diverse as ducks and peacocks. Loving portraits are presented of his spectacular birds, as well as sound-enhanced videos of hens a-layin' and partridges a-perchin. Sure, it's a vanity page, but an endearing one just the same.
Overall Rating: 16
Tito's Home Page
URL: http://www.fri.uni-lj.si/~tito/tito-eng.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Marshall Tito, (Josip Broz), dead these 16 years, has never looked so good. Not only the architect of a famous and resilient brand of non-aligned, European, post-war Communism, he can now be seen as the guy who kept Croats, Muslims and Serbs from each others throats for two generations of the Cold War. This is the page he would have approved, an unabashed piece of propaganda replete with copies of his famous speeches, photos with other illustrious world leaders, and a rather glowing biography of the high points of his long military and political careers.
Overall Rating: 16
WWWF Grudge Match
URL: http://www.cheme.cornell.edu/~slevine
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Sort of a comic riff on pro wrestling, this site would actually work much better on radio than on the Web. It's a fun and funny idea, sure; this just isn't the medium. Imagine grudge matches between Imelda Marcos and Leona Helmsley, or between a Rottweiler and a Rottweiler's weight in Chihuahuas, or between 100 midgets and 500 centenarians. Imagine the gruesome spectacle of Gary Coleman and Webster, battling to the death. Now imagine reading interminably long scrolls of text on drab pages, stored on a busy server that refuses fully a quarter of all connections.
Overall Rating: 14
AT&T
URL: http://www.att.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Ever heard of information overload? The AT&T home page is packed full of linked text in a small font, so you're best bet is to proceed directly to the site map to get a finger on where you need to be--product info, telecommuting information, wireless telecom, etc. Several levels deep, you'll find lots of interesting information about telecommunications products and research. My favorite area to browse is the AT&T Bell Labs R and D area. Did you know there's already a prototype of Dick Tracy's wrist telephone?
Overall Rating: 16
United Media
URL: http://www.unitedmedia.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Yet another reason not to buy a newspaper. Nancy, Robotman, Marmaduke, and the Peanuts gang are all hanging out on these funny pages for your online enjoyment! And who can do without Dilbert's travels in corporate hyperreality? There's even political cartoons by the likes of Steve Benson for the smart alecs out there. Check back daily and immerse yourself in the best of the daily comics, without all that news to distract you.
Overall Rating: 17
Ben and Jerry's Homemade, Inc.
URL: http://www.benjerry.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Welcome to the tasty online home of the Ben and Jerry's empire. Designed in their signature Crayola-meets-microdot style, this site is like Cherry Garcia--dig and you'll find plenty of treats. Learn about Increase The Peace, a program the promotes creative and non-violent resolutions of conflicts. Check out the Flavor Graveyard of phased-out taste treats like Tennessee Mud and Fred and Ginger. Or learn how to build a paper cow with a bobbing head! Plenty of fun--pass the Chunky Monkey!
Overall Rating: 18
M&M's Studios
URL: http://www.m-ms.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Will someone please explain for me the appeal of snack food personifications? I mean, how can you watch a California Raisin or an M&M dance around on the TV screen, then chomp a whole handful into paste? Either the association is not being made between the characters and the product, or we're sophisticated enough to recognize the association without taking it too far. Or could it be that we're all acting out a survival-of-the-species, predator/prey drama; i.e., we delight in watching the gazelles prance across the plains, but hunt them down and barbecue them nevertheless. Something to think about. Anyway, that's just what ran through my mind while checking out the M&M's site. It's a brilliant production, really, and sure to delight the kids. Adults, be warned: There are brain-twisting reality blurs here that are probably best left unanalyzed, not to mention browser-twisting technologies. Come equipped with Shockwave. The home page is a parody of "Variety," Hollywood's industry newspaper. It's covered with clickable articles about the red, yellow, and blue animated M&M's from the TV commercials. Exploring this site, you get some idea just how extensive the characterizations are. Red is the egotistical Hollywood star; Blue, the artsy, cool one with the beatnik aesthetic; while Yellow is a depressed klutz. I'd say he's a bit underdeveloped as a character, but perhaps its just a shortcoming of the M&M who plays him... The "Lab" section of the site is devoted to three Shockwave games, which aren't exactly groundbreaking but are well-programmed and fun. To enter the "Lab," you have to enter your year of birth in a form field. If you are too old, your access will be denied. Between you and me, I had to spoof it with 1984 before I could get in. Reload the first screen a couple of times to see some different shockwave animations. As for eating your little friends, well, ... that's up to you.
Overall Rating: 18
Durex.com
URL: http://www.durex.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Tongue firmly planted in . . . cheek, Durex, manufacturer of Ramses and Sheik condoms, has developed this site as an homage to the prophylactic. In categories like "up and coming" and "the in's and out's of sex," guys and girls can find tips on the mechanics of condom application and maintenance (kids, don't hide them behind the radiator!) as well as the touchier issue of incorporating condoms into romantic interludes. Dr. Dilemma answers a range of questions about sex for the informationally challenged. All in all, it does a fine job of combining whimsical humor with some very serious issues.
Overall Rating: 17
Explores! World Headquarters
URL: http://www.thunder.met.fsu.edu/explores/explores.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Explores! World Headquarters, the Weather Channel watcher's Internet alternative, was developed by two meteorology professors at Florida State University as a resource for kids with an interest in the space and earth sciences. Want to know what the weather's like in Scranton? Precipitation estimate for anywhere in the U.S.? Tracking Hurricanes strike your fancy? This site exemplifies the enormous, almost overwhelming, amount of information available on the Internet (300 links on U.S. weather alone) and would be best viewed with an experienced meteorologist on hand to explain the more arcane concepts.
Overall Rating: 16
First Aid Online
URL: http://www2.vivid.net/~cicely/safety
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
First Aid Online could prove very useful, provided you consult it prior to any choking, fainting, or burning incidents. Not many people would have the presence of mind, or the necessary hardware, to log on to the Internet after a snake bite or in the throes of heat prostration. However, if you're planning a camping trip, thinking of rewiring your home, or are generally accident-prone, this is a worthwhile site to peruse at your leisure.
Overall Rating: 16
Doctor's Guide to Asthma
URL: http://www.pslgroup.com/asthma.htm
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Doctor's Guide to Asthma Information & Resources is a subset of the Doctor's Guide to the Internet, a thorough yet accessible resource for physicians and patients online. This site offers comprehensive information for asthma sufferers, and/or parents of asthmatics, with current information, up-to-the-minute innovations in treatment, discussion groups, drug information, discussion, newsgroups, and other related sites. The graphics are clean and the site is easy to read and navigate, with no busy backgrounds or flashy animations to get in the way of its message.
Overall Rating: 17
Mental Health Net
URL: http://www.cmhc.com
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Mental Health Net boasts over 3,650 individual resources, and is divided into categories such as Professional Resources, Mental Health Administration and Self Help Resources. This is one-stop shopping for professionals and amateurs interested in the workings of the human mind. You can diagnose yourself, a loved one, or your boss, in the Mental Disorder Symptom Index (neurotics and hypochondriacs -- the people who need it -- should probably avoid this section). The site contains interesting and useful links, but is information-rich in its own right.
Overall Rating: 16
Internet Bankruptcy Library
URL: http://bankrupt.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
The gray background isn't particularly inviting, but the wealth of resources makes up for that. Created by Bankruptcy Creditors' Service and the Beard Group, this site indexes companies that recently filed for bankruptcy; lists bankruptcy-related discussion groups, mailing lists, Web sites, and resources; and has a directory of bankruptcy/insolvency professionals and a database of bankruptcy clerks' offices. In exchange for your e-mail address, you gain access to a list of companies showing "early signs of financial strain or difficulty"; more complete mercenary information is available if you subscribe to the Troubled Company Prospector ($575 for six months).
Overall Rating: 14
Small Movies
URL: http://www.city-net.com/~fodder/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
There's never been any shortage of enthusiasm on the Web. Sites on every conceivable subject have been thrown together like pancakes on Sunday morning by folks so jazzed they could barely hold their water. These sites are inevitably gushing with information so arcane that only the initiated can get past the title. Ostensibly, Small Movies is that sort of site as well, dedicated as it is to an endangered craft: 8-mm movie making. In the age of video, after all, with it's immediate gratification and technology even a chimp could master (never mind the lousy image quality), the old 8-mm movies have become about as quaint as tin-types and magic lanterns. And as if that isn't enough, Kodak has recently discontinued manufacture of all sound-striped film, adding to the format's demise. But Small Movies never says die: The creator urges you to lodge a formal complaint with Kodak, even if the issue doesn't directly affect you -- consider it a general protest against that old bugaboo, obsolescence. What sets Small Movies apart from all the other passionate sites on the Web is the level of care and expertise that obviously went into it's making. The site is a masterpiece of web design, uniting considerable technical content with a clean, intuitive layout that makes the going easy and the material manageable. The graphics are consistently, and fittingly, retro, many of the images no doubt lifted from the pages of old tech manuals. Navigation from the home page is intuitive without resorting to the print model table of contents. "Mind your cursor!" warns the site's creator, "links can be anywhere." And they are. The experience is non-linear without being labyrinthine. Content includes concise and in-depth information on everything from the availability of film stocks to camera guides, the history of the format to building your own printer. It's wonderful reading, really, made moreso by the infectious enthusiasm behind the information. Even if you've never owned a Super-8 camera or had the itch to make movies, this site is engrossing. If you're lucky enough to still have one of the whirring wonders and can get your hands on some film, you'll doubtless be amazed by this online resource. Bookmark it and get down to work,...while you still can.
Overall Rating: 18
Testprep.com
URL: http://www.testprep.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Too bad this resource wasn't around when I was suffering through SAT preparations. This is a truly useful site which provides a free SAT course. Diagnose your weak areas by taking a complete version of the SAT and then choose from 1000's of review lessons including answers and explanations. You can shop to order SAT guides at the Testprep Superstore or purchase the Stanford Studyguide software disk. But it's refreshing to see free information so readily offered in an area which has become an industry in itself.
Overall Rating: 16
Exploratorium Exploranet
URL: http://www.exploratorium.edu
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Leave it to the Exploratorium, San Francisco's renowned interactive science exhibit, to come up with a site as informative and creative as Exploranet. Surf through hundreds of cool science links, check out the science behind the news in The Why Files, follow along with the onscreen tutorial of a cow's eye dissection (one of the Exploratorium's most popular exhibits), or take on any number of show-stopping brain puzzlers, niftily reconfigured for the Web. There are dozens of do-this-at-home recipes to help you recreate Exploratorium fun at home. There is a lot here, so give yourself plenty of time investigate.
Overall Rating: 18
The Hollywood Network
URL: http://www.hollywoodnetwork.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Hey kid! Looking to break into the pitchas? Want an agent, a screenplay, some grant money for your film? The Hollywood Network covers any aspect of the film industry that you can imagine. Chat with acting hopefuls, consult with industry insiders, or take a screenwriting seminar. The Hollydex Directory can tell you where to find a Russian 16-mm camera or post production facilities in Belgium. An excellent resource for professional services and information.
Overall Rating: 16
Ed Wood Home page
URL: http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~lflynn/edwood.html
Category: Film
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
At last! An online homage to the quirky pulp film maestro, Ed Wood, best known for classics like *Plan 9 From Outer Space* and for giving new life to the sagging career of Bela Lugosi. The page includes a complete filmography of Ed's illustrious career, including insightful and enthusiastic commentary by the site's creator Leisa R. Flynn. There's a professional horoscope on Ed, reproductions of film posters, and a photo of Ed at Lugosi's funeral. Ordering information for his films and autobiography are also available. Enlightening and well-presented.
Overall Rating: 15
Worldclass
URL: http://web.idirect.com/~tiger
Category: Finance
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
An enterprising Canadian named Mike Kuiack has built a large and useful business site focusing on financial reports and economic information resources. You have to navigate through several introductions and explanations before hitting paydirt, but eventually you'll find the Supersite, a large daily guide (with lots of useful links) to global business news. Worldclass Today provides info on business and economic development expos and organizations. Each month, the site picks winning web sites in the categories of reference, news, learning, money, trade, and networking.
Overall Rating: 17
MoneyLine
URL: http://www.moneyline.com
Category: Finance
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
MoneyLine offers real-time information on U.S. capital markets to subscribers, who pay a minimum of $100/month (a free two-week trial is available). For those needing current financial information (e.g. closing prices on Treasury bonds, notes or bills), MoneyLine may be a godsend. It dynamically updates broker/dealer prices and offerings. Subscriber or not, you can bookmark the internal page called MoneyLinks (www.moneyline.com/mlc_link.html), a very helpful annotated set of links to financial services sites including boards of trade, Federal Reserve reports, municipal bond tracking, and many resources for investors and stockwatchers.
Overall Rating: 17
MarketPlace
URL: http://www.usc.edu/marketplace/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Public radio program, Marketplace, bills itself as "business and economic news with an attitude," and its site is living proof. Cleverness abounds in the "Bluffer's Guide to Investing and Finance," an important-sounding glossary of nonsense statements that will amaze your friends. There are sly bios of the show's reporters and producers, and 30s-style photos of "Professional Radio Direction Signals." Beyond the goofiness, read the transcript of today's newscast, search past programs, or get the broadcast schedule by city and station. Surprisingly, there are no audio clips, but MarketPlace claims they're coming soon.
Overall Rating: 17
Hoover's Online
URL: http://www.hoovers.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Plentiful, well-organized information and carefully chosen links make Hoover's Online a great place to begin researching a company. Get vital statistics and brief descriptions from a directory of more than 10,000 companies searchable by company name, ticker symbol, location, and other identifiers. Click on buttons at the bottom of a company's directory page for a stock quote or MarketGuide snapshot of current financials, then move to the Corporate Web Register to search for Internet sites. At IPO Central, you can learn about initial public offerings and access Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Some of Hoover's resources are available only to members, but most are freely to everyone.
Overall Rating: 17
PC Multimedia & Entertainment
URL: http://www.mortimer.com/users/pcme/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is really a fan site masquerading as an online magazine. Game reviews dominate the project, which seems to have a single editor, judging by the solitary byline. And while there's a lot of good information about a wide variety of games, the editor seems to be enamored of all of them. Ratings were pretty generous across the board. Also working against it, the home page is not very well designed, being too long and unorganized for easy access to the site's areas.
Overall Rating: 16
Games Domain
URL: http://www.gamesdomain.co.uk
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I wouldn't go so far as to say this is the ultimate PC gaming site on the Web, but it's pretty close. Content is divided into 6 categories, and is a mixture between local and remote resources. The usual section headings are in place, like "What's New" and "Downloads," but one whole section, the "Games Domain Review" is an online magazine in and of itself, with game reviews and industry news. That said, another section called "Games Information" is considered the real core. There are games FAQs and tons of links to other game sites in this area. The most ingenious part , to my mind, is the "Universal Hint System," a hint database that can help gamers past the sticking point.
Overall Rating: 17
Multiplayer Game Connection
URL: http://www.mpgn.com
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The popularity of 3D shoot-em-up games like Doom isn't based so much on the gameplay, as it is the possibility of multiple players; the thrill factor goes up a notch or two (or three) when you're playing against human opponents. The Multiplayer Game Connection attempts to bring this kind of fun to slower, strategy oriented contests, games that allow you to do such things as play turn-of-the-century robber baron (Empire Builder). The advantage of board model games, of course, is that they can be played well on slower connections. Specialized software is, however, needed to play on MGC, and there's a $9.95 a month charge for unlimited play time.
Overall Rating: 17
Klaas Foundation for Children
URL: http://www.klaaskids.inter.net/index.htm
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This site has a lot going for it beside the obvious accolades it deserves for working to safeguard kids. The foundation's goal is to "stop crimes against our children in this generation," and some of the ideas explored here make that vitally important aim seem within reach. For those unfamiliar with the case, 12-year old Polly Klaas was abducted from her home in Petaluma, California in October, 1993. She was later found murdered. Regrettably, the site devotes as much attention to Marc Klaas, Polly's father, as it does to the issue of child protection. But perhaps that's what is needed: a visible advocate who never shuts up -- like a smoke alarm, his shriek will someday save lives.
Overall Rating: 16
The Schoolhouse Rock Page
URL: http://iquest.com/~bamafan/shr/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Schoolhouse Rock devotees everywhere will get a kick out of this site, the be-all and end-all of Schoolhouse Rock worship. Who could have guessed that those clever educational ditties from mid-1970s Saturday mornings would become a cottage industry in the wired 90s? Roughly 65 megabytes of WAV files and the lyrics to every song are joined here by information about licensed clothing, audio CDs, CD-ROM, books, videos and more. Even the graphics on the web site are video captures (poor quality ones) from the series. Strangely, there are no video clips. Now, everybody sing: "I'm just a bill..."
Overall Rating: 16
Science Friday Kid's Connection
URL: http://www.npr.org/sfkids/index.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
What an utterly cool site! Supplementing a show on public radio, this site allows children to perform fun experiments while learning about gravity, inertia, the brain, plastics, insects, emerging diseases and, yes, even human reproduction. Every week's edition of the radio show has two topics and this site is updated weekly during the school year to provide additional information, every bit of which is entertaining and thought-provoking, even for adults. In fact, forget the kids and wander around for yourself. You'll have a blast just following the related links in their archive. Cool, cool, cool.
Overall Rating: 18
Superkids.com
URL: http://www.superkids.com
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Parents and teachers looking for educational software will be thrilled by this very dry site. Children will be repelled. Reviews describe games with language like "a multidisciplinary program built around a spelling model" and rate software according to such categories as methodology and proxy-parent value, as well as the more obvious fun factor and ease of use. Program reviews can be viewed alphabetically, by category, or by price. The restrained, stuffy graphics create an antiseptic, corporate report look. Wear a frown and your hair in a bun to get in the proper mood for this one.
Overall Rating: 16
Small Office
URL: http://www.smalloffice.com
Category: Professional
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
A very attractive site from the editors of the magazines Home Office Computing and Small Business Computing. Useful information on a variety of subjects is never more than two clicks away. Practical tips and techniques, more than 50 external links, and even a contest are available. There's also the lowdown on purchasing printers, fax machines and cellular phone service, and the like. A Boolean search allows you to rummage through past editions of the magazine. To test your financial well-being, go to http://www.smalloffice.com/hoc-bin/play.
Overall Rating: 17
The Mad Scientist Network
URL: http://medinfo.wustl.edu/~ysp/MSN/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Created by altruistic grad students at St. Louis' Washington University, the Network is perfect for finishing homework assignments. It's also geared to the incurably curious. The site is bursting with Q & A on chemistry, biology, astronomy, botany, genetics, and a surprising number of other scientific disciplines. Search on the network to send messages directly to the Mad Scientists of your choice. Or join the Network yourself. There's a growing archive of queries to scan, and the Mad Scientists are adding Mad Mathematicians, too. A good idea that deserves to grow. Also be sure to link to the Young Scientist Program.
Overall Rating: 16
Kids' WB
URL: http://pathfinder.com/@@DNMKigYALeycHoX*/KidsWB/home.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Kids' WB, a.k.a. the Warner Brothers' TV network's children's programming service, sports a nice mix of parent and child info about its regular Saturday offerings. These include four "Steven Spielberg Presents" productions (Animaniacs, Freakazoids, Pinky and the Brain, and the Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries). You'll also find a nicely-illustrated "How We Make Cartoons" page; the history of Warner Brothers' classic animation; downloadable games, cartoons, video and sound files; and of course a TV schedule. Though it's laced with enthusiastic PR-speak, the site is colorful and appealing.
Overall Rating: 17
Stage Hand Puppets
URL: http://fox.nstn.ca/~puppets/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Stage Hand Puppets folks from Nova Scotia, Canada demonstrate their love of worldwide puppetry on this simple site. There are links to puppet pages from all over (Vietnamese water puppets, Japanese bunraku, a puppet ministry, sock puppets, Muppets, Balinese shadow puppets, African puppets -- you get the idea). Design and post a basic mitt-shaped puppet with features you choose. A calendar of puppet events and a catalogue of Stage Hand's own models, and play activity books on puppetry, round out the site. Not a lot of bells and whistles here, but tons of heart.
Overall Rating: 15
Durst Online
URL: http://www.wald.com/durst.html
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
San Franciscans follow progressive political comic Will Durst in several media (TV, radio, and print; frequent live performances, too). Now Working Assets, the socially responsible financial service, offers a Daily Dose of Durst for the amusement for good-humored progressive sorts of folks. Durst shoots off a quick paragraph of commentary on a national issue or two, ranging from the latest Dole campaign snafu to the ongoing failure of campaign finance reform. There's an archive of past Durst bursts available by date.
Overall Rating: 15
The Daily Muse
URL: http://www.cais.net/aschnedr/muse.htm
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
No cow is too sacred for The Daily Muse, an irreverent compendium of one-liners, wry links and anti-establishment musings on the American political scene. Whether you're rooting for Dole, Clinton, Lamm, or None Of The Above, the Muse is bound to win your vote. (Quasi-political notables and wannabes like Colin Powell, Steve Forbes, Hillary Rodham, Ross Perot all come in for some joshing too.) But wait, there's more: Worldly, Bubba, and Sporting Muses, among others, are your links to other eminently teasable subjects, lying in wait to tickle your political funnybone.
Overall Rating: 17
Democracy Place, U.S.A.
URL: http://democracyplace.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Designed for the civic-minded, Democracy Place is part of a large foundation project to keep citizens informed about the electoral process, and how journalism intersects with politics. There are useful essays and articles on civic journalism, links to voter participation sites and media resources. You'll even find results and citations from recent national opinion polls, and an excellent "Community Center" providing election info, issues, registration and election calendars, and other voter guides. If you like feeling informed and involved, make your place Democracy Place.
Overall Rating: 17
Boston Review
URL: http://www-polisci.mit.edu/BostonReview/
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
This bimonthly "left center gravity magazine of ideas" serves a hearty meal, in largely textual format, of provocative, wide-ranging articles, reviews, and essays. BR even offers literary critiques and fiction, a growing "Democracy Reader" (highlights of past issues grouped thematically), and a "Greatest Hits" page (the BR anthology within). Topics range from the flat tax to the future of the labor movement to the state of lesbian fiction. BR is quiet and thoughtful -- an excellent read that takes you away from the noisy, crowded Web. There's an author index and search tool for back issues.
Overall Rating: 17
Nye Labs Online
URL: http://nyelabs.kcts.org/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
Bill Nye *is* the Science Guy. Folks in Seattle also know him as Speedwalker, Captain Flanker, and Rainbow Man the Refrigerator Magnet from the local comedy show, *Almost Live*, but his principal persona, the alias that has propelled his syndicated TV-show is Bill Nye, the Science Guy. A former Boeing engineer-turned comedian-turned TV-host and science educator, he's the guy we all wish had taught us chemistry (or physics, or biology, or you name it) in high school. This site is packed with the kind of stuff that should have been in the curriculum back then, but wasn't -- or was, but was rendered about as interesting as leftover meatloaf by some well-meaning but soporific instructor (sorry, Mr. Mills). As with most so-called "kid's sites," I found myself learning plenty (one of the bonuses of the job, I suppose: remedial education). There are a number of ways to navigate the site. The one I found most useful was the Nye Labs Online Map. A clickable flow chart, the "map" gives the lay of the land while providing some good insight into how information is organized on a website. Go to Nye TV to "see something very cool." (You'll have to download and install the VDOLive plug-in to do so, but it's worth it. You can link to VDO from the site). If your system isn't ready for that, no worries; even without the fancy technology, you'll find plenty of cool stuff. The Demo of the Day, for instance, serves up random experiments you can try at home. Don't have all the stuff you need to perform the demo on screen? Just hit reload for a new one. Each experiment is backed up with related links to supplement your newfound knowledge. And if its links you want, go to Web Search or have a look at Bill's Top Ten. The first link is the Disney site -- the folks who pay the bills (the Science Guy is no fool) -- but the other nine are non-aligned and excellent. Fans of the television show can check here for schedules and info on upcoming episodes. And if you still can't get enough, there are Quicktime clips in the Goodies section plus a sound file of Seattle rockers, *Mudhoney*, doing a cover of the theme song. If you want to own some Nyeage for the home library, you'll find the Disney video series in the Nyestore. Science, kids: It's a whole lot more fun than you thought.
Overall Rating: 18
Webgrrls Unite!
URL: http://www.webgrrls.com
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Cybergrrl's sibling site, Webgrrls Unite! highlights Women on the Web, with links to grrls and boy-eez homepages, information on classes and gatherings, and a link to FeMiNa, Cybergrrls' alternative to Yahoo!. However, Webgrrls Unite!'s most exciting resource is the "real world, face-to-face networking groups" for women in cities worldwide, each offering members a range of business and educational opportunities. Networking online is great, but there is nothing like bringing professional women together in person to share ideas.
Overall Rating: 17
Publisher's Weekly
URL: http://www.bookwire.com/pw/pw.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Publisher's Weekly is the online trade journal for the publishing industry. The design is particularly effective, all bold colors and punchy graphics. For those in the biz, or seeking information on the industry or a specific title or company, PW Online offers an abundance of information on bestselling book and multimedia titles and their respective publishers, as well as offering the dish on authors and publishing personalities. PW Online definitely focuses on "insider's," but people fascinated by books and the writing/publishing industry will also find it of interest.
Overall Rating: 17
Upside
URL: http://www.upside.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Entrepreneurial types, marketing/PR professionals, venture capitalists, lawyers, investors, and anyone else involved in technology and/or business, will want to bookmark Upside, the "insider's" look at the high-tech industry. While the look of the site is pleasantly magazine-like, the focus is clearly on content, and lots of it. Features and interviews are factual and thorough but not without literary pizzazz. Of particular note for those considering taking the entrepreneurial plunge is "Upstart: The Ongoing Diary of a High-Tech Start-up," the true life account of one silcon valley firm's birth pangs.
Overall Rating: 16
African American Holocaust
URL: http://www.tnp.com/holocaust
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Although a notice following the title page warns of graphic material, nothing could have prepared me for the horrific series of images that ensued. There is no written documentation here, no context beyond the brief captions, just photo after photo of lynchings, burnings, and beatings, interspersed with bitter and piercing quotations. The menacing opening image, of a Klansman standing in front of a burning cross, gives way to increasingly intimate photos of savagely tortured black victims, often surrounded by their eerily stone-faced white tormentors. The word evil is referenced lightly these days; this exhibit shows us its true face.
Overall Rating: 17
Images of the Southwest
URL: http://www.library.arizona.edu/images/images_of_the_sw.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Built by the University of Arizona Library, Images of the Southwest is thematically all over the map, encompassing mission churches of the Sonora desert and Chicano murals in Tucson, a cowboy artist at work and an electronic walk through verdant Sabino Canyon. Some of the more unusual sections include histories of Jewish pioneer families culled from the Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives and photos of life in Arizona's World War II Japanese relocation camps. Images are generally sharp and rich, and explanations sufficient and readable. The overall quality and variety make this extensive site a great stop for browsing.
Overall Rating: 16
Texas Environmental Center
URL: http://www.tec.org/tec/tec.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Consult the Encyclopedia of Water Terms, view a photo essay on environmental conditions in TexMex border towns, check weather reports for the Colorado River Trail, and connect with various conservation groups and government authorities through the Texas Environmental Center. Sections on water quality, air quality, and land and wildlife provide brief summaries of the issues as well as links to organizations working on them. The water quality section is particularly thorough, with links to water resource maps and monitoring projects as well as the encyclopedia. If you're concerned about environmental conditions in what the center calls "one of America's last frontiers," start your activism career here.
Overall Rating: 16
Speakeasy Cafe
URL: http://speakeasy.org/speak/cafe.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This Seattle-based site is an online rendition of the real Speakeasy Cafe, encouraging the same spirit as its three-dimensional namesake; namely, easy-going, coffee-soaked palaver. The real world version of the Speakeasy offers couches and computers to its patrons, creating a kind of community feeling that translates well to the site. The Speakeasy Network offers a variety of Internet services and online utilities to its members with a Northwestern flair. I especially like the Trading Post area with a direct link to countless federal sites, including the CIA home page. Check out the large collection of art work in the Art Gallery, or consult the Alerts and Calendar sections to see what's new in the Northwest.
Overall Rating: 16
Cleveland Live!
URL: http://www.cleveland.com/index.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Welcome to the uncharted realms of Cleveland, Ohio. Learn about the darker side of a town that "defies travel by public transportation" in the Forbidden City. Well-written nightlife information abounds in the Club Crawler and Dark Melodies pages. Cleveland never seemed so appealing. The Weather section links to international forecasts and The Old Farmer's Almanac, and Tribe fans have a lot to choose from on their own site (as marked by the grinning "redman" of the team's emblem -- an insult to Native Americans everywhere). Overall, excellent use of nicely designed retro graphics, loads of information, and smart assembly. Forget the Big Apple or Baghdad by the Bay...Cleveland, here, looks like the destination of choice.
Overall Rating: 18
Blue Penny Quarterly
URL: http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/bpq/front-page.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
This handsome page is a great place to start looking for that elusive literary element on the Internet. Unlike other literary magazines, Blue Penny Quarterly was not spawned by a hard copy magazine, and it's dedication to new media is evident: they not only present hypertext fiction and poetry, but run a literary discussion group at the Blue Kafe site. They also solicit submissions from anyone and everyone. BPQ is also planning a more high-tech poetry journal called New River. And while they exploit the current technology, BPQ remains respectful of good old fashioned writing and storytelling. This is one to bookmark.
Overall Rating: 18
The Adbuster's Culture Jammers Headquarters
URL: http://vanbc.wimsey.com/~sfgray/adbusters/main.html
Category: Media
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
This site is a winner, very interactive, very slick, and full of content. It's a magazine aimed at subverting the culture of consumerism. Tall order, huh? It gets better: they wanna beat the merchandisers with their own weapon, advertisments. Check out this page to join the cause. Get the low-down on "Buy Nothing Day" next November 29. See a few of the most revolting advertisements corporate America ever tried to pull over on you. The Adbuster's own "uncommercials" and "subvertisements" are showcased to the delight of closet revolutionaries like myself. The page is witty but the subject matter is serious, and Adbusters are right on target.
Overall Rating: 18
The Economist
URL: http://www.economist.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
The stalwart British publication retains its signature brand of thorough reporting even in this new medium. They don't give away the store either: only a handful of articles are available each week, but if you know The Economist, you know they're substantial enough to keep you reading awhile. Of note: expatriates can find news from the Isle left out of the American printed version right here, online and uncut. Also at the site, the Review of Books and Multimedia. If you've got a thirst for news and a long attention span, this is the way to go.
Overall Rating: 16
The Paris Review
URL: http://www.voyagerco.com/PR/
Category: Literature
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
For five decades, the Paris Review has bee serving up cutting edge works by the world's most important writers; now it lends its considerable reputation to an eager online intellectuals. This site includes humor, interviews (many available in audio), poetry, fiction, etc. Many features have been expanded from the print version. You can also order t-shirts, back issues, and subscriptions for the real thing. The site is great looking, thanks the esteemed Voyager Company, but this the Paris review after all, so the real star is the writing: check out the opening paragraph fiction teasers and marvel at how precisely and beautifully language can be constructed. content: 3 aesthetic: 2.5 savvy: 2.5
Overall Rating: 17
The Next Savage State
URL: http://www.directnet.com/Crash/ScreamsAndWhispers/NewCensorship
Category: Literature
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
The Next Savage State makes much of its claims of irreverence, anarchy, and total disinterest in the petty sensibilities of the conformist majority; but forget all that, it's just a showcase for great writers. I can say simply that everything I read here was top-notch, funny, and insightful. Andrei Codrescu (of NPR fame) now holds the record for the single longest piece I've ever read off a computer screen. Order a years worth of hard copies for $30. Or read it here for free. Enjoy.
Overall Rating: 17
Exquisite Corpse
URL: http://corpse.books.com/EChome.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Graphics at EC are so boring that you're forced to seek diversion in the texts. Thankfully, they're worth reading. From editor Andrei Codrescu's giddy farewell to Timothy Leary to Bob Black's insightful critique of *The End of Work*, EC's site delivers consistently fresh, well-wrought essay and fiction. The editorial focus on self-actualizing volition is commendable, no doubt. Intrigued readers might appreciate some context regarding the relationship of this site to its papery original, or to the surrealist parlor game for which it's named. Presently, however, these pages simply reflect a bland ambition to use the Web to win subscriptions.
Overall Rating: 14
The Online Literature Library
URL: http://www.literature.org/
Category: Literature
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
In honor of the "sedate and quiet" atmosphere of real world libraries, the author of this site has kept it gray and universally browsable. In its initial phase of production, it's little more than a list of links to the complete texts of classics ranging from *The Origin of Species* to *Frankenstein*, and *The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*. With the implementation of a search engine (as promised), it shouldn't be long before these pages become useful to researchers and academics. For the time being, however, they're pretty standard fare.
Overall Rating: 15
The Page at Pooh Corner
URL: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~jmilne/pooh.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Explore the strange intersections and happenstance that connect diverse characters like the English soldier who purchased an American black bear as a pet in 1914, named it after his hometown of Winnipeg and gave it to the London Zoo, where it became the favorite of author A.A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin. A secret history is anchored in these nicely laid-out pages, with everything from photos of the actual bear to a Milne family history and anecdotes regarding Disney's thwarted attempt to erase the cartoon's English accent. As a bonus, you get to study the lyrics of Kenny Loggins' disarming Pooh tunes.
Overall Rating: 16
International Indian Treaty Council
URL: http://www.hawaii-nation.org/iitc/
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
These fascinating pages represent the IITC's ongoing project to confirm the rights of Indigenous Peoples around the world. At the heart of this site you'll find the complete text of the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. After 13 years of work, with the input of thousands of Indigenous Peoples and hundreds of Indigenous Nations and organizations, the draft has been referred to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, where it's presently under consideration. The weave of cross-linked documents generated by the struggle for self-determination makes for potentially exciting writing in this age of diminished political expectations.
Overall Rating: 16
CNN-Time All Politics
URL: http://AllPolitics.com/ Political
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The result of corporate collaboration, this site efficiently updates American political stories on a daily basis, with crosslinked documents allowing you to skip from a campaign-trail headline, say, to a sound file of a speech. Categories like Candidates, Analysis and Polls give order to the in-depth coverage. Among the various modes of news media available herein, the most engaging is surely the e-mail correspondence of journalists dogging a hot lead. The single pull-down menu that links you to the site's exhaustive new archives is very convenient and there's also a search engine to help you navigate this sinkhole of information.
Overall Rating: 17
Publius
URL: http://www.publius.com
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Publius is a cross-country foray into the lives of "real Americans," whose feelings it proposes to tap for a consensus on the state of the nation. Updating their itinerary as they go, our non-partisan navigators are coming to your hometown in hopes that you'll join them for a bit of interactivity. During my uplink, their weekly notebook featured an amusing deconstruction of Independence Day, filled with pointers to places such as the White House. Another page is devoted to your "political statements," and CU-SeeMe and RealAudio have been implemented in hopes of broadcasting live from the campaign trail.
Overall Rating: 17
Warner Brothers JazzSpace
URL: http://www.wbjazz.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Jazz Space, Warner Brothers' self-promoting site, is slick and dense, offering sound bites of more than 50 jazz recording artists. The Pollstar database allows you to track down any one of WB's signees to find out where they're appearing live. The Multimedia Catalog offers access to Warner's Jazz-related catalog and lets you hear clips, find videos, and get information about artists. Check out the screensaver and three interactive programs available for download. Lot's to listen to and it's just as glossy as you'd expect from a megamedia conglomerate.
Overall Rating: 17
Brazil Online
URL: http://brazilonline.com/music.html
Category: Music
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This is a comprehensive site covering all angles of Brazilian music in depth, and some international sounds as well. There are literally hundreds of sound bites, discographies for various artists, and histories of different musical movements. "Images of Brazilian Music" is a vivid photographic exhibit by Mario Luiz featuring key Brazilian musicians, composers, and vocalists. You can get the lowdown on Samba, Afro-Brazilian rhythms, etc. A must for Brazilian music novices and aficionados alike.
Overall Rating: 16
Harmony Central
URL: http://harmony-central.mit.edu
Category: Music
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Harmony Central is an extremely effective clearinghouse of information for musicians. Get the scoop on bass lessons, MIDI explanations, new music-related software, or browse the classifieds. The information in this site is truly exhaustive, including a Band Page that will link you to sites for everything from getting gigs and copyrighting songs to silk-screening T-shirts and building your own studio. Scott Lehman, the erstwhile musician who runs the show here, was inspired by the sheer magnitude of music-related information on the Internet to start Central Harmony. He's accomplished no mean feat by pulling it all together. A little sticky on the download, but worth the patience.
Overall Rating: 16
Family Photo Historian
URL: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/2878/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I've never been into shooting snapshots. I'm the type that would just end up with stacks of envelopes from the photo lab piled into untidy, disorganized heaps never to be viewed coherently again. But if you want to learn how to preserve and organize family photos, this is a fine place to begin the task. After all, this site's creator, Pam Motown, does this for a living as a professional photo historian. Look here each week for a tip on how to preserve and maintain your collection. By the way, photo albums aren't the end-all answer--acid in the pages will gradually disintegrate your pictures.
Overall Rating: 16
MysteryDate
URL: http://www.mystery-date.loomisgroup.com/mysterydate/md.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
Mystery Date is a 'zine (paper and online) about one Lynn Peril's obsession with used books and informative relics (mostly from the 1950s) about dating, sex, home economics, and other important issues of the day. I love this stuff! The Teen Guide to Homemaking, the Thresholds to Adult Living book, sex ed records--life was so much simpler back then! Chic is kitsch spelled backwards, don't forget, and I'd love to have Lynn's collection. She should be an advice columnist. Or my home ec teacher.
Overall Rating: 17
Nash Bridges Home Page
URL: http://www.thenetshow.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Only the truly fanatic Nash Bridges/Don Johnson fan will be all to stomach this site. Billboard-sized image maps make for slow, pointless and frustrating loads. You can help Nash Bridges solve crimes with the interactive "webisodes" (a word that is sure to test your gag reflex). Buy an official NB sweatshirt and be the coolest person on your block. You can also send DJ some email to tell him what you think of the show. During the Spring, this site was apparently very busy, but now it is in cyber-hibernation until the new Fall season. (See ya, Bubba.)
Overall Rating: 15
Car Talk
URL: http://www.cartalk.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the risible radio stars of NPR have gone online. Traveling around the content-laden site is easy with a detailed navigation bar. You can send an "online postcard" to friends here: just enter a message, choose a graphic then send it off. You can also shop an online catalog on their "Shameless Commerce" page or enter contests to win "Free Stuff". A handy classifieds section helps you find a buyer for that '64 Impala you've been trying to sell or find a date for next Saturday night. Definitely a good, time-killer of a site.
Overall Rating: 18
Project Censored
URL: http://zippy.sonoma.edu/ProjectCensored/
Category: Media
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Project Censored is a media research project started in 1976, whose mission is to publicize under-reported news by the mainstream media. Tall order, you say? Well they're up to it. Every year they choose the top ten "censored" stories. There's an archive spanning 1989 to 1995 and more years are promised. Not really censorship, you say? Maybe not. It's more like the press censoring itself, but it's interesting reading nonetheless. Want to nominate a story? Send it in and start spreading the news. For the most part, the items are rather dry, environmentist, and anti-government in their slant. And, unfortunately, no "Bat Boy Found in Cave" type stories here.
Overall Rating: 15
The Electronic Policy Network
URL: http://epn.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Lauren Guzak
HMO, BCCI, NGO, HUD... the flood of acronyms at The Electronic Policy Network (EPN) bodes well for those in search of substantive political reportage. Article after article is packed with hard-hitting leftist analysis of just about every political issue on the map -- ready to waylay conservatives with in-depth research and good old-fashioned common sense. There are four sections at the site: Economics & Politics, Welfare & Families, Civic Participation and Health Policy. Each addresses the myriad issues central to the current political, economic and social state of our country, that go generally underreported in the mainstream media. The depth, density, and quality of the information at EPN suggests that it will remain outside the ken of most Americans. Once you branch out to any one of the four sections you'll find refreshingly substantive articles like "The Taxophobes Strike Again." It's a paper from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities which methodically dissects and refutes a report from the conservative Tax Foundation. Every April 15th this organization puts out a report on the average total tax rate for the nation. The Foundation turns this average rate into a bold and catchy statistic. This year they claim that the average worker will have to work nearly two hours and 47 minutes out of each eight hour workday just to earn enough money to pay all of his taxes. But the article at EPN argues convincingly that the methodology and data used by the Tax Foundation are faulty, and tend to reflect the minority perspective of wealthy Americans over those of average means. According to "The Taxophobes Strike Again," in fact, the typical American works 39 minutes of an eight-hour workday (or about a month out of the year) to pay federal income tax. But don't take my version of events: Read the article to get the blow-by-blow (http://epn.org/idea/economy.html#EC7). Navigationally, the site at first seems to be a chaotic roll of the dice; on the EPN home page, there are simply too many options. Modeled after a subway map with different lines running to a multitude of stops is a little daunting. But, as with any schematic, the sense of chaos quickly dissipates and the confusion is short-lived. Quickly enough the analogy becomes an engaging road map to the site and its contents. "Providing you with timely information and leading ideas about national policy and politics," EPN leaves no stone unturned, no myth intact -- it's definitely not for those in search of lightweight political pabulum.
Overall Rating: 18
Netmix
URL: http://www.netmix.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Stuck in Walla Walla but wish you were wallowing in a New York nightclub, undulating to the latest House riffs?...Point your sound card to the transparent, throbbing, DJ-driven, Netmix site, where an hour of ethereal .ram files await your delight. Really leavens the daily bread, if you know what I mean. Netmix promises a new hour, twice a week, of the latest sounds from unabashedly self-promoting DJ's around the world. There's not a lot of variety here, so a quick listen will tell whether these vibes will soothe or grate. Make sure you download Real Audio 2.0 first (link provided).
Overall Rating: 18
Jonathan Tward's Multimedia Medical Reference Library
URL: http://www.tiac.net/users/jtward/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
This ambitious site is aimed at the Medical professional, student and perhaps the interested afflicted. It fully utilizes the multimedia capacity of the Internet (at a significant bandwidth cost). Comes in framed and non-framed flavors. Extensively linked, it would take days to clamber through this reticulum of information. The site lives up its name, providing search engines for its own and other major medical databases. Nice index to images, movies, sounds and text sources. Only drawback is an ubiquitous and annoying advert panel, which can be quickly scrolled past to get to the meat and bone. Recommended.
Overall Rating: 17
PEDINFO
URL: http://www.uab.edu/pedinfo/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Not for pedophiles, this is a no-nonsense database for the pediatric professional. The opening page offers a somewhat cumbersome index to pediatric subspecialities and disease categories, followed by hospitals, practices, and professional organizations. Contains a how-to manual for setting up one's own pediatric mailing list or Web page. Offers menus of medical software, links to other pediatric sites, e-journals, mailing lists. Although largely an academic site, it does provide some data digestible by the parent of an ill child, such as a demo of the Pediatric HouseCall. Almost entirely text-based, it could use a graphic makeover.
Overall Rating: 15
Literary Kicks
URL: http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/LitKicks.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
Levi Asher, young father of three quit his day job as a C++ programmer on Wall Street and built a web site. Not just any Web site, Literary Kicks is a big, sprawling hypertext biography of The Beat Generation. A tight-knit literary movement after the fashion of The Lost Generation in Paris, The Beats have inspired readers ever since Jack Kerouac published his cross-country reverie, *On the Road* in 1957. For Levi Asher, miserable in the drudgery of his suit-and-tie position at J.P. Morgan, the siren song of The Beats was just too strong to resist. What is excellent about Literary Kicks and sets it apart from the hordes of online devotionals, is the extent of original material, most links referencing other points within the narrative rather than outside sites of dubious quality. To my mind, the popular mechanism of hyperlinks and cross-references is too often a dud; uneven and disruptive, as dismaying as it is edifying. It's put to good use here, however; the impulsive, non-linear quality of the navigation befitting the subject, the consistent voice keeping it fluid. Whatever thread you choose to follow, it's a bit like floating a different fork of the same river. Asher's reverence for his subject is apparent throughout his site. He has doubtless invested a lot of time (and a lot of himself) in the project, researching and writing about all the personalities in the beat milieu, as well as the cultural influences which helped shape them. Thankfully, though, his fanaticism is balanced with a healthy measure of criticism. Without being cynical about it, he acknowledges his idols' obvious faults, as husbands, as lovers, as fathers. One of the more interesting segments of the project, in fact, is his interview with John Cassady, the son of countercultural hero/paragon, Neal Cassady. Asher is a writer himself. You'll find his own fiction at . Called *The Queensboro Ballads*, it's an "experimental novel in the form of a folk rock album." I admit I didn't get too far along the A-side of the experiment, but one thing was apparent from the outset: This is autobiography beneath a thin veneer of fiction, ala Sal Paradise, a.k.a. Jack Deluoz, a.k.a. Jack Kerouac. It's a decent effort, the prose competent but a little flat. The real attraction is Literary Kicks. Whether you've dabbled in Beat literature, read everything from A to Z, or are looking for a good introduction, the site is a wonderful experience, and one of the few sites I can think of that remains fresh even after return visits.
Overall Rating: 18
National Geographic Online
URL: http://www.nationalgeographic.com
Category: Media
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
From it's inception at Washington D.C.'s Cosmos Club in 1888, the National Geographic Society has been encouraging world-wide exploration and discovery in an effort to "increase and diffuse geographic knowledge." The society is responsible for producing one of the world's truly great magazines as well as some of the finest film documentaries anywhere. That despite all this, 108 years later, the country in which the society was conceived should be so thoroughly ignorant of geography is, well, ... a little disgraceful. So, ...welcome to the latest project from the esteemed organization, National Geographic Online. Sponsored by Apple Computer and the American Plastics Council (hmm) this is a big site with content covering nearly everything under the society's umbrella, from grant programs, to television productions, to its ongoing educational endeavors. Speaking of which, this site could as easily be classified under Education or Humanities; educators will want to bookmark it as a valuable resource (K-12 lesson plans and materials are available for download) and as a point of reference for curious students. The Question of the Day is a good place to get your bearings, and see how your geographical knowledge rates. Here's a sample from the archives: "Which country is farther west--Guatemala or Cuba?" If you guessed Cuba, well ... it was a tough one; the Central American isthmus has a big wow to it that swings farther west than you might think, thereby forming the Caribbean. You can navigate the site by means of the "passport" menu or click on "Go" for the index (recommended). To get the most of the site, you'll need a host of plug-ins. Click on "Gear" to get fixed up. From there you're ready to explore some of the finer features of the site, pulled from the pages of the magazine, and tricked out with multimedia. The interactive content is geared for a younger audience than the magazine, with contests thrown in and more ideas for teachers with wired classrooms. Older visitors may wish to skip to the synopses of the month's feature articles or to the cover story which receives more generous treatment. It's no replacement for the newsstand copy, but it will give you some highlights, and a place to explore further. Traveler magazine is also on the Web, and parents should know about World magazine online, which the Society produces specifically for children. Also worth looking into are the cartographic department which boasts the Map Machine and the Photography page for tips and contest information. Like I said at the beginning, this is a big site, and, judging by the size of the staff, it's a sure bet to grow. Visit when you have plenty of time to explore and don't forget to bring the kids. They'll thank you someday, when they're planning that trip to Guatemala City.
Overall Rating: 18
Purdue On-Line Writing Lab
URL: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
The Purdue University Online Writing Lab is a great resource that you don't have to be a Purdue student -- or a student anywhere -- to enjoy. Tutorials on sentence construction, punctuation, and spelling are accompanied by exercises to test your skill. The Resume Guidance section is an extremely thorough workshop on resume and cover letter construction and provides links to a wealth of job search sites. Learn the ropes of abstract report writing and business correspondence in The Business Writing seminar. There is also an area for those studying English as a Second Language. A fine site for learning something new or brushing up old skills.
Overall Rating: 16
H.W. Wilson: Rettig on Reference
URL: http://www.hwwilson.com/retintro.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Ouch. This one made my head hurt. It contains reviews of research books which in themselves contain ungodly amounts of information, so prepare for a lot of reading. In addition to well-written reviews, this site is useful to discover what subjects are out there to research: mushrooms, presidential papers, saints, angels, the future,.... There are references on historic places, shipwrecks, UFO's, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Bosnia Herzegovina, and British Humorists. You can also index reviews from earlier in the year as well as all of 1995.
Overall Rating: 14
SOAR--Searchable On-line Archive of Recipes
URL: http://soar.Berkeley.EDU/recipes/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Have you been looking for that favorite Chow Mien-on-a-Bun recipe? Things to do with fried peanut butter, Welsh Mussel Pate, Tibetan Mo-Mo's, or Cajun Tofu? This is an incredibly useful site that got me very hungry. You can choose by country, course, or run a search for an elusive recipe for some obscure delicacy. There's a section for weird recipes like baked camel and lard omelet, as well as countless mouth-waterers like Chicken Acapulco With Creamy Shrimp Sauce, Asparagus Crab Soup, or Italian Potato Pie. Problem is, you may get so involved in the search that you decide to go hungry.
Overall Rating: 16
The Quotations Page
URL: http://www.starlingtech.com/quotes/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
I guess I warmed to this site as soon as I found the Jack Handey (SNL's *Deep Thoughts* guy) document in the Random Quotes section: "We used to laugh at Grandpa when he'd head off and go fishing. But we wouldn't be laughing that evening when he'd come back with some whore he picked up in town." There are quotes of the famous, the infamous, and the downright unknown. You -- yes you! -- can even enter your own quote and wow others with your profundity or lameness, as the case may be. Links to lots of quotation collections. Just remember, "To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer." -- Farmers' Almanac, 1978.
Overall Rating: 16
Information SuperLibrary
URL: http://www.mcp.com/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Information SuperLibrary, brought to you by Macmillan Publishing and Viacom, is a combination of search services and Macmillan promotion. You can browse through 6,000 of Macmillan's book and software titles and locate the seller nearest you or search their subject catalog to reference titles -- titles from Macmillan, that is. If you're not interested in buying, use Supersearch to look for just about anything, on four different engines at once. Includes access to Web Yellow Pages, Yahoo, Alta Vista, Infoseek, et. al. This site underlines the unsavory combination of commerce and information access found at so many corporate sites. In this case, it's a useful search center with a misleading name. It might more appropriately be called "The Super Macmillan Library."
Overall Rating: 17
Eric's Treasure Trove of Scientific Biography
URL: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~eww/bios/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Did you know that "Zeno of Elea (ca. 490-ca. 425 BC) was the chief of the Eleatic school of philosophy." Would you like the lowdown on Zeno? Kelvin? Kant? Eric's Treasure Trove of Scientific Biography can give you the scoop on every science-related soul who ever lit a Bunsen burner, contemplated its phenomenology, or speculated on the nature of things even before Bunsen was a speck in the cosmos. Bios can be accessed by alphabetical order, if you know the name of the thinker, or by subject. Not much to look at, but the information, all compiled single-handedly by Eric over the last nine years, is impressive.
Overall Rating: 16
EvolveFish
URL: http://www.evolvefish.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
You've seen them, the metal fish gracing cars proclaiming a belief in either creationism or Darwinian evolution. EvolveFish, "dedicated to countering the destructive aspects of religious zealotry," offers products in the latter camp. These include Darwin fish (with feet), pins, mugs, shirts, and so on. Then there's a long list of organizations (mostly text, few links) advocating science education, secular humanism and free thought. Check out the supporting and opposing comments about EvolveFish, and take their survey on the issues raised by the footed fish. A place to ponder how far we've come -- or not.
Overall Rating: 14
Our Lady of Fatima
URL: http://www.fatima.org
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
According to this site, the Virgin Mary appeared six times to three children near the town of Fatima, Portugal in 1917. This official site contains the whole story of the holy meetings, in minute detail. If you can't make the pilgrimage in person, take a virtual tour here. Another option is to go to the "Petition the Pope" page to petition His Holiness for any number of things--there is wide range of prescribed options or write your own. You can also listen to honest-to-goodness Gregorian chants via RealAudio. This high-tech site also features scrolling text of the Hail Mary. Am I the only one who thinks there is something eerie about this?
Overall Rating: 17
Hare Krishna Home Page
URL: http://www.webcom.com/~ara/
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
The Hare Krishna are out of the airports and on the Web! Oh, (en)lighten up! It was only a matter of time until the Krishna had their own home page. Here they make lots of information available and spread the word. For example, the four basic rules: no gambling, no intoxicants, no eating meat and no illicit sex. (At least there's still rock 'n' roll.) And, of course, anyone can perform their mantras; read how here. Also, read the well-written Krishna online magazine, *Back to Godhead*, and see what they had to say about the O.J. Simpson trial, lotteries, just about anything and everything. The site is low on fancy graphics but definitely high on life.
Overall Rating: 15
Chabad-Lubavitch in Cyberspace
URL: http://www.chabad.org/
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
This Chabad site is smartly designed, interactive, and engaging. Visitors can send in their questions on Judaism, request blessings, or read news from across the world. Of course, there is plenty of information on the Chabad movement, but it was a little perplexing to an ignorant agnostic like myself. I never really grasped the meaning of Chabad or how it differed from other forms of Judaism. I still found plenty to keep me busy, though, browsing through multimedia links to Jewish folk music and visual art, or downloading short stories for children. Interesting stuff, even for a fallen Gentile like myself.
Overall Rating: 18
Hinduism Today
URL: http://www.HinduismToday.kauai.hi.us/ashram/htoday.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Hinduism Today is a very intelligent, content-oriented site. Offerings at this site include a text-only version of the magazine (in a handful of languages), discussions of vegetarianism and non- violence, a guide to Hindu health and healing, and dozens of links to other Hindu sites on the net. "Click here to become a Hindu" and you'll find plenty of information about the religion, including history, basic tenets, and translations of holy texts. The lack of images and other techno-savvy gadgets that might be appropriate elsewhere are not exactly missed at HToday. The gravity of the subject matter is well-served by the text-intensive presentation.
Overall Rating: 16
Fat Cat, Inc.
URL: http://www.fatcats.com/index.html-ssi
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Fetching felines meet political satire at Fat Cat, Inc., the toys-for-cats online emporium. This site combines fanciful graphics and clever animations with cunning cat toy gimmicks pets and their owners will both appreciate. Catnip stuffed dolls for cats to sniff include Toss Perot, See Bill Run, and Newt Hoot (where's Bozo Bob?), as well as a stuffed vet, mean dog, and nasty neighbor on which cats can vent their pent-up hostility. Kids can download paper cat dolls to dress up and color, and can also post drawings of their favorite kitties. C-3 A-3 T-3
Overall Rating: 18
CSA Archive
URL: http://www.csa-archive.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Kitsch is king at the CSA Archive, a huge repository of advertising line art from the 1920's through the 1960's. The catalog, available for $49.95, documents over 7,000 historic and advertising illustrations. You can also order the CSA Archive Diskette or CD-ROM Collection which provides icons and dingbats for editorial and advertising use. Other products include Zippo lighters, t-shirts, and other funky home and personal accessories. Product photos could definitely be bigger, but graphic designers, desktop publishers, web site developers, and anyone else involved in the design field, should definitely take a look at the products offered at this site. C-3 A-3 T-3
Overall Rating: 18
ShuffleBrain
URL: http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~pietsch/
Category: Science
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Open your mind as you float through this Indiana University professor's site devoted to the nature of intelligence, perception, thought, and other aspects of gray matter. Check here for mind-blowing information on hologramic theory, which explains why "stored mind is not a thing. It is abstract relationships produced by things." Very deep and thought-provoking reading. The articles are understandable, although some are quite dense (it is science, after all). But there's no doubt in my mind that ShuffleBrain will entrance all psychonauts.
Overall Rating: 16
Hobbyist
URL: http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/
Category: Science
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Meet the Mr. Wizard of the Web, Bill Beaty. Beaty is determined to turn on kids of all ages to the amazing world of science. Demonstrations, explanations, experiments, links, and fringe talk of anti-gravity, free energy, and other weird science are yours to explore in this online laboratory. In fact, Beaty also runs the engrossing home page for Nikola Tesla, the genius mad scientist/inventor of alternating current. A gift to nrrrds online. Hey Bill, where I can get a *really* big capacitor for that Tesla Coil?
Overall Rating: 16
The Tech Museum of Science
URL: http://www.thetech.org
Category: Science
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the Tech Museum of Innovation is a hands-on educational playpen where children and adults can learn how technology affects industry and everyday life. Naturally, their Web site is a fine piece of infotainment. Prepare to spend some time in the HyperTech online interactive exhibits: Enjoy an animated robot graphic before learning about their place in culture and science, then click onto the DNA double helix to find out about the instruction manual for life. And that's only the beginning of the scientific trek. The stated mission of The Tech is to "inspire young innovators." Job well done. Where's my soldering iron?
Overall Rating: 17
Marine Biological Laboratory
URL: http://www.mbl.edu/
Category: Science
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Marine Biological Laboratory, the hotbed of aquatic research from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is an educational and research institution dedicated to the study of marine life. Their site is anything but shallow. Take a dip into their live marine specimen database, with information about hundreds of fish and marine plants. Then pay a visit to the Mariner Online Library for a good example of how useful scientific journals can be digitized and made accessible via the Net. Those things combined with MBL course lists, research background information, and good links, makes for a sea of aquatic information.
Overall Rating: 16
@griculture
URL: http://www.agriculture.com
Category: Science
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
In this day and age farming is a lot more high-tech than just tractors and herbicides, as @griculture Online demonstrates in spades. An offshoot of Successful Farming magazine, @g Online has established partnerships with many large farming-related organizations including the Data Transmission Network and FFA, to increase both content and hits to the site. Busy bulletin boards, weather updates, equipment for sale listings, and new product reviews make @g Online to watch if you're in the business. Even if the closest you get to farming is the produce section of the grocery, stop here for a hint at what goes into those juicy tomatoes.
Overall Rating: 18
Futbol, Futbol, y Mas Futbol
URL: http://www.calweb.com/~migutz/
Category: Sports
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Futbol, Futbol, y Mas Futbol is a site for enthusiasts that highlights Central California Soccer leagues and provides links (and more links) to the world of soccer at large. There's a very nice Pele page, as well as links to unexpected sites like the Boston Grafitti Documentary and the Paris Museum page. Couldn't open the Robotic Cyberbabes page, unfortunately. This site is brought to you my Miquel Guittierez, who, judging from the Guest Book Entries has filled a niche need with this page.
Overall Rating: 16
The Half-Decent Web Site
URL: http://www.wsc.co.uk/wsc/
Category: Sports
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
A humorous look at soccer inspired by *When Saturday Comes*, the UK's biggest independent football magazine. Visit Pele's Poetry page (did he really write this stuff?), find out about the best football pubs internationally, and drop in on Xavier's Euro 96 Culture page where he manages, in a few lines of free-association, to deftly link nostalgia fetishism in the UK to collective yearnings for an older class system. But, we're here to talk about football, right? Lot's of links to football sites in addition to the eclectic range of Real Life Links to the likes of Elvis, Webmuseum, and Screenwriters On-Line. You don't have to be a died-in-the-wool soccer fan to hang out here. Definitely better than half decent.
Overall Rating: 16
Surf-Shop.com
URL: http://www.surf-shop.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
They're on safari to stay at Surf-Shop.com, a site for honest-to-God surfers, not hodaddy posers and Web surfin' wannabes (like myself). It's not so much a shop as a resource to shops (for whatever that's worth) on the West Coast and in Hawaii (Atlantic and Gulf Coast surfers are out of luck). There's weather information on the site, along with the obligatory satellite map. But the feature with the mostest is Wave Action Surf Mag (WASM). It's a good place to stay up on surfer lingo and soak up some post-adolescent attitude. Of special note is the "People Who Don't Surf" bit, a feature devoted to "gurning famous people." And don't miss the animated table of contents, which, as of this writing, features a yawning shark and a sprouting afro. You can't find that kind of thing just anywhere.
Overall Rating: 17
The Insider's Guide
URL: http://www.infi.net/explore/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Insider's Guide publishes guidebooks for a variety of U.S. destinations that are geared toward not only tourists, but also to new residents and business travelers. In addition to the standard details of lodging, restaurants, and popular sights, they provide information on real estate, business and industry, volunteer opportunities, places of worship, and child care. The list of eastern/southern cities currently featured (or soon to be) includes North Carolina's Barrier Islands, Lexington, Sarasota, Virginia's Chesapeake Bay, and The Florida Keys. For specific information on these cities and/or regions, this is a great starting place.
Overall Rating: 18
Taiwan
URL: http://www.taipei.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
The recent climate in Taiwan (a.k.a. the Republic of China) makes for very politically oriented site. Still, there's all kinds of information here, brought to you by the New York branch of the Taipei Economic And Cultural Office. You can get news in Chinese and English in (unfortunately) zipped format, meaning you have to download. Of course, you also need the proper fonts installed on your system to read the news in Chinese.) There's also information on Taiwanese cultural activities taking place in N.Y. And for the politically engaged, there's news about the election in early 1996 and the full text of the inaugural speech by President Lee Teng-hui.
Overall Rating: 15
Welcome to Jamaica
URL: http://www.jamaicatravel.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
This is the official site of the Jamaica Travel Board, makers of the "Come to Jamaica and Feel All Right" campaign. Despite some nasty typos, it is a good resource with nicely designed pages and intuitive menus. You can find information on Jamaican hotels, resorts, and upcoming cultural events so you know when to visit. If you're traveling there, beware! You cannot bring in "dangerous drugs like marijuana". (As if you'd want to smuggle marijuana INTO Jamaica!) The best news? You can get married after just 24 hours in the country! Use the "Marriage Officers" list to find the best places to get hitched quick.
Overall Rating: 16
Mexico Connect
URL: http://www.mexconnect.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Going to Mexico? This is the place for you. This is Mexico, the happy place for tourists, business travelers, and people wanting to move South of the Border. There's lots of no-nonsense travel advice, and a Virtual Visit area (for selected areas only) so you can click and travel rather than actually go. For the business user, get the facts on NAFTA, government agencies and lots more. In the FAQ section, find out about the dreaded Montezuma's Revenge thing or get answers to such classic questions as "I am allergic to chickens - can I take the bus?"
Overall Rating: 16
Inquiry.com
URL: http://www.inquiry.com
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Accurate, interesting, straightforward information is available here for programmers and Web weenies. Whether your interests lie in HTML, CGI and PERL, or in Delphi, C++, Visual BASIC and Power Objects, you'll learn something during your visit. Industry exterts answer user questions in English instead of hexidecimal code (their native tongue), which is A Good Thing. Their answers are credible and easy to understand. Webmasters will want to visit the TechTalk forum here and visit the searchable database of more than 20 technical computer magazines. And the site looks pretty good, too. What else do you want for free?
Overall Rating: 18
Life on the Internet
URL: http://www.screen.com/understand/topics.nclk
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The best thing about this TV show-related site is its external links. That's not meant as a slam, but rather as a tribute. There are roughly 400 external links here, pointing to all sorts of Internet and Web information. Each of the 13 TV episodes is supplemented by a written summary page with 10 or so outside links. The topics are encryption, making money, e-mail, medicine, Hollywood, publishing, electronic cash, Usenet, music and audio, religion, education, demographics, and the future. The threaded conversations are mostly stupid. The "Beginner's Guide" section features 300 of the site's external links.
Overall Rating: 16
Cool Tool of the Day
URL: http://www.cooltool.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Instant bookmark material for the casual aficionado of Web technology and the bounty it provides us in these golden times. These kind characters have nothing better to do than scour the Web for the latest in interesting, useful, or, at the very least, fun items online. Divided into two parts, the Cool Tool is devoted to utilities to enhance your surfing pleasure--graphics, authoring, video voyeurism. The Site of the Nite points to places of worthy content, with less emphasis on utility than the exchange of ideas. Check it out daily, or browse the archives at your leisure. Dig the Hanna-Barbera/Kenny Scharf-like interface. Thoughtfully, wide and narrow-bandwidth versions are provided.
Overall Rating: 18
WebSmith
URL: http://www.smithing.com
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
This is the online version of a bimonthly bound magazine called WebSmith, which is touted as a handy guide for technicians of the Web. More than just a teaser for subscriptions (sign up for your free first copy), it archives about half of its articles. CGI programming, VRML basics, security, robots, and Java receive competent treatment. There's plenty of content upon which to base a decision to subscribe. The philosophical editorial style reminds us that there are thoughtful souls behind the wonkiness of on-linearity.
Overall Rating: 18
The Web Developer's Virtual Library
URL: http://www.stars.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Start here. This is the most comprehensive site in its category, and easy to cruise. Comprising some 750 pages, it supplies its own search engine, and offers Frames or the traditional ToC interface. The Webmasters Encyclopedia is only one subsection of the Web Developers Virtual Library; a very handy one, at that. The definitions are technical enough to be useful for the serious Webtech, but not as cumbersome as most technical writing tends to be. If you're already comfortable with the basics, help yourself to libraries of graphical elements, CGI scripts, plug-ins, and a nice suite of tutorials.
Overall Rating: 17
Netscape Defrost
URL: http://cygnus.rsabbs.com/~ssykes/nsdefrost.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Who needs a freeze-up halfway through a long download? Netscape 2.0 for Macintosh owners will appreciate this bug fix (an extension file for System 7.x) provided generously by Scott Sykes who caught a glitch in the code which led to freezes on 68K and Power Mac models. The writer claims to have solved similar crashes that plague other internet utilities on the Mac as well. As a bonus you can visit some (very) loosely related sites of which the most universally worthy are devoted to Netscape, Macintosh and Internet technology.
Overall Rating: 16
Social Justice
URL: http://www.tripod.com/~goforth/socialjustice.html
Category: Zines
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Social Justice celebrates progressive movements in the fight for gender equality, democratic representation, intellectual freedom, and human rights. The programmers take their task seriously. Topics range from murdered street children in Guatemala and Honduras to the rising tide of feminism in France and India, and the extensive links make Social Justice a great place to start surfing for other activist spots on the net. Searching through back issues I found a great interview with Morris Dees, which made excellent use of hypertext to highlight points and clarify details. On the downside, Social Justice is not quite as adept with humor: a section comparing current political leaders to computer viruses was flat. Nevertheless, Social Justice is worthy of the movements it supports.
Overall Rating: 17
Retro
URL: http://www.retroactive.com/
Category: Zines
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Under the banner "anything that was ever cool," Retro preserves 20th-century pop culture online and does it well. In addition to articles examining such cultural bygones as down-home blues and Southern painting, Retro boasts classic movie clips and audio samples of music from the old days. Leave messages for other Web browsing anachronists on Retro's own bulletin board. City Guides to experiencing the best of the old are still under construction, but promise to be interesting. Features are updated every two weeks, with new postings daily, which is pretty current for a site dedicated to the passe.
Overall Rating: 18
Stim
URL: http://www.stim.com/
Category: Zines
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
I was well into an issue of Stim before it dawned on me that I had no idea what I was looking at. I followed the "What is Stim?" link but it didn't do much good; the folks at Stim like speaking in riddles. Nevertheless, I think I can say this much for sure: Stim is a boisterous and chaotic 'zine with excellent graphics, boasting a stable of writers with a pinpoint sense of irony, off beat humor and relevance. The subject matter is broad, the tone irreverent without being adolescent. Recent features include an interview with *Geek Love* author, Katherine Dunn, an expose on trashy French cinema, and a rumination on the power and appeal of "skanky girls."
Overall Rating: 18
Eeeek-Net!
URL: http://www.eeeek.com/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Eeeek-Net is a California-based e-zine for kids. Cartoon icons and frames organize a wide variety of informative and playful games and articles. On the statistics page, for instance, you'll learn that the human body contains enough iron to make a 3 inch nail. Elsewhere you can read a piece about Nevada's mysterious Area 51, or learn how a mischievous parson invented the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. The crossword puzzles would be a lot more fun as an interactive Java applet and the frames require adjustment. Nevertheless, there's plenty here to keep a kid curious.
Overall Rating: 15
GreenBeat
URL: http://www.tec.org/greenbeat/index.html
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Every month, students, journalists, farmers and scientists contribute to Greenbeat!, an e-zine of environmental endeavors. With disturbing clarity, the June issue details how acts of nature and Congress are making 1996 one of the worst agricultural years in history. Back issues focusing on air quality, waste water, and so forth are archived. Greenbeat! also points you to a vast number of environmental concerns on the Web, as well as career opportunities in Texas and the nation at large. Interactivity is encouraged. As for design, Greenbeat! becomes all but invisible as the content comes to the fore.
Overall Rating: 16
Virtual Galapagos
URL: http://www.terraquest.com/galapagos
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
The Galapagos, a volcanic archipelago off the coast of Ecuador, is one of those storied places on the globe, calling up passages from Melville, or images of pirates. It was on the Galapagos, of course, that young Charles Darwin began seriously investigating the notion of evolution, while he was taking scrupulous notes on finches, marine lizards, giant tortoises, and boobies. Like the Himalayas, The Great Barrier Reef, the African Savannah, and other fantastic locales, the Galapagos have an important place in history -- especially, natural history -- and a reality apart from the image. This site, the second of Terraquest's excellent virtual destinations -- the first is Virtual Antarctica at -- uses a real world journey as the basis for an online exploring the current reality of the islands and it's governing country, Ecuador. A masterpiece of Web design, Virtual Galapagos is layed out in clean, graphically rich frames, and organized according to six basic categories. "Atlas" gives visitors their bearings with excellent maps of the islands and Ecuador -- click on a quadrant or isle for more detail. The "History" section animates the geography, with tales of pirates and explorers. Links within the text take you further into the subject, connecting you with supplementary materials such as the pertinent chapter from Darwin's *The Voyage of the Beagle*. In "Expedition" and "Dispatches" you get a briefing on the Terraquest folks, their gear, and the itinerary for the trip, complete with daily reports from the team and direct links to the relevant maps. The trip may be over, but it's archived here in depth and indefinitely. For multimedia materials, be sure to go to the Quicktime VR gallery. Be warned at the outset that this is a heavily-sponsored endeavor and operates subtly as a brochure for World Travel Partners, Mountain Travel Sobek, Kodak and others. It's not a big detraction; the ads, such as they are, are largely unobtrusive. IBM sponsors a segment called "Education Workbook" which gives teachers ideas for integrating the virtual experience into the classroom. (For the curious, the 10-day cruise with Sobek, not including airfare to Quito, and other sundry expenses, is $3395 per person.) Terraquest is also allied, in some fashion, with noted environmentalist David Brower and his organization, Earth Island Institute. As such, you can expect an agenda that promotes eco-tourism while condemning most other human activities on the Galapagos. It struck me a little arrogant, this view, and prone to oversimplifications. Despite dispatches like the one that begins, "Ecuador is an Indian nation" and another averring that immigrants "come from the mainland of Ecuador [to the Galapagos] looking for an easy living in the tourism industry or in illegal fishing" the site pays a good deal more attention to the well-fed, easy-living Terraquest team (professional eco-tourists) than to any Ecuadorian of any ethnicity. Nevertheless, the site has a lot to offer, to educators, to travelers, to anyone who browses the Web to broaden their horizons. It's a beautiful introduction to a unique spot on the globe and well worth the visit. Bon voyage.
Overall Rating: 18
RGB
URL: http://www.publish.com
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Heidi Swanson
From A to Z, RGB, *Publish* magazine's on-line companion, is the site for the inside track on electronic publishing. Archives. Black Box. Copiers. Distribution. Electronics. Fonts. Graphics. Hardware. Illustration. Jobs. KPT. Layout. Monitors. News. Order forms. Photographs. QuarkXPress. Reviews. Secrets. Typography. Utilities. Visualization. Web. Xerox. Yellow. Zines. You name it, RGB's got it. The zine itself may lack sass and flash , but the content here is top-notch. Whether you're wondering about trading in your floppies for zips, or just nosing around for the right type foundry, RGB is ground zero, page one for anything related to electronic publishing. From design considerations to pre-press issues, printing to electronic distribution, RGB hammers home practical and authoritative information, with a little bit of entertainment value thrown in for good measure. "But the graphics aren't all that swank or savvy," I can almost hear you saying. "And the buttons don't pop, spin, or whistle at me. And *gasp* there are no gaussian blurred drop shadows, or Kai backgrounds." Well, don't you worry about that; everything's going to be just fine because: one, the site is a cakewalk to navigate, and, two, there's no danger of developing liver spots while the pages load. This is one example (of many) in which less is more. And anyway, you're here for more than pretty design; you're here for the goods: product reviews, production tips, industry news, shareware, and more. Check the archives for back issues, articles indexed according to subject. As far as how-to design content on the Web goes, RGB is a great white shark in a sea of bottom feeders. So, if you want to stay afloat in the increasingly competitive world of digital publishing and design, latch onto this publication like a remora. It'll keep you in the higher echelons of the food chain, so to speak.
Overall Rating: 18
An Entirely Other Site
URL: http://www.etext.org/Zines/EOD/
Category: Zines
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Greg Knauss specializes in a variety of dead pan, off-kilter humor that manifests itself in short, short stories about the mundane that inevitably begin with the preposition, so -- as in "so there I was..." or " so this guy comes up to me..." -- and end with you laughing. The whole thing began as e-mailings from Greg to his friends a few years back. You can subscribe to Greg's mailing list at or browse the titles -- like "Orange Julius Caesar," "Reality Chews," and "Happy Birthd-Aiee!" -- here at the site. You'll be happy you did; Greg is very good at what he does. I'm just not sure what to call it.
Overall Rating: 14
Total Baseball
URL: http://www.totalbaseball.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
For fans of the sport everywhere, Total Baseball is as good as it gets. This site is loaded with baseball history, baseball personalities, baseball stats, baseball everything. Like the paper volume by the same name, Total Baseball Online is the official encyclopedia of the national pastime. Adding value to the whole enterprise, the Web site allows you to join BBS discussions, post your questions to the editors, and subscribe to baseball-oriented newsgroups. Navigating in Frames, visitors will find easy access to the information -- stats and stories, both -- laid out in careful detail and generously illustrated. The history section is especially good, intelligently written and comprehensive, with sections on the "Negro leagues" as well as Japanese, Caribbean and minor league ball. The "Players" section gives concise, informative bios for the all-time greats, from Hank Aaron to Cy Young; speaking of whom ... did you think Cy was shot for Cyrus, like I did? Guess again. In the section on nicknames you get the real origin of the moniker. It's from cyclone, for the effect his fastball had on the backstop; that is, it "looked like a cyclone had hit it." Of course, true aficionados would scoff at a trivia softball like that one. For them, there's the Total Baseball Player Register, which allows users to get comprehensive stat summaries for any player who ever swung a bat in the big leagues, including dates, career averages, team affiliations, and more. So you knew Cy was from "cyclone," eh? Well, what can you tell me about Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons or Tiny Leonard? Don't understand the significance behind all the averages, anyway? No worries; the site gives excellent explanations of how the numbers are crunched and what they mean. The only regrettable thing about this site is the amount of time you can wile away here revisiting the legends of the game: Names like Joe Dimaggio and Satchel Paige, Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays, Dizzy Dean and Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron and Casey Stengel, Roberto Clemente and Ed Delahante... It just goes on and on, resonating like a nursery rhyme, a fan's dream.
Overall Rating: 18
All Politics
URL: http://www.allpolitics.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
All Politics is a joint venture between Time-Warner and, um, well now that you mention it, Time-Warner. Turner Broadcasting was in there somewhere, but then Time-Warner consumed them like a tasty morsel. So, nevermind. Anyway, this attractive and informative site is updated daily and contains US political news, analysis, commentary, polls, games, hot topics, audio clips, video clips, a search engine and more. There's enough content here to drown in. One complaint: They seem to have left out the audio clip of Bob Dole saying "Pinch me, but..." I really wanted that one.
Overall Rating: 18
The Brown Flu
URL: http://www.arizonaweb.com/townhall/brownflu.html
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The Brown Flu site may not be pretty, but it packs a whollop by promoting a controversial one-day nationwide sick-out by *Mexicanos* and Mexican-Americans on the day of the Republican National Convention. Organizers say if immigrant-bashers want an economy without immigrant labor, they should get what they wish for, then deal with the consequences. Agribusiness, the service industry, and other key sectors of the economy will come to a halt for one day if the protest succeeds. By the time you read this, of course, you should know how it went.
Overall Rating: 14
The Electronic Frontier Foundation
URL: http://www.eff.org
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is dedicated to protecting and promoting the civil liberties of Internet denizens. Working to guarantee the free flow of information both public and private, the EFF is poised on the outside edge of digital media law. They led opposition to the "Clipper Chip" and the Communications Decency Act, fought the Church of Scientology, and created the online Blue Ribbon Campaign against censorship. Anyone who spends time online has been affected by the efforts of the EFF, and their site is well worth your time, if you care about your rights.
Overall Rating: 16
Graf Cafe
URL: http://www.tiac.net/users/phage/
Category: Art
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Graf Cafe is targeted at graffiti fans. It features more than 300 photographs of graffiti from Boston neighborhoods, organized by location. There's also a surprisingly polished and sometimes wry FAQ to explain the vocabulary (tagging, bombing, piecing), acronyms and subculture, as well as recent developments such as the emerging sticker movement. The splash page features sophisticated 3D graphics and HTML "onMouseOver" fun. Links to eight pro-graffiti and two anti-graffiti sites. Their philosophy: "A writer is not a petty vandal, he neither smashes car windows nor overturns gravestones; a writer is an artist."
Overall Rating: 18
Family Education Network
URL: http://families.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
FEN is one part of the highly esteemed Education Publishing Group's multimedia strategy for helping parents and children prepare themselves for an increasingly competitive world. This is a thoughtful, technologically literate and exceptionally well-designed site featuring articles by Ivy League educators; topics range from browsing the web with your kids to managing your teenager's finances, and balancing your career with your family life. A superb BBS points you to numerous concurrent discussions, and a section on exceptional parents tells the stories of families that endure grave or uncommon situations, and enables them to find their peers around the world.
Overall Rating: 18
Illustrated Guide to Crackers
URL: http://mathlab.sunysb.edu/~elijah/cstuff/index.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
While this site might be considered bizarre by some, cracker fans will find the information presented here as important as a good knife is for cutting cheese. A dozen or so crackers are pictured on the site, and a click on their image yields packaging information, suggested "dosage" (serving size), and ingredients. Missing, however, are calorie and fat content information! (A significant oversight in the case of peanut butter Ritz Bits!) Crumb-rating might be useful too, for those times when you're in bed jonesing for a saltine. Maybe you can post your experiences on the subject in the site's cracker forum. As Andy Griffith once said, "Mmmmm.... Good cracker!"
Overall Rating: 17
Early Motion Pictures
URL: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/papr/mpixhome.html
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
A site we've previously visited, and enthusiastically recommended, this subset of the Library of Congress' American Memory archives lets you browse or search for titles of video clips, some quite lengthy, (like a half an hour of playing time!). The focus is on the early B&W era, from the turn-of-the-century onward, when documentation was more important than narrative content. Tour pre-Earthquake San Francisco, take a steamboat ride out to the Statue of Liberty, or enjoy ethnic studies of "Life Abroad" at a time before the great homogenization of the second half of the Century. Better get a fast connection: some of these files are over a hundred megs in length.
Overall Rating: 16
Bank Rate Monitor
URL: http://www.bankrate.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Be an informed investor--check out the Bank Rate Monitor before you get your next credit card, mortgage refinance, or consumer loan. Find out about how to get past those pesky ATM charges that tend to add up. What's the low-down on on-line banking, and how can it save you cash? What're smart cards, and how long will they be free? The answers are here, pal. The tips are handy, like how to figure out compound from simple interest. One nice feature is the ability to check the stock value of issues anywhere on the global market, from Karachi to Kathmandu.
Overall Rating: 16
Project Denny's
URL: http://entropy.muc.muohio.edu/~p7a77/dennys.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Project Denny's documents Jason Alan Pfaff's quest to visit as many Denny's restaurants as possible before he dies. The congealed-egg-yolk-yellow backgrounds, photographs of luridly colored Denny's meals, and thick white coffee cups that serve as icons evoke the Denny's experience almost right down to the smell. What sets Project Denny's apart from the typical one-note-joke tribute page is its extensive store of what could be considered actual research--reports on each Denny's visit describing the wait person, food eaten, and overall experience--along with an organization that takes it all seriously: You can search four different indices, plus a Project Sampler. Check it out; it's a hoot.
Overall Rating: 17
FishNet
URL: http://www.jayi.com/Open.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
The lover of low puns who named FishNet didn't do it justice--this is a meaty site, rich in resources for high-achieving, college-bound teens. The extensive College Guide has a few weaknesses, but makes up for them with great features such as Dear Admissions Guru, an advice column written by admissions officers. Edge e-zine is substantive but not eggheadish, and KnowBase lets users find online articles on a range of topics. Even if higher education is only a dim memory, FishNet is worth a visit for Street Speak, a user-compiled dictionary of slang that will help you sound hip again--or at least understand what the kids are saying.
Overall Rating: 17
Working Assets Online
URL: http://www.wald.com/news.html
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Cynics beware: This site is so well-intentioned and sincere it's almost painful. After all, Working Assets is the company that genuinely cares about the environment, human rights, racism, and poverty in America. They also actually do something about it by providing telephone service and donating 1% of your charges to nonprofit organizations (a relatively painless way to give to charity). Newsbite, as the site is called, is a compilation of articles on social/political issues such as gay rights, ending the Cuba embargo, and the epidemic of church burnings in the South. Will Durst, irreverent San Francisco columnist, is also featured in the Daily Dose of Durst.
Overall Rating: 16
Radisson Hotels
URL: http://www.radisson.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Not a corporate vanity page, the Radisson Hotels site exemplifies how the Internet can offer customers ease, convenience, and service beyond the usual. You can't access the site unless you have Netscape 2.01 or higher as it makes extensive use of Frames, Java, and encrypted transactions, but once you've installed the software (link from the Radisson site) you can enter a personal/business profile, check rates and availability, and reserve rooms in Radisson hotels all over the world. The interface is relatively simple and friendly, and Frames facilitate navigation.
Overall Rating: 18
Cora Connections
URL: http://www.drive.net/kora.htm
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The traditional Mandinka musicians of the Gambia, often called *griots* or *jalis*, have long been an integral part of their culture's social events, such as weddings and naming ceremonies. Their storytelling and singing often features the music of the kora, a twenty string wooden instrument similar to the sitaar or the harp. These wonderfully illustrated pages contextualize the kora within the cultural realities of West Africa, thereby imparting history along with pitch notations and virtual visits among master musicians. Downloadable sound files of Alhaji Bai Konte, for instance, are a tantalizing introduction to the instrument.
Overall Rating: 17
Just for Kids
URL: http://aone.com/~mrbill/kids.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This visually delightful page does a fantastic job of reviewing Websites produced by and for kids, ages 18 and under. Every week, those of the highest caliber receive Digby's "Four-Paws" Award for Excellence. The ones that I saw were stylishly designed, and ideally suited to kids who want to connect with each other. A select few, like Katie Prunka's Pooh Pages prove that some of the most charming design is coming from the minds of 7th graders. In building this page Webmaster Bill Earles has added rare value to the Internet. You can join him by nominating your favorite sites.
Overall Rating: 18
Cool Writers' Magazine
URL: http://www.halcyon.com/ahcool/home.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This is the Webzine of Seattle's Arbor Heights elementary school. Designed by a teacher and perpetually under construction, these pages tap into the Web's revolutionary educational potential. By uploading poems, essays and stories, students are taught both to express and consider themselves in a global context. Cross-linking between schools is encouraged, and you, dear reader, are invited to send writing. They've got stuff from all over the world on their server. There are also links to other nodes in the Arbor Heights community, like the Jr. Seahawk Newspaper, as well as a list of links for educators needing technological guidance.
Overall Rating: 15
Uncle Bob's Kid Page
URL: http://gagme.wwa.com/~boba/kids.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This groovy-looking page hosts a long and diverse list of annotated links to Websites deemed "safe" for kids' consumption. Rows of animated smiley faces divide the page's various sections, rendering the act of scrolling an exercise in hilarity that won't be soon forgotten. Parents and kids alike may be surprised to find such a wide range of sites that are "appropriate" for the entire family. Trivia, pets, puppets, sports, games, art, and everything in between is covered by Bob Allison's discerning eye. If you're a kid with some time to browse, I'd check this out immediately.
Overall Rating: 17
The World of Allen Toney
URL: http://webpages.marshall.edu/~jtoney/
Category: Art
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Allen Toney is hailed as one of the most innovative computer artists of his day. But it goes further than that. Nightmares, day sweats, bad acid, and underdone potatoes are as much a part of the scenery here as neo-classical Catholicism and iconography rendered as only a recovering Papist could render it. The images are, by turns, rich and oily--liquid mercury in a twister--and mythical/mathematical. Take a walk through the gallery. If you can take it, "Dream Deeper," if not, you can "Wake Up" at any time. One can only imagine what Toney sees when he closes his eyes in the dark.
Overall Rating: 18
aRtsLab
URL: http://sgva-serv1.ucsd.edu/~art-slab/
Category: Art
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
ARtsLab, UCSD's Visual Arts Department site, offers online exposure to a host of artists, visions, and themes. The Institute of Sociometry page, housing a rich variety of subchurches, secret societies, and guerrilla artists, is the aRtsLab high point, with links to the San Francisco Cacophony Society and the Luther Blisset Home Page. Learn about Neoists, Psychogeography, and the decline of Venice. You can search the aRtsLab index by artist or subject. How 'bout Apparatus Luscious or Dadatorial? Thought-provoking projects are presented with a dose of self-indulgence, the inevitable mixed bag of art school. Well worth the visit.
Overall Rating: 18
Unofficial Wendy's Home page
URL: http://www.vbc.net/~wendysnet/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Set up by a couple of wacky young men from New Jersey, the Wendy's Unofficial Home page is an expression of their love for Wendy's restaurants. Louis and Ish: Two men with a mission: "to visit every Wendy's we had knowledge of, starting with New Jersey, then moving on, limited only by our $5.05-$6.00 an hour jobs." Come to the site for Wendy's reviews, Wendy's floorplans, and links to like-minded individuals. There's an interactive map, thorough directions to Wendy's in their area, Wendy's FAQ's, and an extensive photo gallery. Tune in soon for information about their pilgrimage to the very first Wendy's in Columbus Ohio.
Overall Rating: 17
Africa: The Art of a Continent
URL: http://artnetweb.com/guggenheim/africa/index.html
Category: Art
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Africa: The Art of a Continent is an exhibition celebrating "the extraordinary contribution of the African continent to the world's visual culture." Don't despair if you can't get to the Guggenheim to see it in time; the site alone would be worth the price of admission. An interactive map takes you to each region in Africa, discussing its artistic characteristics in particular. In-depth descriptions tell as much about African history as its art, and photographs make this almost as rich as a walk through. "Africa in New York," the citywide portion of the exhibit, includes photography, film, music, dance, symposia, and lectures. It's a beautifully designed site with engaging text. Hang out here and learn something.
Overall Rating: 18
Levi's
URL: http://www.levi.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Adam Douglas
Certain corporate entities are so much a part of our lives, you'd think they wouldn't even need to advertise. The company that invented blue jeans, Levi's and it's trademark product are at least as American as apple pie and baseball, and certainly more pervasive. You're probably wearing a pair as you read this. Founded in 1853 by Levi Strauss who figured, correctly, that the material used to make tents and covered wagons would make a good pair of pants, Levi's has endured changing times and fashion upheavals ever since. The classic 501's, after a few modifications, have stayed the same sine 1922, and the denim jacket, introduced in 1953, is still popular after all these years. The dates come courtesy of Levi's very big, very engaging Web site: a multimedia extravaganza that goes all-out in an effort to attract folks to it's online promotional effort. The history section was, not surprisingly, my favorite segment of the site. Laid out along a timeline, the site shows, at a glance, when copper rivets were introduced, say, (1873) or when belt loops became a fixture of American fashion (not until 1922). There's a slightly patronizing "history quiz" that tests your knowledge of 1930's America, and how Levi's helped shape Depression-era fashion. Also worth a look is the Denim Dictionary, chock full of alphabetically organized Levi's trivia. Did you know about the "crotch rivet," an extra copper rivet that, until 1942, graced all 501's. Apparently, cowboys complained to Levi's that when crouching around the campfire, the bygone rivet tended to heat up, causing much discomfort. The site gets a little out of control when it veers away from jeans street to venture down every subcultural alleyway in existence. What, after all, do raves, anime, spoken word performances, Haight-Ashbury, and space aliens have to do with what pants I wear? Why would I want to read the bio's of the "stars" of their European commercials? Not content with it's already prominent place in fashion culture, worldwide, it seems Levi's wants to create its own subculture, based on their media presence and association with hip ad firms (Tomato) and graphic designers (Designers Republic). The clothing is already classic, with vintage 501's and jackets selling for hundreds of dollars. But then again, sites like these can no longer rely on others to create content for them; unlike television, where advertisers could just sandwich their pitch between the shows, the Web model requires advertisers to put on their own show. All the same, there is such a thing as trying too hard. And Levi Strauss is teetering on that edge.
Overall Rating: 18
Epistrophy: Jazz in 20th Century Literature
URL: http://ie.uwindsor.ca/jazz/
Category: Literature
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
The relationship between jazz and the written word has been a creative tension since day one. Jazz, with its improvised, headstrong ambition and its vast emotional palette has pushed authors of poetry and prose to explore new possibilities in their own medium. This site celebrates that artistic edge from all angles: the poetry of Langston Hughes, the scholarly essays from jazz historians, the frenetic prose of Kerouac. Amira Bakira examines the famed days of Minton's Playhouse at 134th St. in Harlem. Charles Mingus translates his musical ethos into a prose style all his own in excerpts from his autobiography *Beneath the Underdog*. Still under construction, look for more on the revolutionary free jazz/poetry of the late 1960's, and hopefully, more sound.
Overall Rating: 16
The Swagazine Rack
URL: http://mrlinux.durand.com/clark/swagazine/
Category: Literature
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Santa Barbara-area poets and writers bare their souls online. Swagazine was born from a BBS; back in the good old days, it seems the various contributors shared messages of such considerable talent that they decided to pool their efforts, take on the world, and start an Internet publication. Or so the story goes. Anyway, its nearly three years later, and there are two completed issues to show for it. The collected writings are sometimes entertaining, sometimes exasperating, and generally a lot better than average. Be sure to have a look at The Internet Insult Contest: Funny as hell. Every writer has got a handle dating back to the now defunct BBS and an attitude to match. A new issue should be out in late September or October. It's worth checking out.
Overall Rating: 17
right. The essays are almost overwhelming in their scope and length, but well worth the read. Considering that most of his life Miller published clandestinely to avoid suppression, the bibliography is surprisingly exhaustive. The related links are also helpful, providing a more complete picture of censorship in America, grouping other banned works by author, subject matter, date, legal action taken, etc. U.H.M is an excellent place to learn a little about literature and an artist can challenge a culture to expand its horizons. content: 3 aesthetic: 2 savvy: 2
Overall Rating: 16
Virtual Emily
URL: http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~emilypg/index1.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Emily Dickinson, one of the more enigmatic figures in American literature, has her life deconstructed by the curators of Virtual Emily. With ample respect for the poet and the circumstances in which she created her art, V.E. offers any newcomer to Dickinson the background they will need to understand her truly remarkable contribution to modern poetry. The primary offering is chronological biography that divides her life into periods of productivity, depression, hope, and seclusion. The essays for each period are well-written and informative, supplemented by photographs of the poet and her family and even diagrams of her homestead in Amherst. There are also links to the works that made her posthumously famous.
Overall Rating: 17
Secrets and Whispers
URL: http://www.pacificnet.net/geechee/
Category: Film
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Filmmaker Julia Dash set up this page to promote her work, but its no shallow vanity site. Instead, Ms. Dash tries to put her work in context, within the long tradition of African American film that stretches from Zora Neale Hurston through Paul Robeson to Spike Lee, spanning nearly a century of documenting Black life in these United States. Dash has posted biographies of her favorite women filmmakers, a chronological time line of highlights in Black Cinema, and historical background about the Gullah people, so that you might better understand her prize-winning film Daughters of the Dust. The Web medium is exploited, but always in a tasteful and thoughtful manner. You can view scenes, look at authentic Gullah recipes, or order VHS versions of Dash's work. Secrets and Whispers is just the sort of thing movie sites need: a little sanity, a little history, and a lot of creativity.
Overall Rating: 16
The Godfather Trilogy
URL: http://www.exit109.com/~jgeoff/godfathr.html
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
This is a tribute to the Godfather Trilogy put together by superfan Geoff "Il Padrino" Malta. Of some prominence is a signed letter from Mario Puzo, the author of the books, that reads "To My Friend Geoff, Thank you for making me famous on the internet (sic) with your beautiful and flattering web site. In gratitude I leave you the province of Corleone in Italy." Nifty, eh? The site mostly focuses on the movie versions however and it doesn't lack for information. For example, there is a Corleone family timeline, contests, a buy/sell list, a mailing list to join and so much more.
Overall Rating: 16
Louise Brooks Society
URL: http://www.slip.net/~thomasg/brooks.html
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Restless and bored, Thomas Gladysz went to rent something "sexy" one night. Drawn to the packaging of "Pandora's Box," he took it home and shortly found himself enthralled. He's since developed "a passion for silent film, for the history and culture of the 1920's, and for those 'extra-cinematic' qualities [he sees] in Brooks." His web devotional features an electronic newsletter; a filmography, and superb photo galleries complimented by interviews, trivia and biographies culled from a growing store of archival materials. If you're a Brooks fan, you'll love this node; and, if you're not, it just might make you one.
Overall Rating: 16
Movie Cliches List
URL: http://www.like.it/vertigo/cliches
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Giancarlo Cairella has laid out a simple directory of cinematic cliches organized by topics ranging from sex and bombs, to prison and product placement. This site offers hundreds of observations in the vein of: "Evil geniuses who devise bombs to destroy things/people always have them detonate after at least an hour, giving the hero ample time to defuse it." Readers of the rec.arts.movies Usenet newsgroup submit their own deconstructions, and you're prompted to do so as well. In short, a humorous and revealing idea plainly executed to charming effect. Film buffs will be glued to the screen.
Overall Rating: 15
International MPEG Bizarre 1st Film Festival
URL: http://www.perry.com/imb1ff/imb1ff.html
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The Motion Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) meets under the International Standards Organization to generate standards for digital video and audio compression. Artists use these standards to compress their work to sizes that can be feasibly distributed across the Internet (at 28.8 kbps or faster). In this fest, artist John Perry has gathered a mixed bag of animations, videos, home movies and multimedia experiments that should interest anyone curious about the emerging art of cybercinema. I recommend viewing the German animation "Red's Nightmare." FAQs and viewers are available for newbies. And you're invited to submit a video of your own.
Overall Rating: 15
Metacrostics
URL: http://www.hypersphere.com/ac/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
If you're familiar with acrostics, and enjoy solving the little brain-twisters, then Metacrostics is sure to turn you off of them forever. If you've never cared much for Word games, skip to the next section. This site contains a selection of the most out-of-control acrostic-type puzzles I've ever seen. Oh sure, the first page tries to make it sound easy by supplying instructions, but that's just to suck people in. Pretty soon you'll be scratching your head, trying to figure out which 5 letter word some weird limerick is defining. The site is well designed with a magazine-like quality, and you'll end up hating it.
Overall Rating: 16
GamePen
URL: http://www.gamepen.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
GamePen is one of those ultimate computer gaming sites that can provide all the resources any gamer needs. People with slow Internet connections that can't really spend the time aimlessly surfing from site to site might as well just go here. The latest games are pretty well covered, along with news about upcoming releases. Another excellent time-saver is the "Therapy" section, a sort of running report covering the dialogue in the various newsgroups that relate to gaming. The top of the home page is a little confusing as far as what's available here; scroll down a bit for an easy-access site map.
Overall Rating: 17
File Factory
URL: http://www.filefactory.com
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Essentially a file archive for the Total Entertainment Network http://www.ten.net, the File Factory is an aesthetically appealing, solid batch of Web pages set up for the sole purpose of making PC gaming files available on the Web. There are, of course, demo versions of the games that can be played on the TEN network. But TEN didn't stop there. These avid gamers put just about every decent game they could find, along with a quick rating, up on the site. There are quite a few different categories of downloads, including the "Home Brew" section, with levels and patches designed by individuals.
Overall Rating: 18
NETworth
URL: http://networth.galt.com/www/home/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A very big site from Galt Technologies and part of the Quicken Financial Network, NETworth is a very big, very well-organized site that offers four basic features, called: The Mutual Fund Market Manager, which allows you to track your portfolio online, track the top twenty-five performers, etc.; The Equities Center, for stock quotes, graphs and the like; The Financial Planner, for info on mortgages, life insurance, retirement funds, etc.; and Insider, which allows you to customize finance-oriented Web searches. I'd be lying if I said I had evaluated it all, or even that it was within my ken. Suffice it to say there is a lot here. A lot.
Overall Rating: 17
CleverMedia Shockwave Arcade
URL: http://clevermedia.com/arcade/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Surfing with Shockwave? Check out the arcade (formerly Gary's gallery), especially the Space Pirate game: it's a great demonstration of the capabilities of Director in the hands of a good programmer. Space Pirate is a neat little game which basically follows the model of the venerable Galactic Trader, except in Space Pirate you get to steal and plunder. You navigate around the galaxy, picking up crew members, buying, stealing, and selling goods, trying to avoid getting arrested or having your crew mutiny. It's fun and best of all just a mere 200K Shockwave file. This kind of economy in programming hasn't been seen since the days of 20 megabyte hard drives. That's not the only incredible feat of programming at the site: have a look at the 60K game called Pretty Good Golf which actually has 3 different courses.
Overall Rating: 17
Internet Chess Library
URL: http://caissa.onenet.net/chess/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The best way to learn chess is by example, and what better examples are there than Fischer, Smyslov, Karpov, etc.? While not the prettiest site to look at, but the ICL is one helluvan archive. A lot of it isn't optimized for HTML. In fact, the majority of the material here is text documents and applications, which can be accessed via the FTP server. (You can, at least, view the file directories with your browser.) Slick graphics shouldn't matter much to the serious chess afficionado, though, who's used to reading chess notation and knows where "e3" is on the board. You will need to learn standard chess notation if you want to recreate any of the tournament and masters games stored here.
Overall Rating: 14
Playing Chess On The Internet
URL: http://crux5.cit.cornell.edu/~jmk3/john/chess/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Maybe you have a yen to play chess with someone hundreds or thousands of miles away, in real time. This site has the information you need, covering all the basics of getting onto one of the many specialized chess servers out there. Even for the computer and Internet savvy among us, this is an excellent resource, if merely for the list of chess servers. The site itself is an example of nice Web page design, employing frames properly (no small feat), and having its information well-organized.
Overall Rating: 18
MedWorld
URL: http://www-med.stanford.edu/MedSchool/MedWorld/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Sponsored by the Stanford Medical Alumni Association and created entirely by medical students, MedWorld is the one-stop shop for Medical news and feature stories. The project boasts readable articles, true-life medical stories, and a section for physician diaries. The design is zine-like and well-structured. Doctors, med students, nurses, and other medical personnel can get a free home page here. "Touch the MedBot" to search medical topics.
Overall Rating: 18
KidsDoctor
URL: http://www.kidsdoctor.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This is a great site: well-presented, easy to use, and really packed with information. The Doctor will answer any questions you have about childhood ailments, from Poison Oak to Slap-Face Fever (I'm not making this up). All the explanations and advice are written in a down-home, Dr. Spock sort of style, well-suited to the impish man behind the project, Dr. Lewis L. Coffin, III. Comfortable place to consult with a friendly voice.
Overall Rating: 16
KidsHealth.org
URL: http://KidsHealth.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This extensive and informative site is funded by the Nemours Foundation and the I. A. duPont Institute Children's Hospital and provides sections for parents, children, and professionals. The most frequently asked questions are posted along with in-depth, easy to understand explanations. An extremely useful Question Index allows kids to get answers to questions like, "What are hiccups?" and "What is AIDS?" with a simple click. And parents can read diagnoses of everything from hyperactivity to Tourette Syndrome. Easy to use, KidsHealth.org has enough graphics, color, and digestible text to be interesting and helpful for children, and enough real information to be a serious resource for parents and professionals.
Overall Rating: 16
Radiation Experiments Final Report
URL: http://www.ohre.doe.gov/cur/achre/report.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This site is one product of the final report from the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. The Committee was formed by President Clinton in 1993, mandated "to review experiments conducted between 1944 and 1974, and was asked to determine the ethical and scientific standards by which to evaluate the pre-1974 experiments and the extent to which these experiments were consistent with such standards." Tall order. The report offers historical perspectives on human subject research, detailed explanation of the tests in question in the form of case studies, and an overview of contemporary and future projects.
Overall Rating: 15
HealthSite
URL: http://www.atthealthsite.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
HealthSite is a composite of six specific health pages, including, Prevention magazine, Men's Health, and Mayo Health O@sis. As a site then, it is only as good as its links, which happen to be pretty interesting. Prevention is the most fun, with all sorts of interactive health quizzes, stress testers, and nutrition tips along with tons of useful information. Men's Health is equally flashy, although obviously narrower in scope, and Mayo Health O@sis is a wealth of information with a useful library section and links to the clinic itself. Healthsite is a probably worth a bookmark, offering as it does, a central platform for all your health-related concerns.
Overall Rating: 17
The Contortion Home Page
URL: http://www.escape.com/~silverbk/contortion/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
For most of us, the "art" of contortion is a strange joke, an activity confined to freak shows and obscure Eastern religions. Even the most cultured among us, when faced with the sight of a human being contorted in such a way that their head is between their legs and facing in the WRONG direction, are liable to say something along the lines of, "Now looky there: that person's all bent around every which way." It just doesn't inspire the same awe and reverence that ballet does, or gymnastics. It's more likely to make us wince than applaud. Whether contortionism is an oddity or an art may be an open question, but make no mistake, there's an active, worldwide contortionist community, It may have remained in the shadows until now, but The Contortion Home Page changes all that, baring the arcane world to the light of day. With materials on how "normal" people can train to be contortionists it may even promote understanding and a new era of appreciation. This site is not just a fly-by-night Internet joke page, mind you, but a practical encyclopedia of contortionism designed by two aficionados and practitioners of the discipline, who go by the Internet names of Sir Supple and The Silverback. Good Web page design calls for a certain measure of simplicity, which The Contortion Home Page manages by sticking to just four sections: Photos, Literature, Contacts, and Links. The photo gallery is a good place to start as contortionists are performers, first and foremost, and play to the eye. The gallery does not disappoint, with pictures organized according to the various performers, artists with names like Raven Merle, and Charis, Queen of Elastic. The extent to which they can stretch their bodies is amazing, straining the imagination as much as it does the tendons. The Contortion Home Page is not just about gawking at this rarity of human endeavor: the literature section provides the context necessary to appreciate the "how" and the "why" of it. Documents explain how a contortionist trains, how the natural flexibility of the youthful body must be retained by constant stretching. If even the most accomplished contortionist stops training for a year, it seems, they may never contort again. The contacts and resources section offers free info and gives enthusiasts an outlet for purchasing video tapes of performers such as Ula, who in one scene "surprises unsuspecting travelers by jumping out of their suitcases!" For people who intend to follow contortionism, there's a newsletter, "Limber Times," as well as a CD-ROM.
Overall Rating: 18
The Global Schoolhouse
URL: http://www.gsh.org
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Say what you will about Microsoft. I know all about the insidious corporate tidal wave washing over the world, the evil juggernaut, Bill Gates, monopolizing the industry, crushing the little guy, etc., etc.. I've heard it all -- and won't argue with you -- yet sometimes the software giant throws its considerable weight behind some good projects. To wit: The Global Schoolhouse. A project from the people at Global SchoolNet Foundation (), a non-profit corporation from California, Global Schoolhouse endeavors to provide educators with a central Web resource, from which they can connect with other teachers and students around the world. A beautifully understated web site, the page is broken down into three simple categories: The Connected Educator, The Connected Classroom, and The Connected Learning Community. As the site's principal sponsor, Microsoft, of course, figures largely into the scheme of things. A section called Microsoft Resources for the Educator calls up exactly that: Encarta Schoolhouse and AutoMap Road Atlas, to name a couple, plus activity plans designed around software products like Creative Writer and Fine Artist. MCI and Microsoft have teamed up to offer schools free Web pages; there are templates available for automatically created pages as well as web authoring tips for custom pages. Which web authoring software should you use? Microsoft has a suggestion: "Although there are many authoring tools available, Microsoft has an authoring tool called FrontPage that allows you to develop and maintain a first-rate web site without programming." Well, that's life in the free market for you. But Microsoft is only half the story in what is, finally, a great resource. Global Schoolhouse also gives teachers in classrooms across the country and the world a platform for meeting in cyberspace, to conduct lessons, share information, and initiate projects. The site is a missionary project, in a sense, encouraging teachers and schools to take up the mantle of technology in the classroom, to get "wired." Schools that have made the leap are featured in a section called Twentieth Century Schools. The Schools Database lets visitors search for schools online, by name or state. As yet the project still lacks momentum; some sections, like the CuSeeMe Schools Database, are nought but a promise. But it's a sweet promise, nevertheless, the notion of kids able to video conference with their compatriots a continent or an ocean away. And the resources are in place for the promise to become reality.
Overall Rating: 18
Bucknell Russian Studies
URL: http://www.bucknell.edu/departments/russian/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
If news coverage of the recent Russian elections left you more confused than enlightened about the country's current political situation, this site should sort it out for you. In addition to a Political Orientation Map showing the major candidates' philosophical positions in relation to one another, you'll find polling data and a post-election analysis. The Russian Materials page takes you to wide range of other Russia resources, providing links to sites focused on everything from art and architecture to Russian feminism and space research. Bucknell Russian Studies is a great stop if you're researching Russian subjects but don't know where to start.
Overall Rating: 16
Chinese History Virtual Library
URL: http://www.cnd.org/fairbank/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Covering Chinese history from 1644 to the present, the Fairbank Library draws material from disparate sources to produce a rounded, if not necessarily complete, portrait of each era. The Qing Dynasty section, for example, includes general historical outlines, a discussion of opium in China, and images of antique snuff bottles. If your interest in China is casual, head for the bits of social history. One that neatly turns the tables on Western representations of China is a European travelogue written by a Chinese tourist, which contains this factoid: "America is a small, isolated island in the middle of the ocean." The British must have told him that.
Overall Rating: 16
The Costume Site
URL: http://ddi.digital.net/~milieux/costume.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Net nirvana for clothing addicts, the Costume Site is a wide-ranging collection of links to resources supplying costume designers and others with images, historical information, and instructional guides. Look at everything from Andean textiles to get ups from the TV series *Battlestar Galactica.* Trace the history of the corset, worn as early as 1600 BC by Minoan women, and the codpiece, invented in the 1400s to cover male genitalia exposed by short tunics and hose ending at the upper thighs. Find out how to make kilts, Japanese chain armor, and Middle Ages footwear. If people have worn it, there's probably a Web site devoted to it.
Overall Rating: 16
MacTutor History of Mathematics
URL: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Number crunchers take note: the MacTutor History of Mathematics from the School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences University of St. Andrews in Scotland is a comprehensive guide to the fascinating (seriously!) history of mathematics. Check out bios of more than 1000 famous mathematicians by name or time period, deep background on the development of important mathematical ideas, and even articles about famous curves. The Devil's Curve is my fave, although I don't remember it from high school. I knew I should have taken Calculus.
Overall Rating: 16
Discoverer's Web
URL: http://huizen.dds.nl/~engels/discovery/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
What a task Andre Engels has undertaken! The goal of his text-only site is to "gather all kinds of information found on the web about voyages of discovery and exploration." And he is off to a heavy-duty start. Organized by time periods and geographic region, Discoverer's Web is a massive list of links to both FTP and Web resources devoted to everyone from Herodotus to Samuel de Champlain. Let's hope this man has a T-1 line.
Overall Rating: 17
Nineveh Online
URL: http://www.nineveh.com/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Nineveh Online is a site devoted to promoting Assyrian culture. Prior to visiting this excellent resource, my knowledge of Assyria was vague at best. I now have a few more associations to work with. One of the world's ancient civilizations, Assyria is today a loosely scattered entity of some three million people living mainly in Iraq and elsewhere, as refugees. Akin to the Kurds insofar as they both lack a sovereign homeland, Assyrians are generally Christian and speak their own language, often called Syriac. You can learn much more at this site, a kind of homeland in cyberspace. There is a BBS, as well as pages devoted to kids, women, the Assyrian language, food, amnesty issues, and more.
Overall Rating: 17
The Museum of the City of San Francisco
URL: http://www.sfmuseum.org/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Even if you've never stepped foot in California, I guarantee you'll find something worthwhile in these pages devoted to the City of Saint Francis. I, for one, spent far too long in the section called The Chronology of San Francisco Rock, following links from there to all corners of the Web. But that's just one small part of this impressive electronic exhibit. The site features both original materials (from the museum staff and archives) as well as links to resources all over the Web. The contents are organized by date or subject, covering a broad spectrum of the city's illustrious past. So whether you're just out for some idle surfing or some Bay Area history, this one comes highly recommended.
Overall Rating: 18
Extropians
URL: http://www.c2.org/~arkuat/extr/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Extropians, in case you didn't know, believe in the ascendancy of human beings and the ultimate triumph over pesky things like mortality and the confines of the body. It is a way of thinking that marries the optimism of technology with the mysticism of religion and this site is thick with a weird breed of newspeak which is part techno jargon, part mystical incantantation. It makes for a bemusing read. Some of my favorite lexicoctions: "pancritical epistemology," and "neurochemical enhancers." And though the creator of the site swears that extropians are "never, ever dogmatic," the overall tenor was vaguely Moaist, with good communist-type sloganeering, like "transformation over torpor." No images, lots of text, almost all of it hyper-linked and cross-referenced.
Overall Rating: 15
The Field Museum
URL: http://www.bvis.uic.edu/museum/Home.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Chicago's venerable Field Museum of Natural History has created an online learning environment. The Life Over Time exhibit lets viewers watch MPEG animations of a triceratops and other creatures running across prehistoric ranges, as well as read illustrated descriptions of dinosaur dining habits. A link on the exhibit pages takes teachers to a set of classroom activities using information from the exhibit. Elsewhere on the site, older students and adults can read about a Field archaeologist's potentially path-breaking work on early human cultures in the Amazon Basin. Hopefully, other museums will take note.
Overall Rating: 16
ACE Kids
URL: http://www.acekids.com/bkground.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
A well-organized base site for students who want to explore the net, ACE (Academic Center for Excellence) Kids provides links to and brief descriptions of kids' Web pages, as well as lists of U.S. and Japanese school Web sites and links to child-appropriate resources in categories such as games, research, and sports. Homework Helper matches up students for peer tutoring, and ACE Kids Lit. publishes short stories by budding writers. Hopefully they won't use this site as a prose model, or by the time they're adults the English language could be reduced to one word: "cool."
Overall Rating: 16
Petbird.com
URL: http://www.upatsix.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I never understood the appeal of pet birds. They pretty much just hang out on a little swing, crap all over the place, and sing if you're lucky. But who am I to judge? For many, pet birds are the cat's meow, and this site is for them. Read up on cockatiel breeding and genetics and Finch care. Avian professionals are all over this site offering wise words about your bird's needs. There's even a section on aviculture called F.Y.I, with a fun article on how to prepare your bird for a show. (For one, file their beaks if necessary.) Tired of your Whiteface cockatiel hen? Find a buyer in the Petbird classified section. And of course, buy your birdseed online from one of the merchants on the site.
Overall Rating: 16
International Saxophone Home
URL: http://www.saxophone.org/
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
A combination magazine, clearinghouse, and buying guide, the International Saxophone Home Page is *the* most happening place online for horn players. Read an interview with Steve Coleman before trying out "Close Multiphonic Harmonies For Alto Saxophone." Then, click to the "Vintage Saxophone Page" for a history of Selmer Saxophones, or play a game that tests your vintage sax knowledge. Well-maintained with lots of content and no signs of hot air. Or Kenny G.
Overall Rating: 16
Kosher Living
URL: http://www.kashrus.org/kosher.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Whether or not you're Jewish and Kosher, this is a useful site. Packed with information on permissible foods, preparation, and the history and nature of Kashrus, Kosher Living serves as an in-depth introduction to the principles behind Kosher laws, and is a helpful guide to those who practice them. The site is brought to you from the director of the Asian-American Kashrus, Singapore-born Rabbi Meyer, who is not surprised that the general public knows little about the history and culture of Asian Jews. So he's made it easy to learn by providing an interactive map of Asia with an informative essay attached to each country. Also check out Asian Kosher Recipes and links to other Kosher sites.
Overall Rating: 17
NetNoir
URL: http://www.netnoir.com/index.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
A site for anyone from any walk of life who is interested in Afrocentric culture, NetNoir Online combines a variety of sections -- Spotlight, Lifestyle, Community, and Empowerment -- with search engines and great links to related sites. The site is beautifully designed and packed with content, providing visitors with articles on everything from Hip Hop to investment opportunities. The self-declared "Soul of Cyberspace," NetNoir seeks to build an online community while informing visitors about local events, outstanding personalities, entertainment, technology news, and resources.
Overall Rating: 18
F. Scott Fitzgerald Centennial
URL: http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The University of South Carolina clearly has a special relationship with famed author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, housing the second-largest collection of his original texts and memorabilia (Princeton, his alma mater, is first). This site is a loving tribute to the author of *The Great Gatsby,* and worth a visit to anyone interested in American Literature. Information is well-organized and accessible, the graphics appropriately muted, reflecting the glamorous tragedy of Scott and Zelda's short lives. Don't miss the essay entitled "Princess Daily," which describes Sylvia Plath's margin scribblings and underlinings of The Great Gatsby.
Overall Rating: 17
Simon Says
URL: http://www.simonsays.com/
Category: Literature
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Simon Says is Simon and Schuster's slick new home on the net. Designed by Razorfish, this site has a sleek, modern look, and is easy to navigate, with spiffy technological touches (real audio, multimedia product demos, rotating billboards). The focus of the site is on the reader, though, with lots of opportunities for interactivity. Reader reviews, bulletin board and chats are all features that try to attract repeat visitors. Of special note are the Reading Groups, monthly discussions on general subjects led by experienced facilitators. Design and content touches like these elevate this site from the merely corporate to a lively hub for book lovers.
Overall Rating: 18
Word Salad
URL: http://www.interpath.net/~whealton/wordsalad.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Word Salad is an online poetry quarterly. This homespun site is not a graphic masterpiece, but has clearly been crafted by people who appreciate the written word. Each quarterly edition is made up of twenty to thirty poems, submitted by interested parties, and a Featured Artist Profile, with a biography and selected work of the author. The poetry ranges from short, rhymed verse to longer musings on life. There is something here for all types of poetry aficionados, and a genuine feeling of community.
Overall Rating: 16
American Museum of Natural History
URL: http://www.amnh.org/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
A tour of this site is an educational experience from the splash page onward, especially if you are as dim as I am. There's no use in denying it anymore; I scored just under fifty percent on the Sci-Q Quiz in the Museum's Education segment. I'd like to claim that the questions were all tricks and that I'd been duped, but what good would it do me? Time to face facts: when it comes to the sciences, I'm just plain ignorant. As such, this resource did me a world of good, packed as it is with fascinating information, all beautifully presented. At the home page be sure to move your mouse along the row of colorful icons in the heading. You'll get concise definitions of the various disciplines which the icons represent and which fall under the Museum's purview. It's a quick, graceful way to get a sense for the breadth of the subject before venturing further. For the accursed Sci-Q Quiz click on Education. As of this writing, it's the only feature in the section, but they promise to include more "activities and resources for children, teachers, and parents" soon. Under Research, the curious will find information about the Museum's various projects, facilities, and expeditions, featuring an intriguing aside on paleontologists at work in the Gobi desert. The About the Museum bit is primarily for New Yorkers or lucky folks planning a visit to the actual Museum, located in Central Park West. Transportation information, schedules, and a searchable exhibition calendar are all available. Which brings us to the heart and soul of any museum: the exhibits. The pages devoted to amber in the exhibition, *Amber: A Window to the Past*, are riveting. Amber is a tree resin renowned for its use in making jewelry and other cultural artifacts, which is important to scientists as an astonishing natural preservative of small organisms such as insects. Of course, you can't mention the Museum of Natural History without also mentioning dinosaurs. You'll find them here in *Fossil Halls*, an exhibit which traces the development and family relationships of vertebrates. Frames-capable browsers will yield a clickable, expanding hierarchy here which leads visitors through an excellent, if rather involved, tutorial on everything from dinosaur mandibles to prehensile forefeet; you could spend hours here alone. In fact, the list of interesting features just goes on and on from sidebars like, "Personalities in Paleontology," to mainstays like "Treasures from 125 Years of Discovery," where you can browse some of the more notable fixtures from the permanent collection. Be on the lookout for interactive elements in any and all of the displays, like the timeline that spans the rings of an ancient sequoia trunk. It's an entertaining diversion, which will doubtless help increase your knowledge. Come to think of it, you should probably look around a while, *then* take the quiz. But, of course, that won't leave you with any excuses.
Overall Rating: 18
The Velvet Underground
URL: http://spider.media.philips.com/vu/
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This site is big on information in a straight forward, nonfanatical way. Much of the text is taken from David Fricke's 20-thousand word essay on the history and legacy of the Velvet Underground, which is included with the Peel Slowly and See album. The site includes profiles of the band members and a full discography. Even if you're a long time fan of the *Velvet Underground*, this site is useful in exploring the background and the influences that colored their music, and contributed to their lasting impact.
Overall Rating: 18
MusicWest
URL: http://www.musicwest.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Finally, a music site that focuses on alternative bands and cultural issues while at the same time boasting truly creative design, engaging text, great graphics, and *beaucoup* information. MusicWest appears to have been constructed to mark a interdisciplinary conference that went down in May. However, the conference and its concerns live on in this site covering everything from *No Means No* and *DOA* to censorship issues, methods of taking on the music industry, and links to record labels like C/Z and Wrong Records. Very clever, very insightful, MusicWest is a site I'll be revisiting often.
Overall Rating: 18
Matt's Guide to Cheap Wine
URL: http://http.bsd.uchicago.edu/~m-winitzer/wine/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Here's to Matt for his unpretentious, yet full-bodied and downright bacchanalian site. Any suggestion of snobbery is mollified by our steward's self-imposed restriction to the reasonably economical limit of ten dollars a bottle. His list amounts to a just a handful of favorites in a couple of categories (reds and whites, no rose please), so there's no presumption to encompass the subject. Scans of bottle labels lend a colorful texture to each review, and as Matt might say, we get enough bite to keep it interesting; not too refined, but with a nice range of flavors.
Overall Rating: 16
Anglers Online
URL: http://www.streamside.com/index.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Why is it that the sites that carry all the accolades seem to disappoint so frequently? It may be top 5% in someone's book, but I'd say that the folks behind this site need to make some time for a little organizing; the home page looks a lot like my tackle box -- a lot of tangled lines. You'll have to wade through a lot of garish ads to get to the meat of these pages, which are fairly comprehensive if you're looking for an outfitter, or want to have a chat with others about gear or technique, but I suspect true aficionados will spend more time in one of many dedicated newsgroups or magazines which are linked from this site.
Overall Rating: 14
Rob Mac's Falconry
URL: http://www.cs.loyola.edu/~rmcilhar/falconry/falconry.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
I admit to a longstanding fascination with raptors and apparently I'm in the company of kings. It seems falconry was practiced by royalty across Eurasia for centuries, and still has a devoted world following, now with a decidedly conservationist bent. This is the place for enthusiasts to find information about how and where to practice the husbandry of birds of prey. It may also interest the voyeur who wonders whether there's a demonstration of falconry nearby, or those who would like a peregrine's image for the desktop. It's a mark of distinction, ya know.
Overall Rating: 15
National Press Club
URL: http://town.hall.org/places/npc/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This comprehensive site features all types of journalistic links, from CNN to reporters.org and six different search engines. Extremely well put together resources allow for access to every major news site, and a slew of lesser-kowns like The Beat Page, not to mention wire services galore. This is *the* place for news junkies and investigators.
Overall Rating: 14
Peace Corps Crossroads
URL: http://www.concentric.net/~jmuehl/links.shtml
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This site is dedicated to helping prospective Peace Corps volunteers find each other and allows returned or current volunteers to hook up with their compatriots and swap "reentry" stories. A large part of the site consists of a list, in alphabetical order by country, which provides basic info about the available sites and individuals and includes hotlinked e-mail addresses on soon-to-be departing volunteers, as well as returned (or current) volunteers willing to act as "mentors." There are more Peace Corps-related sites here than you can shake a walking stick at. Also, a great place for links to a multitude of international pages.
Overall Rating: 16
Enter Magazine
URL: http://www.entermag.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This zine is a career guide and consumer resource aimed at college students and recent graduates. Well-designed and stylishly written, Enter Magazine Survival Guide delivers sound advice and interesting reading without that irksome self-consciousness so common to youth-focused media. Get the goods on how to buy a car without getting taken, the best ways to beat the job interview shakes, and how to get serious cash for old clothes. Not many graphics, but the quality of the text is such that they're not missed. The Survival Guide has lots of useful info if you're striking out on your own for the first time, or you'd just like to brush up on those so-called survival skills.
Overall Rating: 17
Desktop Publisher Journal
URL: http://www.dtpjournal.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Everything you need to know about the latest developments in desktop publishing technology is here, including tips on trends, the lowdown on copyright issues, multimedia project management, and more. The Technique section helps desktop publishers beef-up their bag o' tricks, discussing how-to's and which software to use for a given effect. Vendor Lists offer the specs on a multitude of products, and you'll find reviews of the newest in hardware and multimedia in the Technology section. Desktop publishing-related articles are found in the DTP Forum. Desktop publishing wizards and neophytes alike are sure to find something useful here.
Overall Rating: 16
Medical Illustrators' Home Page
URL: http://www.mednexus.com/med_illustrator/index.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
A well-drawn anatomical image can mean the difference between a vague notion and crystalline understanding for med students as well as patients. We've come a long way from the days when the legendary Frank Netter, MD, monopolized the field. This site is both a professional resource for medical illustrators and a showcase for the groups and individuals whose art is nicely displayed here. All of the pictures offered for browsing are two dimensional, but for advanced imaging techniques which really make use of a computer, try the links to 3D-reconstruction sites.
Overall Rating: 16
MSNBC
URL: http://www.msnbc.com
Category: Media
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Sure, Bill Gates is a subterranean nudnick and his company, Microsoft, hopes someday to supplant motherhood and apple pie in our affections. But consarn it, MSNBC isn't half bad. Putting aside the question of its credibility as a reliable source of accurate and unbiased information, MSNBC is pretty to look at, and there's no denying it uses an awful lot of words, the bulk of which are updated frequently. Still, it's very sad that so much of our news is filtered through giants like Time-Warner, Disney, Microsoft, Westinghouse, and General Electric. Aside from the unfortunate lineage, MSNBC rocks.
Overall Rating: 18
Epicurious
URL: http://www.epicurious.com/a_home/a00_home/home.html
Category: Media
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Catering (pun intended) to the tastes (again) of an insignificant little niche market described only as "people who eat," Epicurious will probably cause much slobbering and drooling and smacking of lips. If, while visiting Epicurious, your considerable drool short-circuits the keyboard, don't say you weren't warned. Look around a little bit and you'll encounter the recipes of famous chefs and four-star restaurants, restaurant reviews, and a guide to the best eateries in 10 major US cities; also, kitchen hints, ideas for entertaining, wine expertise, nutrition data, contests, a dozen user forums, and much more. Better tuck a napkin into your collar before browsing.
Overall Rating: 18
UNCOVER WEB
URL: http://www.carl.org/uncover/
Category: Media
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
CARL unCover purports to be an "online article delivery service, a table of contents database, and a keyword index to nearly 17,000 periodicals." This Website is one of several available ways to access the CARL unCover database, which includes more than 7 million articles in English, with 5,000 more added each day. Searches are free, but ordering the full text of an article will set you back $8.50 plus a copyright royalty fee. Or, for $20 a year, the bibliographic results of your prescribed search strategy will be e-mailed to you on a regular basis.
Overall Rating: 17
Intelligent Agent
URL: http://www.intelligent-agent.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
IA is a monthly New York-based newsletter reporting on the use of interactive media and technology in arts and education. With backgrounds in hypertext theory, literature and interface design its writers are hardwired for illuminating emergent areas of communication. Print articles are archived here alongside site-specific projects. Offering brief descriptions, the table of contents ushers you into intense hyperlinked interviews, essays, reviews and exhibitions on subjects ranging from internet copyright to distance education, and DNA-based art. A subtle balance between form and content makes IA a site for sore eyes and minds alike. They'll even mail you a free newsletter.
Overall Rating: 17
Internet News Radio
URL: http://www.iNewsRadio.com/inr/
Category: Media
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
With minimalistic design redolent of German engineering, iNR inspires confidence in its services before you've even sampled a sound. With a 14.4+ connection and a RealAudio plug-in, you can stream weekly real-time stories of relevance to the Internet, and the related telecommunications and technologies industries. A special feature currently reports from the The Fourth International World Wide Web Conference. iNR also hosts a beautifully designed subsite of "irreverent" film reviews and interviews from Hollywood. As streaming technology improves, iNR is poised to stay at the forefront of Webcasting.
Overall Rating: 18
GoPlay
URL: http://www.goplay.com
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
GoPlay is a weekly guide to Bay Area entertainment presented in a slick magazine format. There are reviews, articles, groovy pictures, and lots more, all pertaining to the San Francisco area. Some of the topics include entertainment, dining, local events, movies, "hang outs", sports and concerts. Read reviews of restaurants and bars, then add your opinion--you can give a site a thumbs up or thumbs down. You can also place or read classified ads and personal ads. Overall, a nicely done regional site that doesn't try to be hip or kooky.
Overall Rating: 16
The Nature Conservancy
URL: http://www.tnc.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
This is not your average bunch of tree-huggers. What Nature Conservancy does is buy land where wildlife may be struggling to survive. They provide sanctuaries where animals can thrive and people can visit. They now have 9 million acres of "safe" land all around the world. If their cause moves you, you're invited to join the organization online. Aside from the membership stuff, there is plenty to read up on; educate yourself on the plight of nearly extinct animals from exotic locales and learn what the Nature Conservancy has done to help. The nature shots are beautiful, by the way. You can also find links to Usenet groups that cater to hiking, fishing, and birding enthusiasts. Yes, I said birding.
Overall Rating: 17
The Land of Pitman
URL: http://www.sff.net/people/pitman/
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
The home page of Mark Pitcavage, a.k.a Pitman, a self-described historian and freelance writer who specializes in the history of militia in America. But beware: This isn't a place for anti-government types to gather (although they probably do visit). This is more of a scholarly place. In fact, Pitman's Militia Watchdog page (just a click away) monitors and gathers news about the militia movement in America. Yes, it's an anti-Militia page, but anyone interested in American militia groups can find lots of good stuff here. There is a huge, comprehensive militia FAQ, history, some recent news, essays and much more. Aside from the militia, The Land of Pitman has miscellaneous links to his other pages.
Overall Rating: 14
Center for Democracy and Technology
URL: http://www.cdt.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
The CDT is an organization that was created to protect and fight for all kinds of electronics rights. They strive to make people aware of issues that affect computer-users including free expression online, computer privacy, pending legislation and more. With the recent strikedown of the Communications Decency Act, this was a major source of news. Follow new trends in cyberights too by joining their mailing list. There are always headlines on major stories, follow ups on past stories, news from congress and lawsuits affecting computer users. Don't miss the very effective privacy demonstration.
Overall Rating: 15
Impact Online
URL: http://www.impactonline.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Want to volunteer? Want to make an impact? Start by looking for organizations, people and information here at Impact Online, a clearinghouse for groups that strive to make a difference. You can browse the site or search for topics that interest you. There are groups dealing with political, environmental, education, health issues and more. In addition, you will soon be able to purchase goods from "socially responsible businesses". If you search by person you can see short profiles of people who have registered. Organizations can also register here and be listed.
Overall Rating: 18
Clinton/Gore 96
URL: http://www.cg96.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Presidential politics and propaganda, Web-style! This is the official site of the Campaign for the Reelection of the President, and it's replete with all kinds of information on the campaign. There are nifty graphics: a scrolling news window, a slide show, a big picture of old glory flying proud, and some downloadable pictures and movies. The color scheme here is red, white, and blue all over. There's a campaign volunteer of the week (picture and bio included ) and downloadable images you can include in your own home page (buttons, pictures, etc.) The most plentiful items are the mounds of press releases -- get ready to read all the best news about this fine nation of ours and guess who takes credit for it? Our man, Clinton. You can get state-by-state rundowns on how Clinton made your home state great, but it all boils down to roughly the same info spiel. As handsome as this site is, it's the kind of thing that makes you yearn for the days before TV and computers.
Overall Rating: 18
The Girl Scouting Resource Center
URL: http://www.cais.net/cwelch/gsrc/index.htm
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The Girl Scouts are working with a pretty drab palette at this page, which is default gray throughout. But they've implemented Frames, darn it all, so that's a start. For anyone involved in scouting of the girlish variety, this online forum is sure to be a fine resource, filled as it is with ideas on perfectly useless crafts and diversions, like covered pencils and SWAPS, which acronym I'm informed stands for Special Whatamacallits Affectionately Pinned Somewhere (?!?). There are also mailing lists, "chat boards," and some solid tips on pushing those cookies.
Overall Rating: 15
The Magical World of Fisher-Price Toys
URL: http://www2.best.com/~elusive/fisher_price/index.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
You're probably thinking, "this is a site for kids." Well, not so fast. While kids may have an interest, this is primarily a site for collectors. Seems that some of us took our toys more seriously than others. Who knew? Of course, now you may be thinking it would fit better in the 'bizarre' category. Well, don't think I didn't consider it. But wait til you see this site: the obvious devotion and simple sincerity at work in these pages, not to mention the elegant presentation of the subject simply precluded such a slight. No matter what, whether you're a serious collector or just an idle browser in search of the next curiosity, go here; you won't be sorry. This is Web design at it's unpretentious best.
Overall Rating: 18
Unofficial Ralph Nader for President
URL: http://www.rahul.net/cameron/nader/
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
Although he stands something like a snowball's chance in hell of being elected president, Ralph Nader -- the longtime consumer activist and public gadfly -- is the official candidate of the underdog Green Party (http://www.greens.org/). There is some question as to whether Mr. Nader supports the party's platform, but then Mr. Dole says he hasn't even looked at the Republican version. You can, however, read *The Concord Principles*, Nader's own credo here and access interviews with the man. If you like what you hear, the creator's of the site ask you to cast your vote in the 3rd Party Central Ballot Box at (http://www.math.princeton.edu/~tpbarber/3pc/vote/). When I looked, Harry Browne, the Libertarian candidate (http://www.HarryBrowne96.org/), led the "independents," with Nader running second.
Overall Rating: 16
Career Toolbox
URL: http://www.careertoolbox.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A page from scotch distillers, Chivas Regal, this is another prime example of corporations having to give Web surfers to point the browser their way. In this case the target group is young go-getters bounding up the corporate ladder. No surprise, then, that I couldn't relate to it. Not only am I uninterested in the notion of "getting ahead" and "success" as Chivas Regal defines it, but I can't stand scotch. Still, they've gone to a lot of trouble to put this together, the career and finance tips cleverly presented in interactive scenarios that give the whole exercise the feel of a game. It's an effective approach, especially in the Test Your Smarts segment. There's an impressive amount of information here, as well as a potentially worthwhile CD-ROM offer and an online Tool of the Day. While none of it is earth-shattering, it is free, and unless you purposefully connect to Chivas's home page (chivas.com), remarkably free of ad material.
Overall Rating: 18
INTERNET ADDRESS FINDER
URL: http://www.555-1212.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Redundant, redundant, redundant. How many such directories must there be? Yahoo! lists more than 35 of these so far. They're spreading like kudzu. What somebody ought to do is make a page like Savvy Search that presents a user with one or two text entry fields and then searches all of these directories in one fell swoop. This site is great, but so are many of the others and each of them includes millions of entries. If their massive databases are virtually identical and their search results are virtually identical, why do we need so damn many of these things?
Overall Rating: 18
LISTING LINK
URL: http://www.listinglink.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Although parts of this site remain under construction, as a whole it looks very promising. Listing Link offers real estate listings and photos from all over and for pretty much every type of property, whether residential or commercial, industrial or farmland. Hoping to find commercial office space in Walla Walla or a grassy knoll in Dallas? Interested in contacting every real estate agent in your cousin Melvin's area code? Want to get one mortgage each from every bank with an Internet presence? If you want to know something about real estate, start here. You could do worse.
Overall Rating: 17
NAME BASE BOOK INDEX
URL: http://www.pir.org/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Oh, what conspiracy theorists wouldn't give for a cross-referenced database of people and countries involved with real and imagined 20th century intrigue. Here at last is the site of their dreams. Information in the database is culled from hundreds of investigative books and countless periodicals published over the last 34 years. Returned search results come in a modified bibliographic form. William Casey=556 citations and James Carville=14. Also features book reviews and annotations in 20 broad categories.
Overall Rating: 15
THE WEATHER RESOURCE
URL: http://www.buffnet.net/~glf/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
It's all here: Precipitation, humidity, wind-chill factor, barometric pressure, the tides, sunrise, sunset, full frontal nudity. It's an emotional roller coaster, with thrills, chills and spills. You'll laugh. You'll cry. It's the feel-good website of the year. It was great. I liked it even better than "Cats." But come on. Cloud cover in Australasia? Not Australia, mind you, but Australasia. Apparently someone, somewhere cares. Yeah, it's comprehensive and well organized and it all works. For what it is, it's great. If you need it, the Weather Resource will be there for you, and you're welcome to it.
Overall Rating: 18
The Quotations Page
URL: http://www.starlingtech.com/quotes/index.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This is a great page, automatic bookmark. In fact, I like it so much I set the Random Quotations page as my browser's home. Every time I open a browser window, I get three or four new ones, from any one of several collections, including a database of longish Dave Barry outtakes; Ambrose Bierce's classic, *The Devil's Dictionary*, the best of deadpan comic, Steven Wright; and the excellent compendium assembled by the site creator, Michael Moncur. You can search any of the collections by keyword. Still can't find that one *bon mot* you've been looking for? The page also links to other quotation resources. As Wright says, "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"
Overall Rating: 17
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
URL: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Considering buying a new car? Safety factors a major consideration? This well-designed presence of the NHTSA, home of those hardworking, cheerful crash test dummies, offers visitors a complete rundown on safety features, crash test ratings, theft ratings, recall information and compliance reports. It's a deep resource, well-laid out, and thorough. If there is a problem it has to do with documentation. As is too often the case with such info, it is a little difficult to understand the significance of the information you've accessed. The site always concerns itself primarily with newer cars. Nevertheless, this is a fine resource.
Overall Rating: 18
Explorations
URL: http://www.tc.cornell.edu/er96/science96/Explorations/
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The Cornell Theory Center's online science book Explorations is intended as an interactive journey into the world of computational research. Studies range in scale from the cosmic to the subatomic. One project uses animated VRML files to map the pressures affecting certain American ecosystems, and encourages policy makers and the public to join biologists in learning from and acting on the data. The goal of this ongoing project is to "make a meaningful linkage between identifying ground-level phenomena and tracking their behaviors from space" so as "to monitor large-scale environmental changes in the future." A scientifically innovative and rewarding site.
Overall Rating: 18
World Conservation Monitoring Centre
URL: http://www.wcmc.org.uk/
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
WCMC provides information services on conservation efforts and the value of biodiversity, while helping others build their own info-management systems. Parts of its database can be accessed including lists of threatened animals and protected parks, and a publications catalogue. A scrollable menu prompts you to search a nation, revealing, for example, that Pakistan's snow leopard remains an endangered species. Furthermore, during "environmental emergencies", such as major fires or oil spills, this site has provided environmental information rapidly to support the efforts of ground operations. Simply excellent.
Overall Rating: 17
The Nine Planets http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/nineplanets.html This site consists of about 60 pages, one for each major body in the Solar System. A photo of each object appears in its page along with facts and links to related images elsewhere on the 'net. Meditate upon the Olympus Mons or map "the face" on Mars. The beauty of these pages lies in their depth and humour, and the wild amount of links to stunning photographs and detailed facts that will thrill a wide range of viewers. For especially harried cybernauts, webmaster Bill Arnett has even hyperlinked an "express tour" of the solar system. Aesthetics: 3 Content: 3 Smarts: 2
URL: http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/nineplanets.html
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This site consists of about 60 pages, one for each major body in the Solar System. A photo of each object appears in its page along with facts and links to related images elsewhere on the Internet. Meditate upon the Olympus Mons or map "the face" on Mars. The beauty of these pages lies in their depth and humour, and the wild amount of links to stunning photographs and detailed facts that will thrill a wide range of viewers. For especially harried cybernauts, webmaster Bill Arnett has even hyperlinked an "express tour" of the solar system.
Overall Rating: 17
Franklin Institute Science Museum
URL: http://sln.fi.edu/
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Powerful and focused design makes this enormous site a complimentary extension of the Philadelphia museum. Among the exhibits presently open, a fiercely pumping java applet draws visitors into an exploration of the human heart that features crosslinked pages about circulation, the history of cardiology, and health. From there you can wander into a showing of the Hubble Deep Field photographs, which purport to capture light from the edge of the universe. One can also link to the Philadelphia Enquirer or post a query for the institute's scientists. The forthcoming search engine should greatly enhance future visits.
Overall Rating: 18
Alternative Energy Engineering http://www.asis.com/aee/ AEE provides serious information on how you can make your own electricity from solar, wind or water power. Its online catalogue and design guide covers 120 pages of design information and equipment for making electricity for homes, RVs and boats, as well as everything ranging from solar fans and coolers, to pumps, and hi-efficiency refrigerators. A well-illustrated introduction show you how solar light hitting photovoltaic cells yields energy to power electrical devices. Bookmark this site if you've got (or require) the energy to hack the system. Aesthetics: 2 Content: 3 Smarts: 2
URL: http://www.asis.com/aee/
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
AEE provides serious information on how you can make your own electricity from solar, wind or water power. Its online catalogue and design guide covers 120 pages of design information and equipment for making electricity for homes, RVs and boats, as well as everything ranging from solar fans and coolers, to pumps, and hi-efficiency refrigerators. A well-illustrated introduction shows how photovoltaic cells turn light energy into electricity. Bookmark this site if you've got (or require) the energy to hack the system.
Overall Rating: 16
Centre for Visual Sciences
URL: http://cvs.anu.edu.au/CVS.html
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Research in Visual Sciences seeks to achieve a better understanding of how the image captured by an eye is analysed by the visual system to produce a useful percept of the world. This is where scientists of the University of Australia upload their results. Studies on motion recognition and the navigational technique of insects are slowly coming online. If you've got time to kill, you might want to view the Single Image Stereograms, pictures that would have you screw up your eyes in hopes of revealing an encrypted image. Also available are images corresponding to the sight of a honey bee.
Overall Rating: 15
Alaska Volcano Observatory Observatory http://www.avo.alaska.edu/ Science 1196 7/10/96 2 2 2 A collaborative project from the United States Geological Survey, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, the Alaska Volcano Observatory is a window onto some 40 active volcanoes in the 49th state. Text, maps and satellite images are online for study but most exciting are the weekly updates measuring seismic activity. If you live near any of those volcanoes, this information is probably more than just a fun thing to glance at--when the update shows a "Red" concern color code, you're advised to get the hell out of the way. David Pescovitz
URL: http://www.avo.alaska.edu/
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
A collaborative project from the United States Geological Survey, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, the Alaska Volcano Observatory is a window onto some 40 active volcanoes in the 49th state. Text, maps and satellite images are online for study but most exciting are the weekly updates measuring seismic activity. If you live near any of those volcanoes, this information is probably more than just a fun thing to glance at--when the update shows a "Red" concern color code, you're advised to get the hell out.
Overall Rating: 16
The Crest Guide
URL: http://solstice.crest.org/online/aeguide/index.html
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Crest is the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology, and their site is a comprehensive guide to sustainable energy resources on the Internet. As expendable resources--like oil--are being depleted, solar, biomass, wind, and hydropower will become our power source. Rather than waiting until the Energizer Bunny winds to a halt, you may as well learn about the progress in these areas right now. Let's face it, solar energy didn't go out of style with Jimmy Carter and mirrored sunglasses. Tomorrow, it may provide the juice for your computer.
Overall Rating: 16
webreference.com
URL: http://www.webreference.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Webreference, sponsored by Athenia Associates, is a must-see (and required bookmark) for web developers, programmers, writers, enthusiasts, and anyone else creating content for the web. "Developer's Corner" is one-stop shopping for tips on programming with HTML, optimizing graphics, frames, GIF animation, VRML, image maps, Java, etc. "Web Headlines" makes excellent use of frames to allow users to search a number of Internet news sites for information about specific topics or general browsing. Feature articles on programming in Java and HTML 3.0, as well as less technical issues such as "What Makes a Great Web Site," are insightful and thought-provoking.
Overall Rating: 18
Anonymous Surfing
URL: http://www.anonymizer.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Worried that Big Brother is watching you? Surfing to naughty sites you'd rather not be connected with? The Anonymizer will allay your fears by allowing you to surf anonymously; in the simplest terms, it works as a proxy, The Anonymizer acting as a liaison, whereby all documents go through a "middleman" server before making their way to you. Don't understand all the fuss? Check out the sobering demonstration in Snoop which instantly pinpoints the type of computer you have, the browser you are using, the location of your service provider, and the last site you visited.
Overall Rating: 17
The Bandwidth Conservation Society
URL: http://www.infohiway.com/faster/index.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Bandwidth Conservation Society is committed to reducing bandwidth requirements across the Internet. BCS' website is well-presented and graphically pleasing. It only does one thing, and does it well. The writing is tailored to a range of experience levels: it's not too technical but treats the subject with considerable depth, providing good illustrations of how to, say, reduce GIF sizes. This is a good place to spend some time if you're thinking of putting up a site, or haven't yet streamlined your existing page.
Overall Rating: 18
Easy-Submit
URL: http://www.vault.pair.com/easy-submit.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
This is the best site I've seen for submitting your URL. It's free, it's easy, and that ain't bad. In a nutshell, this site uses frames to let you go back and forth quickly to dozens of search engines, newsgroups and award pages. If you have your information ready to copy and paste (the URL, a description of your site in 30 words or less, and an e-mail address) then go here. You'll save a lot of time, and won't have to pay someone to do it for you.
Overall Rating: 18
Cable Modem
URL: http://members.aol.com/aakamine/cablemodem/index.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The true story of a guy and his high speed cable modem, the site describes one person's experience with the installation, use and maintenance of a high speed cable modem. Site features include friendly, accessible graphics, simple descriptions of hardware and software set-up, and illustrative comparisons (a shareware demo of Quake that takes 40 minutes to download with a 28,800 modem takes 2.5 minutes to download with the cable modem). Sounds intriguing, and if your cable company has the capability (not many do yet) it's worth checking into before purchasing your next modem.
Overall Rating: 17
Internet Shopping Network
URL: http://www.internet.net
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
From the creators of TV's Home Shopping Network comes ISN which sells computer software and hardware. They boast over 35,000 computer products and offer free membership to all. They have weekly specials, contests, and secure shopping with Netscape or Microsoft's IE. The search option comes in handy, allowing you to search by product name or manufacturer. It even tells you when something is out of stock. All that's missing are those unctious HSN hosts hawking their wares.
Overall Rating: 18
The Cookie Connection
URL: http://www.soupweb.com/cookie/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
The Cookie Connection's logo, a scary evil faced clown, greets when you enter. It also appears as the not-so-subtle background picture. Founder Paul Goeltz says "It's fun. It's a real high. I'm really into what I do." "Come again?" The story is this: Paul, a Dead-head, wanted to sell something at Grateful Dead concerts. synapse fires, light bulb goes on, and he decides to begin the Cookie Connection. It appears they sell "Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip-Raisin-Banana Cookies." Sounds like one big chockful o' taste cookie to me. Shipped Next Day, 2nd Day, or Regular Mail.
Overall Rating: 17
T-Line Design
URL: http://www.t-shirtoutlet.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
This site uses frames, cute animated buttons, very heavy graphics, and it requires Netscape. In fact my MS Internet Explorer couldn't handle the JavaScripts. They sell T-Shirts here (of 100% heavy pre-shrunk cotton) with themes like: Gags, Kimba, Blur, Satire, Americana Humor, Beer, and more. Their Reminder Service sends you email to remind you of special occasions -- like *Cinco de Mayo* or Bastille Day -- 8 days in advance. I have to remember to buy a Bob's Big Boy shirt for that friend of mine with a fondness for the fat little carnivore in the checkered overalls. What a great way to celebrate independence!
Overall Rating: 18
Virtual Vineyards
URL: http://www.virtualvin.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Virtual Vineyards has branched out. Besides selling wine, they have a food shop where they sell pasta condiments, coffee, tea, candy and more. If you're new to wine and don't know a Cabernet Sauvignon from a Gewurztraminer, take their tour. Then try their recommendations and samplers. Not only do they take American Express, but also Visa, MasterCard and Cybercash. You can join Peter's email list, (that's VV's founder Peter Granoff who is a renowned wine connoisseur) for the latest on wine. Overall, there is a positive vibe here, that doesn't insult the wine-ignorant while managing to cater to the wine aficionado.
Overall Rating: 18
CD Universe
URL: http://www.cduniverse.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Ho, hum. Yet another online music store. CD Universe (which also carries audio and VHS tapes) boasts 180,000 items representing all types of music. You can browse their catalog by musical genre, including categories for Bubblegum, Dub, Jit, Mento, and Mpb. Or look up your favorite band with their search function. If you cater to the popular, see the latest best-selling charts. One unfortunate fact: "All orders must be entered on line." They don't do fax, email, mail or even walk-in orders. A good feature: when looking at a band's discography you can click on "Roots & Similar" to see similar bands. Maybe one of them plays Mento. Maybe not so ho-hum after all.
Overall Rating: 17
Cyberian Outpost
URL: http://www.cybout.com/cyberian.html
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
I got so caught up checking for computer hardware and software specials that what I was trying to do; namely, review this site. What the Cyberian Outpost lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. The philosophy here is that they don't sell anything that they don't evaluate first. Before offering an item for sale, they provide their "own objective editorial information". Some of the in-depth information appears to have been lifted from press releases, though, so -- as always -- *caveat emptor*. There are screen shots, box shots, hardware requirements, and miscellaneous specs. The home page features a slew of specials (although the graphics make them look like banner ads) and links to other areas such as the Mac and PC versions of the store and the Kid's Store. You can check the status of your order as well. I didn't order anything, but the specials will keep me coming back.
Overall Rating: 18
Full-text state statutes and legislation
URL: http://www.prairienet.org/~scruffy/f.htm
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
Full-text State Statutes and Legislation on the Internet is a straight-forward site, listing the constitution and statutes of every state in the Union. This entire venture is put together by an individual who goes by the name of Scruffy. You can link to legislature-related sites or check out Scruffy's other offerings, like the Las Vegas Movie List, the "You Just Might Be From Springfield, Illinois If...." page, and the ever-popular Poodle Schnauzer Page. It's nice to see that someone so serious about state legislatures, has the good sense to link to The Virtual Pet Cemetery.
Overall Rating: 16
U.S. Census Bureau Subscription Service
URL: http://www.census.gov/prod/www/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Do the words U.S. Census Bureau make you want to yawn convulsively? Can't shake the image of some federally employed drone nosing around the neighborhood, asking you how many people live in your house? Well, you may have some surprises in store at the Bureau's CenStats Electronic Subscription Service site, of which a free preview is being offered for a limited time. Their A-Z index can get you information on everything from crops and developing world trends to genealogy, geographical mobility, and women-owned businesses. No information about joining up with the service, but this site is loaded with useful information and makes those piles of census statistics a lot more accessible and interesting.
Overall Rating: 16
Big Book
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-adv/bigbook/front.htm
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Are you looking for a resource that can locate any business in North America? Well Big Book by Washingtonpost.com might be the answer. Type in the name of the business or its category and odds are good that Big Book can track it down, even if you don't know the city or state. There's an address book feature, maps available for 16 million U.S. businesses, with a zoom feature, and plans for a 3D version in the works. Big Book also provides a handy Shortlist which offers select web sites for each search category: travel, health, computers, etc. With so many references of this sort popping up, it's difficult to say which one is the end-all, but Big Book is definitely in the running.
Overall Rating: 17
Journal Graphics
URL: http://www.charm.net/~kelsy/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Journal Graphics Online provides transcripts of just about every news program you can think of from CNN, PBS, ABC, or NPR, offers video tape of CNN broadcasts since August 13, 1995, and is currently building up a PBS video archive. They also offer a paid clipping service called Topic Alert, which can keep you up to date on news from all the major networks, as well as those already listed. The site lets you search alphabetically or by topic, and the inventory is truly impressive. Unfortunately, no prices are given for any of the transcripts, nor for the other services offered.
Overall Rating: 16
Editor and Publisher Interactive
URL: http://www.mediainfo.com/edpub/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Emily Soares
Editor and Publisher Interactive is a dream come true for anyone in the journalism game or anyone interested in any aspect of the publishing scene. The site combines an online version of Editor & Publisher , the print magazine, with links to a wide array of reference sites, accessed from a Research page that itself is worth the bookmark. You'll find home pages for newspaper companies, free news services, research facilities, press associations, wire services, major online services,.... If it has to do with news, it's here. Looking for an online newspaper? As of this writing the E&P Interactive Online Newspaper database comprises 1521 entries. The News Page features lead stories from the E & P print edition, and a summary of news items on information technology from Educom, a Washington, DC-based consortium of colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. If all of this sounds like too much info to be easily accessed, rest assured that Editor & Publisher Interactive is well-organized and logical, like good editors and publishers should be....but seldom are. For those not familiar with the print version of E & P, don't be intimidated by the name. This is not simply a professional journal; its articles are important reading for anyone interested in current political and media issues. A quick search of available articles offers up substantive pieces on the Freedom of Information Act, the slave trade in Sudan, and the how much the US government pays for secrecy. The site doesn't call itself "interactive" for nothing. In the E&P Interactive Forum readers are encouraged to respond to a topical article such as the one entitled, "Newspapers Must Save Their Own Lives." Enumerating the ways in which newspapers have lost touch with readers, Rolfe Neil, publisher of The Charlotte Observer , sets forth a nine-point plan. There's something oddly comforting in debating the fate of newsprint online, as if the death knell may not toll awhile yet. E & P Interactive, for all its attention to news gathering technology, still manages to convey images of hard-boiled, chain smoking reporters tapping away in shirt sleeves and loosened ties for a paper that represents a real city and not just a cyberplace. When you're surfing the Web, overwhelmed by the flood of news and information that seems to come magically, out of nowhere, it's easy to forget that there are individuals out there who still do the legwork to make sense of it all before it hits the page -- sorry, screen. E & P Interactive manages to provide an unparalleled resource for research, while presenting articles that remind of us the very real business of reporting and publishing, both online and off.
Overall Rating: 18
Voyager Company
URL: http://www.voyagerco.com
Category: Media
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Sure there are a lot of Pulp Fiction sites on the Web, but none that compare to this one. The slick, professional graphics seem to float up off the white background, like hovercrafts. The content is uncluttered and thorough, including speculation from various Internet users about the contents of the briefcase,Tarantino's influences, trivia from the movie that.... oh, wait a minute,... this is a review about the Voyager Company site; I got a little sidetracked in the Pulp Fiction section, he heh. Now then, Voyager's site is one of the paragons of good Web design, with a home page that's updated daily and content based on a plethora of projects in all kinds of media formats, from Interactive CD-ROM titles to laser disc and video collections, and ... well, Web design. Voyager's work reveals educated and eclectic tastes. A list of its projects reads like a roll call for the avant garde: with titles like Laurie Anderson's Green Room , Art Spiegelman's Maus , and the digital version of inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal's Live from Death Row, Voyager keeps CD-ROMs from becoming passe. Movie buffs should know about Voyager's Criterion Collection, a compendium of classic and contermporary films on laser disc. Even if you don't have a player the site is worth browsing for its considerable content, with excellent pages devoted to each director in the series. To its credit, Voyager also hosts projects that don't have anything to do with selling products. Consider the Guerrilla Girls site, devoted to a group of feminist artists with a biting sense of satire. A poster they produced for the 1992 Republican convention bore the heading "Republicans do believe in a women's right to control her own body!" underscored with images of nose jobs, liposuction, and breat implants. Clearly, this is a company which isn't afraid to offend. Also hosted by Voyager are two eminent literary journals, The Paris Review and Grand Street.. Here you'll find exceptional poetry, fiction, and interviews, not to mention more Tarantino (with Dennis Hopper,Grand Street, August `96). The online issue only publishes excerpts from the print version, but it's still a great source of free content. Also be sure to check in for a preview of Narrative Corpse, an experimental, comix-style "chain story by 69 artists," the results of which are positively weird, if not exactly exquisite. In the end, this company is involved in things too numerous to mention. But one thing for sure: The Voyager imprint is a reliable mark of quality content and design.
Overall Rating: 17
Mr. Nefff's Mambo Karaoke Steakhouse
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~zoetek/mambo_karaoke/entrance.html
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
You want alternative? I'll give you alternative. Step into the totally whacked out world of Mr. Arthur Nefff (three f's mandatory), a home page so strange that "strange" isn't the word. Erstwhile front man for the Midwestern musical sensation, The Pachinko Playboys, Nefff specializes in a hybridized musical form featuring Latin rhythms with an Eastern twang -- way East, that is, like Tokyo. It's a bizarre commingling; East meets West with surprising results. OK, now, don't think I'm not hep to the obvious parody, Nefff's fictitious album covers and bogus band history. But while The Pachinko Playboys Record Museum may be nothing more than a stupendous gag, ("By 1969, we had lost our way," writes Nefff, "breaking up during the recording of the unreleased 'Let It Be Bop,' which had few, if any, Oriental influences, unless you count the feedback free jazz sitar solo.") the site is not entirely a joke. Click on "Japanese Mambo Jukebox" to see what I mean. The bands on this page are for real, honest-to-goodness Japanese mambo ensembles. Download songs from acts with names like *Frank Chickens* and *Shang Shang Typhoon* for a taste of this new genre. I don't know about you, pardner, but I kinda like it. Fans of the style (are there any out there?) should follow the link to the excellent *Pizzicato Five* fan page (http://www.clark.net/pub/fan/pizz.html), not to mention the pages, official and otherwise, of various other big name lounge acts: Esquivel being perhaps the best known. As for Mr. Nefff, he's an oddball -- a *hen no gaizin*, as they like to say in Nippon -- with an ... ahem ... unique sense of humor. His only real musical sampling on the site is an atonal interpretation of an old pop culture standard. "Zestfully clean, Zestfully clean," he croons spastically, "you're not fully clean unless you're Zestfully clean." Now if that's not alternative, I don't know what is.
Overall Rating: 18
without, unfortunately providing links to comprehensive news sites, so that women can catch up on the larger picture while they're at it. And, although the "Go Vote 1996" tag links to Lifetime's Election page, a substantive discussion of how election issues effect women is missing. Moving on to category number two, Style gives an indication of where the site's creators are coming from. A debate over whether or not blondes have more fun is about as hackneyed as it gets, and the links to fashion houses comprise the rest of the offerings. Other sections present themselves more effectively. There are useful features in the Work section that profile professional women and rank 100 of the best companies for working mothers, based on pay rates, promotion and childcare practices. But the consumer information available seems overshadowed by a lurking corporate presence, as in the Leasing v. Financing comparison, brought to you by Ford. The Body area deals with health and fitness, offering some unbiased, information, unaffiliated with any products and brought to you by the National Women's Health Resource Center. Check out the Cash page for some decent investment advice, with tips on how to store away funds for the house, vacation, or grad school you've been dreaming about. In the Women's Wire Web area, there are some very sound articles about breaking into writing for TV, how to become a webmistress, multimedia producer, environmentalist, etc. And last of all, an obligatory shopping link. I can't decide if I'm put off by this inclusion. Consumerism is not a gender-based thing, but do men's sites link to shopping pages? Probably. Ultimately, everyone is looking for something special in gender or ethnic-specific sites, and no, you can't please everyone. I was just a little disappointed to see many the standard "women's magazine" model trotted out as if there were no alternative. The Who We Are section lacks an editorial statement, a conspicuous omission in a such a subject-specific publication.
Overall Rating: 18
The Why Files
URL: http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
A site co-sponsored by the The National Institute for Science Education and The National Science Foundation, The Why Files is a great idea, expertly executed and perfect for a science ignoramus like myself. Based on the simple notion of explaining the science behind the news, The Why Files integrates the much dreaded topic into the day's events, thereby making science matters matter. (Educators take note). Can't understand all this noise about mad English cows? Wondering about the reliability of all those dad-blamed political polls? Lost in the debate on The Endangered Species Act? All these issues and more have been profiled (and archived) at the site, each one given a straightforward treatment, while neither oversimplifying nor pretending to have all the answers. Indeed, most of the stories take pains to proffer contrarian viewpoints and link to other relevant sites on the Web. Each story also contains a bibliography. The pages are well-illustrated and easy to navigate. Difficult words are hotlinked to glossary definitions, and pages are numbered so you can jump around within the stories. Other jumping off points are the Sports and Cool Science Image segments. In the Sports section, you can quiz yourself on basic scientific principals as expressed in terms of sports. Not as compelling as the rest of the site, the questions are also geared a little lower. In Cool Science Image, you click on intriguing photos to explore the subject further. Visitors are encouraged to send in their ideas and photos for new installments in either section. Far and away, though, the best part of the site are the stories, which may be accessed via e-mail as well. Check for new stories weekly or subscribe to the mailing list at: majordomo@whyfiles.news.wisc.edu. It'll help you make sense of the headlines.
Overall Rating: 18
pHil's Spread
URL: http://www.ldd.net/scribers/steuart/spread.htm
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
"The minivan pulls forward and down the street, away from the HERD OF AARDVARKS." So goes one line, selected at random, from a "dreamplay" by Phil Rittenhouse, called "Freud was once a Jung man". It's just one small element of this clever-crazy online creation known as pHil's Spread. Another section on semiotics (whaaa?) and communications theory (eeeh?) begins with a header that reads, "entropy, while cool, should still be left 2 a minimum," before pushing you along to the deep stuff. Phil's got an artist's eye for layout, so the site is not only funny but great to look at as well. Don't miss his hilarious journal, especially the transcript of his daughter's (fictitious?) conversation with a bug (June 30th). There's more stuff here than I care to list, but trust me: S'all good. Meanwhile, back to the story: "The minivan from earlier roars by overhead, crunching the aardvarks beneath its tires..."
Overall Rating: 18
Being There
URL: http://www/valpro.com/cgibin/var/valpro/bethere
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Now, from the drudgery of your desk job, you can visit Gary Valle's site, where the experienced hiker, mountaineer, and traveler has gathered some of his most spectacular photographs for you to ogle at. The photos are all beautiful, the kind that make you jealous and long for a vacation, but they aren't the only attraction at this great site. Most shots are accompanied by notes, sometimes providing context, sometimes a geographical aside, and often random musings on the landscape. Valle's writing, as you might expect, is very down-to-earth, hip to the pleasures of traveling, and seeing nature at its best. He wants you to get out there yourself, to prod you into getting up and going outside. It works; but until you save up enough money to take time off, follow Gary Valle's site and live vicariously, Walter Mitty-style.
Overall Rating: 17
La Jolla Surfing
URL: http://facs.scripps.edu/surf/surfing.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
If you believe the stereotypes, you can't imagine a bunch of surfers could put together such a good site. This one is on the money, balancing an impressive amount of tech-savvy with old-fashioned, informative writing. There're digital satellite weather maps and wave sensors, so you can check conditions at your favorite beach before you go. There's also a generous amount of how-to stuff, along with equipment and multimedia reviews. Most impressive perhaps was the Respect the Beach Project, a sort of environmental initiative to protect the surfer's playground. The only drawback is the limited California focus (with brief forays south to Baja, Costa Rica, and the like); every region should have a page this good.
Overall Rating: 17
Climbing On-line
URL: http://www.climbing.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Once the pastime of a handful of reckless adventurers, climbing has gone mainstream. With climbing walls in most metropolitan areas and trips to Everest for sale to any weekend warrior with enough cash, the sport's practitioners are equal parts nature-lover and yuppie. Climbing magazine has been there since 1970, trying to keep up with changing circumstances and shifting audiences, while maintaining their ties to the purity of the sport. The site demonstrates a smooth transition. Classy, informative, and with a great respect both for their readers and the mountain experience, this is the site for climbing on the Web.
Overall Rating: 17
RedSox.Com
URL: http://www.redsox.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
This site has got everything you'd expect a major league site to have, including box scores, player bios, and game updates after every pitch. Then there's the extras: a photo tour of Fenway, a video game, and profiles of the club's legendarily loyal fans. You really get the sense that this team has a special relationship with its city, something to be appreciated in this day and age. Red Sox history is all about nostalgia -- the epic seasons, the famous runs, the heroic players -- but this site projects a confidence that the greatest days are still to come. The perpetual pennant race, the decades spent pursuing the World Championship, it all makes for a very interesting baseball history.
Overall Rating: 18
Boycott Major League Baseball!
URL: http://www.cybergate.com/~morris/nomlb.htm
Category: Sports
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
An impassioned plea by a disgruntled ex-fan to bring down the system that has perverted America's game. In well-written and well-reasoned prose, the author slams the greedy owners, the spoiled players, and exposes the callous disregard both have shown fans of MLB. He campaigns hard for college and minor league teams as the real embodiment of sport for its own sake, rather than a showcase for the prima donnas who run in the majors. What can I say? I love this site; every single venom-spittin', slap-in-the-face, grudge-holdin', Marge Schott-dissin', Albert Belle-hatin', run-around-the-bases-till-you're-dizzy-and-puke sentence in this site is just perfect.
Overall Rating: 15
InterMat
URL: http://www.intermatwrestle.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
InterMat is trying to turn the sports Web site into a profit-making venture. They may just have the formula right. InterMat offers plenty for the browser/customer to look at, including state by state amateur round-ups, upcomng events, profiles, and job classifieds. But it seemed like every other page had an ad; whether it was selling shoes (cheap!) or home wrestling equipment, Intermat has all the bases covered. Updated regularly, almost daily in fact, Intermat is likely to catch the eye of amateur coaches around the country, looking for prospects, looking for work, buying equipment. Wow, someone may actually be making money from the Internet!
Overall Rating: 17
Mo Hotta Mo Betta
URL: http://www.mohotta.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Two dissimilar antidotes to the modern malaise have gained popularity in recent years: cigars and hot sauce. The cigar resurgence has been fueled in large part by celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Madonna, and Michael Richards, (Seinfeld's Kramer), and taken up by a post-yupster generation hell-bent on enjoying the finer things even when they can't afford them. The (slightly narcotic) effect of a good cheroot on an existence made bland by the constraints of modern society, is to make that existence even blander, to dull and soothe like a painkiller. By contrast, hot sauces, which are all the rage in the specialty gourmet market, are the accouterment of those who seek to restore some edge to their lives. Face it: Just because your life has lost its piquancy, doesn't mean your food has to. Featuring products with intimidating names like Dave's Insanity Sauce, Pure Hell, and Endorphin Rush, the Mo Hotta Mo Betta company sells condiments that are sure to rekindle the fire in your belly. The sauces are made by small companies all over the world, and can be ordered from Mo Hotta via mail, e-mail, and telephone. Though the small operation has had a paper catalog since 1988, its Web site, designed by Studio G (http://www.etropolis.com/studiog/index.html) has really garnered it some attention. Sporting a look like something from Crayola, the somewhat crude, yet engaging artwork is consistent throughout. There are no photographs at all, in fact; even the product pictures are drawings. The content of the site is ample and well-integrated. The splash page gives visitors an option between the text and graphic versions, while the index breaks everything down into four simple subject areas: the catalog, an "About the Company," recipes, and a contest. The catalog is, of course, the most extensive part of the site. Each sauce has a humorous description that reads like the items in the J. Peterman catalog, only a little more whacked. The recipe section has a good many ideas for cooking with the sauces that Mo Betta sells, even including recipes for desserts and beverages. A Bloody Mary sounds good, but a spicy hot Peach Pie? The contest section features games of the "guess how many gumballs in the jar" variety, with prizes that would make any hot food aficionado slather. How's about four pounds of Red Savino Chilies, eh? One a day would keep life interesting.
Overall Rating: 18
Web Surfer Travel Journal
URL: http://edge.edge.net/~dphillip/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This densely packed and well-linked zine combines just about every travel resource you can think of with interviews and some darn good writing. Dan Phillip, editor/publisher, is a twenty-year exotic travel veteran with lots of good stories of his own. He's collected a slew of travelogues and tales from other wanderers, useful travel guides (check out Lonely Planet), maps, exploration outfits, and travel magazines. The Web Surfer Travel Journal is a dangerous place for those of us with itchy feet; if you haven't been bitten by the bug before you visit, you're sure catch it while you're here.
Overall Rating: 16
Vagabond Monthly
URL: http://www2.globaldialog.com/~tpatmaho/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
If you're in the market for some great travel stories, tales of the tortured and amused, head for Vagabond Monthly. There you'll be entertained by confessions of urban campers, spiritual quests to Bakersfield, monkey's caught in trees in Barbados, and an ode to Greyhound. Written with good humor throughout, Vagabond Monthly revels in the tragicomedy of travel. Even the letters page is a good read. Links to a site called Flifo, a great resource for low airfares. If you've got a travel story to tell, this is the place; otherwise, sit back and enjoy these strange but true yarns from the road.
Overall Rating: 16
MCW International Travelers Clinic
URL: http://www.intmed.mcw.edu/travel.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
The MCW International Travelers Clinic is a bankload of information, providing links to all manner of international health organizations and bulletins: U.S. State Dept. travel warnings, W.H.O. info, and even the C.I.A World Factbook. When you're dealing with the down and dirty of your life in a foreign locale, you may just need answers to questions like: Where can I turn if I get beriberi? Links like resources to The Moon Travel Handbook couold help you stay healthy in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and Travel Health Online provides country profiles and locates travel medicine providers. A great resource for travelers and health curious stay-at-homes alike.
Overall Rating: 15
Paris Anglophone
URL: http://paris-anglo.com/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Are you Parisian and homesick? Or an American Francophile? Either way, you're sure to enjoy yourself on the Paris-Anglophone. Here you'll find complete and nicely arrayed listings for everything you'd want to do, see, or know about the "City of Lights." Whether your interest is business, pleasure, or a combination of the two, you'll want to check out cafe listings, classifieds, and Paris-Zoom, an interactive photographic journey through the city. Search the Paris-Anglophone directory with 4200 listings for English-speaking Paris, convert e-mail into French, or see an art exhibit. Come to think of it, I had more fun, met friendlier people, and spent much less cash on the Anglophone than on my last visit to Paris....
Overall Rating: 18
Roam
URL: http://www.roam.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
An online travel zine, Roam is a great resource for intrepid wayfarers who like to travel on the rough, and hear tales from those doing the same. You can read daily travelogues from Roam writers who've gone forth to cover all manner of locales. Hear from a twosome who cruised the French Riviera sleeping in their car, another pair touring a Slovenian squat, or get the scoop from Pamplona on the Running of the Bulls. Roam can also help you locate a friend or item you might've lost on your journey and put you in touch with others who are going your way.
Overall Rating: 17
GNN Travel Center
URL: http://bin-1.gnn.com/gnn/meta/travel/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
Real travel, ideally, is more footloose and shambling than tourism. Travel is humbler in means, tourism an extravagance. Tourists tick off sights like chores on a "to do" list -- now the Coliseum, now the Piazza San Marco; been there, done that. Travelers, by contrast, wake to consider the map over coffee. Where to today? South, across the border, or east to the mountains? Maybe nowhere; after all, you just got there. Maybe you'll make a day of chatting up the locals, shopping for gew gaws and gri gris...or doing f@#$ all, if it suits you. At the risk of alienating both camps, GNN's Travel Center seems to straddle the distinction. Content is everything on these pages. The table of contents is almost entirely void of graphics, the pages almost invariably white. There's no shortage of images, however -- Alison Wright's photo essay on Tibet is excellent, as is Linda Connor's Labyrinth -- but these reside in deeper territory, and there's no overall design to unify the features or compel you to go there. But do go. It's a minor shortcoming, more than compensated for by the quality of the writing, interviews, and resource information at the site. You'd be hard-pressed, for example, to find better travel writing than the prominently featured essays by renowned Welsh author, Jan Morris. Morris's pieces and the lengthy interview with writer/naturalist, Peter Mattheissen, should be enough to lure any armchair traveler out of the Barcalounger. The lesser known writers are also worth reading; if they're not exactly household names, neither are they rank amateurs. The editor's notes operate, loosely, as an index to a variety of travel-specific websites, with links and commentary organized under an array of themes ranging from online mapping services to electronic site guides. It's a required bookmark for the inveterate traveler, keen on exploring. A feature which nudges the project closer to the more mannered, upscale journals like *Conde Nast*, is the rather large section devoted to food and wine. . While the writing in the section is good, (Bob Thompson's notes on everything from Chilean Reds to shi shi Champagnes had a refreshing knack for cutting to the chase) the material seemed out of place and a little frivolous. Culinary angles on subjects like the Chinese diaspora helped bring the subject back into the fold, but, even then... My gripes aside, the Travel Center is a great thing, a worthy addition to any travelers' bookmark list. Hopefully, the site will evolve into a showcase for the best travel writing and resources on the Web, and resist the impulse to become merely the online equivalent of the Sunday travel section.
Overall Rating: 18
Tokyo Rockin'
URL: http://rd-gk.ntv.co.jp/tko.rockin/
Category: Zines
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Japanese pop culture has lately enjoyed a wave of popularity in the American underground. With Hello Kitty characters accessorizing the young hipsters, Manga racks beginning to dominate comic book stores, and more and more slickies paying lip service to Anime, the trendsetters appear to be residing in Tokyo. To rise above the tired crowds, then, with their shallow, cliched references, the true hipster needs to dig just a little deeper. That individual at the art reception who can posit, knowingly, "You've just got to hear the music of Demi Semi Quaver. Emi-san's voice is ethereal," will surely stay out in front of the competition. But getting the inside track on what's hip-happenin' on the Japanese pop scene has never been easy. Fortunately for you, Tokyo Rockin', a Japanese e-zine that publishes interviews with artists and musicians from the native avant garde, has an English language version on the Web. Not just any English, mind you: This is English a la *Nihongo*, a beautifully offbeat patois born of bad translations and cross-cultural confusion. Consider the rap issue, featuring Japanese hip-hoppers Shakka Zombie and King Giddra. "King Giddra came from Venus," says the rapper of his namesake. "He is a space monster. Light beams come out from his mouth, but in this case it is our words that come out. It is aiming peoples brain. It comes after listening to our songs sensuously. We want to break every persons mind." Isn't it great to see that Japan is still captive to the monster fetish? The far-out graphics and weird text are well-integrated at Tokyo Rockin', each interview accompanied by a generous amount of artwork, including photo layouts of interviewees, sound bytes, and movie clips. Navigating the site takes a bit of work, however, since the first page doesn't give many clues as to the scheme of things. Just remember, unless you read Japanese and have the corresponding language kit on your system, don't take the Domestic route: You're an Alien. Also, keep in mind that the cover page graphics are generally enormous; Tokyo Rockin' is nothing if not high-bandwidth. If you want a listing of all the Tokyo Rockin' issues, head for the Super Index. Perhaps the most endearing thing about Tokyo Rockin' is the name of the creative team that launched it. The Space Travolta Crew (dig the logo), a group of graphic designers and writers, also produces a wild multimedia show for Japanese television called Neo Hyper Kids. Only in Japan. Go go, Godzilla.
Overall Rating: 18
Webmonkey
URL: http://www.webmonkey.com
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Heidi Swanson
Introducing Webmonkey, another signature HotWired venture put together by 14 hip, young South of Market-eers. Webmonkey tempts all you strung out HTML junkies with all the latest fixes to amp up your websites and home pages. With something like the weekend garage mechanic approach, Webmonkey delivers nuts and bolts in the form of straightforward how-tos. That is, if you can make it past through the Java-enhanced front page. I crashed twice from work, once from home. Which makes me wonder why Jeffery Veen (Webmaster monkey, columnist, and HotWired Interface Director) integrated a relatively hefty Java applet on the front page while, in his column, voicing apprehensions about whether or not Netscape Navigator 3.0 will be a stable Java Client. Given the choice between hip technology or functional technology ...well, the HotWired gang is known for screaming mach 5 down the hipster highway. Putting design issues aside, this is prime real estate for bookmarking. These columns have saved me hours of nail-biting, head-scratching, and wading through swamps of HTML, shareware, and poorly written READ ME! files. Jill Atkinson demonstrates how to use Frames using the down-to-earth metaphor of a picnic plate to represent her subject: chicken in one frame, pasta in another, etc.. Emily Tucker tutors visitors on the finer points of slimming and trimming GIF animations, reiterating the stance that "small images are surely a Webmonkey's most prized possession." Put on your post-modern goggles for a peek at generative art using Javascript, and post your thoughts and feedback to the ongoing threaded discussions. The threaded discussions are a crucial element of Webmonkey, giving the site its pulse. Each column has a designated thread. See right through Transparency? Any animation tricks up your sleeve? Think Navigator 3.0 blows? Discovered a useful plug-in? Well, then, here's your soapbox. Last on the list of percs is the Webmonkey tune up which tests your browser for Web surfing essentials. Right now, the recommended beach bag includes Frames, Java, and a few select plug-ins. Webmonkey is a site by developers, for developers. If you want a quick understanding of the mechanics behind the Web and ways to improve your own online projects, park your browser in Hotwired's new grease shop for an hour or two. They'll get you running smooth.
Overall Rating: 18
Entropy8.com
URL: http://www.entropy8.com/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Unknown
Taking the screen shots here, I felt a little bit like the hiker who, aiming his camera at a panoramic mountain sunset, despairs at the futility of his effort. Perhaps that's waxing a little too reverent,...but not much. Entropy8, the "labor of love and frustration" of Auriea Harvey, a young designer who just happens to be black and female, is a masterful example of Web design and digital self-expression. It's a little crude, then, to classify this page under "vanity." The real vanity will be in trying to express how great the site is. As much a marvel of programming as it is of design, the site boasts expert Java scripting, some beautiful animated gifs, a truly graceful use of Frames. It's a high bandwidth affair, of course, and she knows it. But if you're willing, it's worth the wait. Follow her instructions on the home page and turn off the tool bar. You won't need it; the site spawns a separate, graphical menu to facilitate navigation. A nice artifice, it dazzles without overshadowing the design. Thematically, the site is part riff on chaos, part private showcase. "So here is the dream," Miss Harvey writes at the outset, "It is what it is. This site is my personal experiment with a personal goal in a public space." So it is. A section called "The Disease Manifesto" is an artful exploration of angst -- not angst in any watered down form, either, but the real thing, the sickness unto death. The tone is dark but not despairing. Her family is prominently featured elsewhere on the site, in a disarmingly candid and dignified way. Some of the clan contribute their writings. Grandma just goofs around with the camera. Musing on the lives of her forbears, Auriea writes a little mournfully, "These pictures were taken before I was born or too early in my life for me to remember. The course that lives took shaped me more than I want to admit." If that seems self-indulgent and over-serious, a closer look will reveal a lively and self-deprecating wit beneath it all. In her gallery of notebook covers -- each one a work of art in itself -- I spied this passage written in faded ink, "Chaos is still my Life. This is my Life. This is my mind. I design Reality. We design the future. This is kind of a stupid thing to say, but I say it anyway. This is the cover of a sketch book and I want to completely cover this with words. But as usual I don't know what to write. I guess I could lapse into my old quotations phase. Quoth Aaron: 'I'd rather be insane than stupid. But i'd rather be neither than both.' Quoth Bill...." It goes on and on like that, without ever really filling the page. And I like that; don't ask me why, but I like that very much. In the end, this page is self-expression, plain and simple, and how much you take to it will probably depend on what you make of the personality behind it. Clearly I liked her very much. In a cacophony of voices, hers rings true.
Overall Rating: 18
Intel's 25th Anniversary of the Microprocessor
URL: http://www.intel.com/intel/museum/25anniv/shock/index.htm
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Although the title makes this site sound like a geekfest extraordinaire, Intel has a really fascinating bit of history to share here, and site takes advantage of Shockwave to render the content smooth and compelling. The Interactive section is the most fascinating part of the site, a sort of game where you join the founders of Intel and find out what decisions they made in the late 1960s with regards to their revolutionary product. The Shockwave animations are excellent, the technology at its best. As a model for instructional websites, there are few to match it.
Overall Rating: 18
Gray Areas
URL: http://w3.gti.net/grayarea/gray2.htm
Category: Zines
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Here it is straight from the horse's maw: "Gray Areas exists to examine the gray areas of life. We explore subject matter which is illegal, immoral and/or controversial. We hope to unite people involved in all sorts of alternative lifestyles and deviant subcultures." True to it's mission statement, this zine puts its shoulder to the wheel with stories and articles on folks out on the margins: porno stars, hackers, prisoners, junkies, etc. Still, it's not as far out on the edge as it fancies itself. Writing was all over the place from snoozy concert reviews to compelling stories like "Heroin's Tale" and essays with titles like "I'm a Vegetarian...In Love with a Butcher."
Overall Rating: 15
Beer Frames
URL: http://www.core77.com/beerframe/index.html
Category: Zines
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Here's a site based on a print column "which examines a variety of products and services -- some unusual, many exceedingly ordinary, but all worthy of close inspection." So says Paul Lucas, author of Beer Frames, the Journal of Inconspicuous Consumption. And if you like consumerism at its weirdest, this is the place to be. Myself, I don't get it. Either Mr. Lucas has an abundance of free time or he's just unnaturally preoccupied with senseless commercial products. He's hip to the absurdity, mind you, of products such as toasting bread -- that is, bread make exclusively for toasting -- aerosol lawn make-up, and canned whole chicken, and, as such, the site may well be an attempt at deconstruction; however, I found the product reviews preposterously overwrought for subject matter so frivolous. Of course, who am I to talk? I review websites for a living.
Overall Rating: 18
HillsWeb
URL: http://mcweb.martin.k12.ky.us/schs/faculty/hillsweb/hillsweb.htm
Category: Zines
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This online project, like it's editor, Bobby Allen, hails from Appalachia. An unabashed hillbilly zine, its aim is to preserve Appalachian culture, while portraying the realities of an area and community so often stereotyped as backward, illiterate, and inbred. A simple pasting together of poems, photography, student essays, and jokes, HillsWeb is refreshingly honest and unpretentious production, somewhat marked, though not marred by, rural insecurities. Not too kitschy, and not even a little bit flashy, this is a nice piece of Americana, online.
Overall Rating: 15
George Jr.
URL: http://www.georgejr.com/
Category: Zines
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The best that could have happened to George, Jr. did happen: George Magazine, John F. Kennedy Jr.'s big time political rag slapped a cease-and-desist order on the zine for alleged copyright infringement. I think I've got that right. To his credit, George Myers, Jr., the beleaguered editor has not made much of the whole brouhaha, aside from a few editorials in the latest release having to do with trademark law -- none of them written by him. Mr. Myers's casual attitude in the face of John John's attacks has, however, won him something of a following. That's good. He deserves it. An eclectic, thoughtful literary zine that looks at topics outside the ordinary, George Jr. is a good mark by which to judge all the rest. This is self-publication at it's best.
Overall Rating: 18
Fairmodel
URL: http://fairmodel.econ.yale.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Fairmodel is a macroeconometric model of the U.S. economy that lets you forecast the economy, do policy analysis, and examine historical episodes. For example, you can change government policy variables and examine the estimated effects of the changes on the economy. Fairmodel is a resource for business forecasters, government policy analysts, macroeconomic researchers, teachers, and students. You can access data sets that chart the economy from 1952 to 2003. You can even read an analysis using the model of the Clinton and Dole economic plans, and if that doesn't calm you down, you can discuss it on the bulletin board. Aesthetics: 1 Content: 3 Smarts: 2
Overall Rating: 15
Mount Wilson Observatory
URL: http://www.mtwilson.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The Mount Wilson Institute is devoted to realizing, for public benefit, the maximum scientific and educational potential of the Mount Wilson site and facilities. The observatory's online presence links scientists and students to databases containing papers on High Angular Resolution Astronomy, Adaptive Optics and the like. Remote visitors can take a well-designed virtual tour of the mountain and all of its telescopes and attendant facilities. The spiffy interface links you to the home page, a search engine, and a help page from anywhere on site. Stargazers will appreciate the star maps they can generate online, while astronomy teachers will want to check out the Telescopes in Education distance learning project.
Overall Rating: 18
Bagheera
URL: http://www.bagheera.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Rain forest imagery contextualizes Bagheera's introduction to the issues surrounding endangered species. A series of cross-linked "modules" provides information from different points of view. The central classroom node offers a high school curriculum that focuses on conservation biology and extinction. The endangered species database is built to explain endangerment and to provide links to relief organizations. Camp 41 is developing an online presence for research being done in an actual camp in the Brazilian rain forest. Since these beautifully designed "modules" have yet to be "launched", it's impossible to judge them, but they look promising.
Overall Rating: 15
Hyperactive2.0
URL: http://hyperactive.com/games/index2.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This is an excellent game site. Not only is it well designed (assuming you like frames and constantly refreshing ads), but there is a lot of content here. There are codes, downloadable demos, tons of screenshots, reviews, some cools links, a letters sections, and news. It covers both PC and consoles, and the news section is remarkably complete -- they don't break news stories often, but they do have a wide variety of stories. The writing is well done, and (surprise!) free of grammar errors. Plus there are servers in Australia and the US. (the site is of Australian origin).
Overall Rating: 18
I.C.E.
URL: http://www.iiinc.com/ice/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
With all the talk about the big companies starting to get into the online, multiplayer game area (ie: TEN, Mpath/XBand, ENgage, even-- gasp!--Microsoft), people often lose sight of the fact that it's the little guys--the die hard gamers--that have driven the market to this point, and many of them are not interested in the dumbing down of online multiplayer gaming that will occur as it goes mainstream. For them, there are sites like I.C.E. It's a local (Baltimore area) server that offers a server for playing WarCraft II, Descent, Doom, and Terminal Velocity. There are also tips and hints, personal pages for members, a newsletter and more. Well worth checking out, even if you're long distance.
Overall Rating: 17
Utopia Technologies
URL: http://www.utopiatech.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Now this game developer is pretty cool. Utopia is one of the first totally virtual companies we've seen. Everyone works out of their house, meets on IRC to chat about the state of the company once per week, and was recruited over UseNet. It's like a net success story, or will be, once Montezuma's Return (their 3D light-sourced Quakelike game) is released successfully. The site itself provides some nice info about the game (according to our sister publication PC Gamer, these guys have a killer 3D engine on their hands), about the company, and like all good personal sites (this is the most personal company I've seen), provides links and more. Check it out.
Overall Rating: 17
Roger Wilco's Virtual Broomcloset
URL: http://www.wiw.org/~jess/roger.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
If you're reading this because you're trying to figure out how to transfer your infommercial to HTML, please go on to the next review. If, on the other hand, you want to see what the web can really offer, read on. For me, this site is what the Web is all about. Basically it's a fan site dedicated to the Space Quest series of games from Sierra and the games' star Roger Willco. It's got FAQs, walk-throughs, spoilers, and other expected stuff, but what is really cool are the fake newspaper articles and things that come from within the Space Quest universe. Words can't even begin to describe what an excellent experience this site is. Go there now.
Overall Rating: 18
Buzz Online
URL: http://www.buzzmag.com/
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Direct from the City of Angels is Buzz Online, the Web counterpart to Los Angeles' hipster city-mag Buzz. I never lived in L.A., but I still found myself paging through the print mag on more than a few occasions. In fact, according to the site, "Buzz Online views its remarkable home town as less a distinct geographical entity than a state of mind -- a metaphor, if you will, for the worlds of entertainment, media, popular culture, and millennial politics that fascinate and affect people everywhere." In real language, that means gossip, nightlife, movie and music tips, and other ephemera. Basically, the world drools over glam and the glitz, and Buzz knows how to package it. Stop here for a fix.
Overall Rating: 16
HMO Page
URL: http://www.hmopage.org
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This is a truly rich and frightening resource. Want to learn everything there is to know about the horrors of HMOs? If you're a member of one, listen up. Read the "Managed Care Atrocity of the Month" or visit the "Managed Care Hall of Shame"; hear tales of health horror from victims and remaining family members; find out how HMOs work and about workable alternatives; and get the lowdown on the world of for-profit medical care and what it means to you. Handy links to Doctors Who Care, legislative information, a page of HMO humor, glossary of terms, of acronyms, and HMO FAQs. A good read that's good for you.
Overall Rating: 16
All About Health
URL: http://www.allabouthealth.com
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
A well put together health magazine, All About Health offers the latest news in medicine, health care, and related fields, written in layperson terms. Features all sorts of interesting health tidbits. Did you know the Internet can be as addicting as alcohol, drugs and gambling? Or that a chemical used in dry cleaning is carcinogenic? Five pairs of dry-cleaned pants in a car for 15 minutes results in three times the air concentration considered safe. Search by topic or choose from Hot News, regular columns, articles, product information, and thousands of links to health-related sites. A great source for off-the-beaten-path health news.
Overall Rating: 16
A Forum for Women's Health
URL: http://www.healthwire.com/women/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
A Forum for Women's Health is a collection of facts, information, advice, and suggestions to help women deal with all manner of health concerns. All content on the Forum's pages has been designed, written, and developed by a woman physician along with other women's health professionals. Savvy organization makes it easy to get sound answers on health care issues for women of all ages which address the psychological as well as the physical. Dip into original articles and have your individual health questions answered by a woman physician, check out a comprehensive link collection, or browse by subject. This well-designed and informative site is a truly great women's resource.
Overall Rating: 18
Martindale's Health Science Guide
URL: http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/HSGuide.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Martindale's Health Science Guide is a "Multimedia Specialized Information Resource" currently containing over 27,500 teaching files, over 34,500 Medical Cases, and 393 Courses/Textbooks. And if that doesn't scare you, wait till you dig into it all. Get all the info imaginable about Earth: time zones, weather, position of the planets, moon's view; and get World Wide Daily Reports on a multitude of subjects. All that before you even enter the Virtual Medical Center or the Allied Health Center. Link to every medical- related server and site known to humankind. Look for a veterinary dictionary, scan the route of the Crimean Railroad, or connect to every online resource for Kenya. Didn't believe any site could do all this till I saw it with my own eyes.
Overall Rating: 18
The Return of the Blues Brothers
URL: (http://www.mbcmr.unimelb.edu.au/blues/)
Category: Film
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
In Australia, this Belushi-Aykroyd flick is now attracting the same sort of fervent following that *Rocky Horror Picture Show * has enjoyed in the U.S. for so many years. On a mission from God, some Elwood evangelists assembled this site for their born-again brethren. If you've ever wanted to do a keyword search of the BB screenplay, you now possess that power. Available for download are more than thirty images and seventy sound clips, as well as trivia and character bios. Will this site knock the rubber biscuits out of your soul, man? If so, that's your personal business.
Overall Rating: 17
Empire
URL: http://www.erack.com/empire/
Category: Film
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This site is produced by the British movie magazine *Empire*, in partnership with CompuServe. Featuring sections like "Blokes in Frocks" and "Top 10 Movie Psychos," the site's approach is rude and impertinent, which of course counts strongly in its favor. Which stars have broken which bones? Which plastic movie star inspired which disfigured plastic action figure? Who's been arrested, and what for? Empire also features movie reviews, consistent with the rest of the site in their cheeky approach to Hollywood and beyond. Empire is attractive, but it's poorly implemented frames will hold you hostage as you follow external links.
Overall Rating: 17
Universal Pictures
URL: http://www.mca.com/universal_pictures/
Category: Film
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The Universal Pictures Web site features all the bells and whistles anyone would expect from a major movie studio. This site is enhanced with Shockwave, VRML, Java, animated GIFs, and no doubt at least one kitchen sink they had lying around. The Coming Attractions section provides information about movies roughly one month prior to their theatrical release, including QuickTime clips. A nice touch: every QuickTime clip is available at a quality of either 5 or 10 frames per second, providing the visitor with a choice between quick or pretty. Games, photos, and audio clips available for every visitor's dining pleasure.
Overall Rating: 18
Other People's Problems
URL: http://opp.paramount.com
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Paramount Digital Entertainment's Other People's Problems is a fun diversion, and a good way to feel really well-adjusted. What do you do if you're an exotic dancer and your fiancee (who you met "on the job") is insecure about it, in part because his first wife of twelve years left him for his brother? You can post your problem here, or give some other poor slob your sage advice. Check out the "problem of the day" or zip to the Problem Pit for past problems. This site changes daily, which keeps it fresh, and the graphics are appealing.
Overall Rating: 18
Baseline
URL: http://www.pkbaseline.com/
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Baseline is an online media and entertainment industry magazine. Great freebies include "Match Wits with Nicky" for trivia buffs, Alt.Cinema, which features reviews of less mainstream movies, and articles on the ins-and outs of the movie biz. Check out Doris T. Daily Digest to get the latest dish, and Popcorn Palace, which covers new releases and previews of more highly publicized film offerings. For either per-minute or per-document charges, you can access more detailed information, such as film revenue and cost estimates, celebrity and industry contacts, ratings, bios, and box office analysis. This site, like the industry itself, is big, brash, unapologetic and yes, fun.
Overall Rating: 18
Digital Education Network
URL: http://www.actden.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Digital Education Network provides education resources and learning opportunities online for both students and educators. NewsDEN highlights current events and leads students to a more complete understanding through examination of the event's geographic location, historical context, related discussion topics, and vocabulary terms. MathDEN offers math tests/challenges for junior high and high school students, along with a teacher's guide and math tips. InternetDEN provides detailed yet accessible descriptions of Internet topics, ranging from a brief history of cyberspace to transferring files using FTP. This site is an excellent resource for kids, parents, and teachers, combining rich educational content with sophisticated graphics and activities.
Overall Rating: 18
Pathways to School Improvement
URL: http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/pathwayg.htm
Category: Education
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Pathways provides teachers, administrators and parents with resources for improving education. Information is divided into major sub-heading: Critical Issues, New Products and Services, City Schools, and Emerging Technologies. Each category contains articles, and suggested reading material. In an era of declining funds for education and escalating violence and drug use in schools, Pathways provides a valuable forum for educators to share insights with each other on how to improve the education process for students, parents, and teachers.
Overall Rating: 17
Cleveland Museum of Art
URL: http://www.clemusart.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
The Cleveland Museum of Art's snappily designed, colorful home page leads you to thorough, well-organized information and news about the museum, not to mention exhibits past and present. Regrettably, the current exhibit section contained everything except visuals when I looked at it. You can see images from past shows, however: The thoughtful online presentation of the Pharaohs exhibit from the Louvre includes front and back views of statues, as well as a time line and an account of how the Egyptian hieroglyphic system was deciphered. With images from current shows, this would be an exceptional museum site.
Overall Rating: 16
Robert Williams
URL: http://www.razorfish.com/bluedot/williams/
Category: Art
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
"Robert Williams creates paintings that are, in the words of the artist, 'intriguingly disturbing'." So says the bio. I was eager to find them so, but the lurid, often grotesque, comic-inspired paintings here are too reminiscent of the drawings 15-year-old boys make on their school notebooks to be very challenging. Much is made of the potential offensiveness of naked pneumatic babes posed cooling on ice cream cones or pulling the eyeballs out of a skull-less brain, but the anticipation of viewer outrage is probably wishful thinking. The site itself, with elements such as the artist winking at you creepily beside his bio, is more clever and amusing than the work.
Overall Rating: 16
FotoCircle
URL: http://www.wrldpwr.com/fotocircle
Category: Art
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Simply and elegantly designed, with a gray-scale palette framing relatively high-resolution, mostly black-and-white photographs, FotoCircle is a treat to look at, particularly after a string of screaming-for-attention, graphically remedial sites. The project of a group of Seattle photographers associated with an alternative gallery by the same name, FotoCircle is also the kind of site Internet boosters love to see: a group of emerging artists using the technology to present their work on their own terms and on the same ground as institutionally supported artists. Current and past exhibits encompass a variety of work, from digitally altered photos to an essay on Morocco.
Overall Rating: 16
Superunknown
URL: http://www.csusm.edu/public/guests/fm/
Category: Art
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Subtitled "The Yellow Pages of the Underground Computer Art Scene," Superunknown is dedicated to the ANSI, ASCII, VGA, music, and demo "scenes." If you have no clue what those might be, visit the FAQ file, which provides definitions of terms and examples. But don't expect to come away from that little excursion fully enlightened--Superunknown is geared for those already in the know. Icons and lists in a multitude of frames take you to news and rumors, bulletin boards, art in various categories, and links you probably won't find on conventional art sites. Naturally, it's optimized for the latest technology, so those with less than state-of-the-art setups may be frustrated.
Overall Rating: 16
Eclectic Pastiche
URL: http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Scrabble information, programs, and resources. The preceding has been an executive summary of Eclectic Pastiche as it relates to the gaming category. For embellishment, see the following. It's not fair to stereotype people, but the Eclectic Pastiche is the perfect example of a site designed by a Unix user. Didn't bother much with graphics or easily accessed content. While the scrabble sections are pretty comprehensive, the resources listed there are in no perceivable order, just piled on top of each other. The site author is something of a writer, so you might want to look into his poems, stories, and essays, like the one called "How-2 Meet Women".
Overall Rating: 15
Riddle du Jour
URL: http://www.dujour.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Few sites supply a reason to come back every day, but with Riddle du Jour it's in the name. The riddle section of the site features a new riddle, of the "what am I?" variety, daily. Coming up with a correct answer will win the submitter some pretty decent prizes, such as pens, hot sauce, t-shirts, etc. Then there's also the honor of having the whole Web know what a braniac you are. The riddle is only a portion of the site; there's also Ce Jour, or what happened on this day historically, and trivia of the day, with yet more prizes.
Overall Rating: 16
The Gamer's Alliance
URL: http://www.proaxis.com/~jarvisd/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The 12 to 20-year-old Doom-style computer gamer will be among her/his element here, reveling in the pages devoted to particular games (Quake, DukeNukem 3D, etc.), complete with player listings and rankings, add-ons, and tips. The slant is toward network play and there are a couple of pages devoted to helping newbies find their way into multi-player games. The Quake or Duke-jaded will at least find the news of new games coming down the pike interesting. The rest of us might be a little bothered by the misspellings littering the site, and I found the MIDI sound files embedded in various pages particularly annoying.
Overall Rating: 16
The Beta Game Lab
URL: http://www.igc.net/~nbarone/main.htm
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Software development time has been so compressed in recent years that even average-level computer users find themselves using beta software. Beta used to be feared for its system-crashing bugs, but Netscape has exposed a whole generation to beta software with its hundreds of Navigator releases. Gamers who really want to be on the edge, and play for free, have to be open to beta tests. And, anyway, who wants to wait for the next Doom-killer? The Beta Game Lab is simply a clearinghouse for beta tests. The site author follows the gaming news, and visits company sites, to keep abreast of all the test games being offered on the Internet.
Overall Rating: 17
Aboriginal Studies
URL: http://cooms.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-aboriginal.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
The WWW Virtual Library is not designed to be flashy or fancy; it's meant to be an effective and quick way to get information. Information, not fluff. At the Aboriginal Studies site, they don't just throw up any link that comes along: Many are called and few are chosen; every site is inspected before it makes the page. Only 72 sites had made the cut when I checked it out, but they represent the meatiest links out there on the subject of Australian Aborigines. The site is updated daily, and the amount of information is truly mind-boggling. This site, like all WWW Virtual Library sites, is a resource for scholars and the intellectually curious everywhere.
Overall Rating: 16
Letters from an Iowa Soldier in the Civil War
URL: http://www.ucsc.edu/civil-war-letters/home.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
One Civil War soldier, who wanted nothing more than to return home and marry his hometown sweetheart, tells us his story at this fantastic site. This site is a piece of American history, a look into our deadliest war from the perspective of an average participant. Each letter is dated and footnoted with pertinent hot links to maps, names, and photos, making tasteful use of the medium without obscuring the significance of the written word. The vernacular of the era is fascinating in and of itself, but combined with the unraveling story of one soldier's experience through our nation's darkest hour, the letters make for great reading. This site is a gem. Don't miss it.
Overall Rating: 18
Cold War Hot Links
URL: http://www.stmartin.edu/~dprice/cold.war.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
The Cold War. I lived through the tail-end of that paranoid era; I remember when Reagan called the U.S.S.R. the Evil Empire and we designed a missile defense program dubbed Star Wars. But the `80s were small potatoes compared to the late `50s, early `60s. The Cuban Missile Crisis, McCarthyism, The missile gap, backyard bomb shelters. *That* was real hysteria. Now Anthropologist David Price has compiled an extensive list of sites dedicated to one-too-distant episode in American history. Go to the House of Un-American Activities Home Page. Check out declassified Pentagon and CIA documents. Get the scuttlebutt on the U.S.'s most repressed homosexual, J. Edgar Hoover. The links are all over the map--some downright ridiculous, some inoperable--but generally good. Relive the good old days, when right was right and red was wrong. I'm prepared to name names.
Overall Rating: 16
Albert Camus Literary Criticism Home Page
URL: http://www.wolfenet.com/~willej/indexa.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Albert Camus, novelist, philosopher, member of the French Resistance, is one of those mythic characters of the twentieth century: a man of letters and a man of action, who commanded respect from all circles for his unwavering dedication to principle. This site is gathering of scholarly minds trying to make sense of his writings and thought, analyzing the stark implications of Camus' philosophy. There's also a collection of Camus' own essays, and a succinct biography to acquaint you with the major events in this writer's life. The site suffers from a lack of aesthetic foresight: no one can or should read that long from a monitor, and the legal pad motif makes matters worse. Still, your eyes adjust...
Overall Rating: 16
CNN Financial Network
URL: http://www.cnnfn.com
Category: Finance
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Mike Hase
Not simply a diluted version of the popular cable channel, the CNNfn Web site is a full-blown orgy of business news and information. Current market data and graphs, the latest business articles, guides to mutual funds and mortgages, and a great deal more are presented in an appealing and surprisingly uncluttered fashion. Company researchers can also benefit from this site by using a fast, if not incredibly selective, search engine to comb CNNfn's archives or by searching Hoover's corporate directory. The people at CNNfn take their site seriously and have a feel for what appeals to netizens - drop by and let them know what you think.
Overall Rating: 17
Homebuyer's Fair
URL: http://www.homefair.com
Category: Finance
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Mike Hase
My idea of moving is to throw everything into the Jeep and hit the blacktop, yet I still spent two hours playing with the various gadgets at the Homebuyer's Fair. This site provides the prospective mover with a copious amount of information in the form of articles and thoughtfully placed links to other web sites; but this is only half the story. The real fun begins when you start playing with the plethora of Java-driven "calculators" and "wizards." These will plan your move, tell you whether to rent or buy, and one even convinced my parents to refinance their mortgage. Whether you're planning to rent or buy, this site will make it less painful.
Overall Rating: 18
Chicago Board of Trade
URL: http://www.cbot.com
Category: Finance
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Mike Hase
Look no further for everything you want to know about futures and commodities. The world's leading commodities exchange, the CBOT, has provided an informative, well-organized site, divided into two main branches. The MarketPlex contains the usual compendium of market data and links to other financial services--some free, some not. The second branch, listed as the CBOT homepage, has something for every-body. If you're a futures neophyte, go to the Financial Center and obtain an MBA level education about various derivative instruments and hedging strategies. There is no search engine here but the clear and consistent presentation obviates the need for one. You could spend days digesting this site.
Overall Rating: 15
Global Agribusiness Information Network (GAIN)
URL: http://204.91.135.2:80/fintrac/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Mike Hase
It's global, it's agricultural, and although I found it a bit bizarre, I imagine that purveyors of fruits and vegetables can't get enough of this place. GAIN provides the growers and buyers of agriculture with an electronic meeting place and, in many respects, represents a realization of the full potential of the Internet. At GAIN, you can learn everything about the growing and handling of rambuton, see pictures of cherimoyas, and get worldwide wholesale prices for chayote. Growers can bone up on the latest irrigation technologies and check out the world market for baby corn or visit the "Business Opportunities" page to discover that Khalid El-Ghuf is peddling dates.
Overall Rating: 14
Jerusalem in Old Maps and Views
URL: http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/maps.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Maps are the stuff wars are made of, a fact which the history of Jerusalem epitomizes. This site examines the rich (and murderously disputed) history of the Holy City from the vantage of the cartographer, with maps from as far back as 565 A.D. and as recent as 1905. The site amounts to a blessedly brief and wonderfully informative historical aside, which is relatively free of any Israeli nationalist overtones (at least, none that I noticed). Visitors are sure to learn a thing or two. Myself, I feel richer for knowing that the River Jordan is composed of two separate tributaries, the Jor and the Dan. Larger images would be a nice option, and more content welcome, but, as is, I highly recommend it.
Overall Rating: 17
ZoneZero
URL: http://www.zonezero.com
Category: Art
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The name is symbolic: "Zone" in reference to the time-honored photographic technique known as "The Zone System". "Zero" as in the nil component of binary code. The idea is to use the Web site as a place to confront the transformation of photography from the analog mode to the digital one. Semantics aside, ZoneZero takes a sensible approach to the new technology, embracing it without forgetting its subject. You won't find any of the baubles and gimmicks so common to Web design here, just good photography. The work showcased at ZoneZero consists entirely of photo essays, as opposed to mere portfolios. Numerous photographers display their musings and images in understated exhibitions, each collection exploring a theme or place through the camera lens. The general orientation is predominantly Hispanic, with images of *barrios* on both sides of the border, from Joe Rodriquez's starkly journalistic *expose* on gang life in East L.A. to Kent Klitches' "Street kids in Mexico City". Not all of the work is so disturbing (don't miss the almost surreal "Meditations on Mexico" by Marianna Yampolsky), nor does it all straddle the Rio Grande. A few collections do focus on other places: Lars Tunbjork ruminates on the spiritual bankruptcy of an affluent Sweden; Seydou Keita's portrait studio is in Mali, West Africa; and the colorful, Almodovaresque compositions of Marcos Lopez hail from Buenos Aires, the most European city in the Americas. All the photographs are accompanied by commentary from the artist. And, thankfully, the words tend to dignify the work, rather than spoil it with a lot of overindulgent hoo haw (as is too often the case when visual artists talk about what they do). Marcos Lopez won me over with his candid introduction to his collection,"Argentinian Pop". "This is the never ending search for identity," he writes, "in a country that was built with people that came off the ships. The tango we have inside. To reflect the double discourse of Modernity. All this I try to show in my photographs. Besides that, now I'm taking pictures for fun and to exorcise the pain because my girl left me." As I said early on, Web design is secondary here: depending on your orientation, the backgrounds are either dull or unobtrusive. For me, it's the content--the amount and the quality thereof--that make ZoneZero a winner. Editor, Pedro Meyer, deserves credit for putting the emphasis there first. With some refinements, this site could be among the very best of its kind.
Overall Rating: 18
FedEx
URL: http://www.fedex.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Adam Douglas
In an age when faster is not only better, but a matter of survival, it's no surprise that Federal Express has become such a business necessity. Every day FedEx ships over 2 million packages to over 200 hundred countries around the world. With more than 110,000 employees, 500 planes, and 35,000 vehicles to transport said packages, FedEx is on the ball. Now they even provide an online shipping service. Ideal for small businesses that don't want to bother with the hassles of the FedEx Power Ship system, the site provides a convenient alternative. The site is laid out as a functional site should be: intuitively. A simple yet stylish navigation bar adorns the bottom of each page, which makes it easy to get around. The graphics are downplayed in favor of instructional text, and what graphics there are mostly comprise functional buttons and such. Content is light, but informative. There's no unnecessary FedEx junk that no one cares about - you're here to ship your package, not read the stockholders' report. FedEx knows this, and sticks to a "Just the facts, Ma'am" approach. Get in, ship it, and get out. Once you've called to get your FedEx account number, you can ship all your packages from the site. After you process the package, a barcode with a specific tracking number is printed up on your laser printer (sorry, no inkjets), as well as an airbill. You can also arrange to have a driver pick up the package, or take it to a FedEx drop-off. Don't know where one is? Don't worry, the site will apprise you of the nearest location. And if for any reason your package gets lost en route, you can track its whereabouts as well. How's that for convenience? For the harried executive or over-stretched small business, the FedEx site could be a blessing. Because when it has to be there overnight, it has to be there overnight.
Overall Rating: 18
The 80s Server
URL: http://www.80s.com/
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Decades have come to be so iconic, representative not only of a time, but a style. The phenomenon dates back at least a century, to the "Gay 90s," when it seems everyone partied a lot because it was the end of the century and the beginning of the Industrial Age, which they apparently thought was a good thing. The "Roaring 20s" were another particularly noteworthy decade. More partying. Now, it seems, recent decades are being recycled, with "groovy" fashions from the 70s revived for the 90s, and a nostalgia for the 50s marking much of the 80s. Of course, there was a lot more to the 80s than a revival of 50s-style politics. Sure, the era was dominated by Ronald Reagan and his true blue "Morning in America" crew, but, more significantly, the period ushered in the most extreme hair styles known to man. While, for many of us, it was hellish to live through the 80s, a glance in the rear view mirror gives it all a different look, distant and comical. The 80s server delivers all the ingredients quintessential to 80s culture: bad music, awful television, horrible movies. Like the decade, the home page is garish -- think neon jogging suits or hot pink lip gloss. Hulk Hogan, the pro wrestler-turned-superstar, is prominently featured. So is Pee Wee Herman, kid's show host/onanist. Navigation is a bit difficult from the slapdash page of enticements. And, unfortunately, a few of the sections are empty as of this writing--no small thing if your connection is slow. Then again, considering that the page is run by three "children of the 80s" (read "slackers"), that's not a huge surprise. If you're a young veteran of the era (why else would you be here?), try out the trivia games that test your knowledge of 80s marginalia. A Shockwave file opens the section with the computer's voice from the movie "War Games": "Shall we play a game?" And don't miss the game, "Who can it be now?" where contestants try to match band names with their corresponding pictures. The crown jewel of the 80s Server, though, has to be the Jukebox, which features more than 150 songs from the 80s in RealAudio format. "Too Shy," by Kajagoogoo, "Smalltown Boy," by Bronski Beat, and "Karma Chameleon," by Culture Club, are just a few of the hits. And what hits! Man, those were the days.
Overall Rating: 18
MIDLINK MAGAZINE
URL: http://longwood.cs.ucf.edu:80/~MidLink/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The URL for this site is case sensitive, so be sure to capitalize the M and the L in MidLink, or you won't connect. This site is targeted at 10 to 15-year-olds and updated quarterly. Much of the content is provided by students, including a VR walkthrough of Ligon Middle School. If you ever wondered why earwax is significant in toothless whales, or questioned the equatorial connection between transvestitism and Vikings, or doubted the wisdom of bringing vinegar with you when you visit an Australian beach, this site is ready for you. Their FTP server is misconfigured, though.
Overall Rating: 16
Feminist.com
URL: http://feminist.com
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Feminist.com was founded on the principle that women and girls are steered away from math, science, and technology, traditionally have trouble breaking into the "old boys network", and may not feel comfortable enough to participate in online networking...at least in the numbers that men do. According to Fem.com, the numbers of women online has grown to as much as 30%, but it's still a disappointing turnout. This site works to encourage women to connect with an array of resources and links that support women's issues and human rights concerns in general. The Activism section includes a calendar of urgent actions and newsletters from a variety of organizations. Also check out the impressive collection of health and employment resources and the Articles and Speeches section.
Overall Rating: 16
YouthLink
URL: http://www.youthlink.org/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Billing itself as the voice of America's youth, Youthlink is the site for first national youth conventions. Sorry, there, grups, you can't cast your vote here if you're over 24. In the U Gotta Know section, get statistics on how the U.S. ranks internationally in terms of young people's quality of life. The First National Youth Conventions were non-partisan events held in San Diego on August 12 and 13 and Chicago on August 26 and 27 concurrent with the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Youth Delegates at the San Diego and Chicago Youth Conventions presented responses from the Web site in the form of a National Youth Platform to the residential candidates and national media.
Overall Rating: 16
ThinkQuest
URL: http://www.advanced.org/thinkquest/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
ThinkQuest is an annual contest that challenges students, ages 12 to 18, to use the Internet as a collaborative, interactive teaching and learning tool by joining in teams of two or three and competing to build Web tools or materials that will help educate other. The winning team (one in each of five subject areas) receives college scholarships and its coaches and schools receive cash prizes. Browse through a library of past entries to see what past ThinkQuest participants have come up with: the results are impressive. Advanced Network & Services, who sponsors ThinkQuest, provides workshops in various towns to give students the skills to design their own Web pages.
Overall Rating: 18
Veggies Unite
URL: http://www.vegweb.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Sworn off the *carne*, have you? Well, for vegetarians and vegans alike, this elegantly simple resource should make a nice bookmark. Whether it's recipes you're looking for (entries are in place for everything from calico beans to sweet seitan chili) or community, Veggies Unite is the place. Bulletin board topics cover the rainbow of green causes and concerns, from Animal Rights to Raw Foods. Telnet users can chat live on Envirochat. There are even veggie-centric book reviews of books as unlikely as *Gulliver's Travels. But the heart and soul of the site is the Recipe Directory, with its convenient Grocery List, Weekly Meal Planner, and Conversion Table. *Bon Apetit*, Houyhnyms.
Overall Rating: 15
PlanetOut
URL: http://www.planetout.com
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Eric Meub
The heterosexual majority may be willing to settle for a Global Village, but PlanetOut offers the gay, lesbian, bi and trans community a City. And it's a city with a heart. "Imagine a world" says founder and president Tom Reilly, "where everyone can be exactly who they really are." At first blush, this invokes a spectrum of lifestyles, from circuit-party boys to opera divas, dykes-on-bikes to lipstick lesbians. But there's a loftier ambition here: "Online" as Reilly puts it, "is a great place to *practice* coming out." The queer community includes folks who live remote from city resources, or who have to combat isolation and loneliness. PlanetOut offers comfort, support, community, and identity. And it does so with energy, flair, and a fresh presentation. Winsome photos of couples and individuals underscore, with all the polish and wholesomeness of a Gap advertisement, the message of acceptance. Hell, straights have benefited from good PR all these years, why not queers? The images are fun for those already out as well as encouraging for those still in the closet. Some will protest that packaging homogenizes diversity. The photos, however, try to capture that diversity, at least with regard to gender and race. The only images I missed were those of our elders: "Queer" is not synonymous with "young", after all. PlanetOut offers destinations such as "People", for connecting with individuals, "NetQueery", a "dashboard" to gay Internet resources, and "Civic Center", the site's political core, providing links to important queer political organizations: one-stop-shopping for gay activism. The informational content of PlanetOut is found in "QRD" and "Kiosk". "QRD" (Queer Resources Directory) is the Main Library in this gay metropolis. This is no-nonsense stuff. Visitors can access up-to-date material on HIV, racism, state and federal legislation, religious intolerance, you name it. The destinations in "Kiosk" could be satisfying sites in themselves: There's "PopcornQ", a critically acclaimed film and video directory that opened last June; "News Planet" surveys domestic and international events of queer interest; And my favorite, "Shout": a showcase for everything queer in the arts and entertainment. Reviews can be found under "Shelf-Life", "Flix", "Spins", "MMMedia", while "The Box" provides an exhaustive survey of upcoming queer-related television programming. The gay, lesbian, bi and trans community has often suffered for its lack of cohesion. No mere Web site can solve that, but PlanetOut provides a haven of knowledge, nurture and dignity: a real Home in the City.
Overall Rating: 18
SHARP
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~sharp/
Category: Literature
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
SHARP is an acronym for the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, an organization "for scholars working in all areas and aspects of the history of print culture." SHARP has an annual conference which moves from country to country, but their SHARP-L listserv is available to all interested parties. The fee for a full membership is $15 US or Canadian, and includes a monthly newsletter and an annual directory. Those fascinated by media history will be intrigued by the abstracts and links available here. It's scholarly analysis and interpretation of commonplace things: A sort of archaeology of letters.
Overall Rating: 14
Civil War Love Letters
URL: http://scholar2.lib.vt.edu/spec/cwlove/cwlove.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Reading these Civil War letters, you get a profound sense of men caught up in something beyond their control, looking for solace in the loved ones they left behind. A man writes to his wife, recounting their courtship with tenderness and nostalgia. Others let their worries spill onto the page; behind the nineteenth century formality of language, there is real anxiety, abandonment, and fear here. One man writes to say that the war has finally shown him that he won't live forever, that he should settle down and get married; "if you should meet any agreeable candidate let her know I'll be home soon". This is a great site for pondering history and human frailty.
Overall Rating: 17
Oxford Book of English Verse
URL: http://www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/obev/
Category: Literature
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
You can find it right here, whatever it is. By title, by poet, by date, by first line. Search this word-for-word unabridged on-line version of the Oxford Book of English Verse for the poem you need. The collection is immense, representing five centuries of refinement and expression. There are plenty of surprises to be found, unknown poets languishing in the shadow of Shakespeare, Keats, and Donne, . The indices are impressive, but browsing is the best way to appreciate this site; you just might rediscover your love of poetry and the written word.
Overall Rating: 18
Spiritual Cockroach Engenderment Museum
URL: http://www.dca.net/~kmon
Category: Literature
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
You gotta love these fools (and I use that as a term of endearment) who have enough free time to put up the really random Web sites. Without these guys the Web would have no character, none of the quirky, free-wheeling style that brings a smile to your face. Case in point: the Spiritual Cockroach Engenderment Museum, dedicated to the work of the obscure (with a capital O) German surrealist K. Ungeheur. Here's a writer made for the new medium: his writings make no sense, you see, but each piece is succinct and funny as hell. The site gives an analysis Numero-linguistics, Ungeheur's technique of transforming sentences into mathematical equations and back again. Using the technique, "The dog has fleas" becomes "Your head is very little". This page is a trip. And there are plenty of links to more surrealist sites on the Web. Once you've tried it, you'll definitely want more.
Overall Rating: 18
The Nation
URL: http://www.thenation.com
Category: Media
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The Nation has gone online in a surprisingly big way. The spirited liberal weekly leapt from its trademark newsprint to the Internet with a clean, mean, and unabashed transplant of its print model. Not all the content is here, of course, but a good many articles and features did go digital, including Calvin Trillin's satirical verse. Additionally, some new Web-specific features have been introduced: stringed discussions in the Forums section, and streamed audio programming in Audio Nation, to name two. Other sections such as the Archives and Hot List are, as yet, nought but a promise. But if the existing material is any indication, things are off to a promising start.
Overall Rating: 18
Texas Monthly WWW Ranch
URL: http://www.texasmonthly.com
Category: Media
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Feeling lonesome for something Texan? Need a new recipe for barbecued ribs? Slide in a Lyle Lovett CD and giddy-yup over to Texas Monthly's online magazine. This classy site has none of the overdone glitz usually associated with the Lone Star State. Texas Monthly features, discussion groups with hip and well-known Texans like *Slacker* director, Richard Linklater (yes, he really hangs out with Quentin Tarantino), Willie Nelson, and Jimmy Jeff Walker, bulletin boards on Texas travel, food, and other highlights. Links Across Texas features more than 600 hot links. Other highlights include articles on Top Texas Companies and the Texas Marketplace. Well done.
Overall Rating: 18
Organa
URL: http://www.organa.com/welcome.html
Category: Media
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Organa is a new media publishing company-made up primarily of former Voyager employees-that markets and distributes a wide variety of intellectually challenging CD-ROM products. Not interested in simulated killing, maiming, and wholesale slaughter? Then this site is worth checking out for descriptions and order information of intelligent and thought-provoking new media products. "Visionaries in Exile," which traces the lives of twenty Austrian architects who profoundly influenced modernist architecture in the United States, is just one example of the titles Organa is producing. It's refreshing to see that there are companies committed to more than just the trumpet call of the almighty buck.
Overall Rating: 17
Far Eastern Economic Review
URL: http://www.feer.com
Category: Media
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
For those doing business in Asia, this will be a key destination, with an up-to-the-minute Dow Jones Asian Equities Report and a host of other articles, all searchable by subject. In order to enter the site, you must register and maintain a password, frustrating for the occasional visitors, but well worth the effort of those who plan to access the site frequently. The design makes extensive use of frames, which is fine for anyone with big, color monitors, but folks with smaller screens may be annoyed by the obligatory horizontal scrolling. But, overall, FEER's abundance of current information and sophisticated design make it a notable achievement.
Overall Rating: 18
News.com
URL: http://www.news.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The super slick News.com is C/Net's news hub for the computer industry. Like the C/Net site, nothing has been missed, with hot, colorful graphics that catch the eye but don't overwhelm the content, excellent features on current events, a robust search engine, and great links to other news sites. This is the catch-all for insider information on the computer, Internet, and multimedia business. In addition to the informative feature articles, your more puerile interests will be satisfied by The Rumor Mill, providing the day's gossip on bigwigs like Bill Gates and Larry Ellison.
Overall Rating: 18
HouseNet
URL: http://www.housenet.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
HouseNet is the do-it-yourselfers wet dream. Folks who like to spend their spare time installing skylights, ceiling fans, replacing sliding glass doors, or wainscotting the dining room will revel in the homespun advice from Gene and Katie Hamilton. The site has some thoughtful touches that go beyond mere "how-tos," with features such as "Do the job yourself vs. hiring someone to do it", time and budget projections, and another section called "Cut Your Utility Bills," which looks at alternative energy resources and other conservational strategies. Don't miss the tutorial on how to make a solar food dryer.
Overall Rating: 16
Erack
URL: http://www.erack.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Deb Richardson
Stunning layout and understated graphics are the stuff of which dreams are made. Erack offers up online companion zines for seven popular British mags -- Carworld, Empire, FHM, Image, Q, Select, and Total Sport. While the content is primarily tailored for those of us with *.uk addresses, there's still plenty of interesting stuff for non-Brits around the globe. Wander into Carworld and get the latest high performance or classic automotive news, or rifle through the plethora of random cinematic rumors and tidbits in Empire. All of the zines are updated daily so there promises to be new stuff for each and every visit.
Overall Rating: 17
House of Blues
URL: http://hob.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The House of Blues has become a "Fillmore-esque" concert hall chain of the 90s--host to the hottest artists from across the musical spectrum. And while an evening at one of the Houses is worth a thousand words, the clubs aren't on every corner. So kudos to the HOB gang for dropping cash on the technology to make their brand, and the music it represents, a worldwide phenomenon. Chats with the likes of Luther Allison and Charlie Musselwhite are frequent, music news is neverending, and the online Real Audio concerts are actually worth tuning into--Joshua Redmon is always a good listen. As far as the HOB's big-budget design goes: glitzy graphics, Java, and animated GIFs are slick, but--and I hate to use the Web review cliche--it all makes for a damned slow download!
Overall Rating: 18
Cybergrass
URL: http://www.banjo.com/BG/
Category: Music
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
In case you didn't guess from the domain name, Cybergrass is a Web 'zine about Bluegrass music. But more than just a magazine, Cybergrass is a Bluegrass clearinghouse--with classifieds, MIDI files, festival listings, and suggested reading lists. Meanwhile, the usual 'zine content of show reviews, editorials, and artists profiles are all written in a conversational, unpretentious tone that is, well, downright folksy. Serious fans should also check out the list of Bluegrass Associations to find a partner--it takes two to tango, after all, when you're playing Dueling Banjos.
Overall Rating: 17
Wilson and Alroy's Record Reviews
URL: http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/alr2/WAreview.html
Category: Music
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Dorrit Tulane Walsh
Okay, Wilson and Alroy may be nobodies, but they're musicians and that immediately ups their credibility. They review older albums/CDs, and Alroy is a "stodgy 60s addict," so there's a huge collection of 60s artists included, like the Beatles and the too-often-forgotten Zombies. Reviews vary in detail, but many contain trivia tidbits plus links to other sites on the artist, and should enlighten anyone--except maybe fellow opinionated rock know-it-alls. Definitely check out the accurate "60s Rock Overview" and "20 Essential Rock Records." My only disappointment was not being able to access the samples from their very own demo tape. AESTHETICS: 3 CONTENT: 3 TECH SAVVY: 2
Overall Rating: 14
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
URL: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/mumia002.htm
Category: Political
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Dorrit Tulane Walsh
Mumia Abu-Jamal is black activist and journalist who was convicted of shooting a Pennsylvania policeman in 1982, and sentenced to death for it in 1995. His supporters (including celebrities and politicians from all over the globe) want him off death row, and here you can discover why. The many "artikels" not only cover the current happenings of the case, but also outline the background. The focus here though, is on what believers can do to help, and the suggested resources are extensive.
Overall Rating: 15
American Kurdish Info Network
URL: http://burn.ucsd.edu/%7Eakin/
Category: Political
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Dorrit Tulane Walsh
Although Kurds, "the world's largest stateless people," inhabit a few countries, this site's focuses those in Turkey. The site is overflowing with information on the Kurdish struggle against the Turkish government. AKIN's goals are clearly stated, and you can also look through numerous articles (many from major media sources), including information on Leyla Zana, the first Kurdish woman elected to the Turkish Parliament, who's currently serving a treason sentence for attending a conference on Turkish human rights violations. There's also a section (click on the map of Kurdistan) of basic facts and figures, and some disturbing photos of Kurd persecution.
Overall Rating: 16
Policy.com
URL: http://www.policy.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
If you're not already a policy junkie, this one-shot fix combining daily and weekly featured topics, policy news, briefings on a wide range of subjects, and fingertip access to a broad range of viewpoints might just turn you into one. Click on the current Issue of the Week or any the archived past issues to get a layout of various positions, or drop into the Issues Forum for summaries of books and briefings on a long list of topics. Every reference is linked to a source, and the site also hooks you up to think tanks, advocacy groups, state and local governments, unions, trade organizations, and expert chats on MSN's Policy Street. Good stuff.
Overall Rating: 17
AMA Home Page
URL: http://www.ama-assn.org/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
The AMA is a historically powerful organization with an agenda which encompasses educational outreach, research, and political advocacy for its members. Its site is equally ambitious. The publications which are sponsored by the AMA--JAMA and The Archives of ... series-- are linked for access through this site. There are subsections for lay persons, physicians and physicians-in-training. A scan of the "What's New" section is a good place to see just how broad the pursuits of the AMA really are; everything from controversial therapeutic interventions to HMO legislation to a new prescription guide for consumers. The AMA page is probably as good a bellwether for the changing times in health care as any site on the Net.
Overall Rating: 16
Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter Online
URL: http://www.beerhunter.com
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
The nectar we know as beer is a big topic online, probably because those who love and brew the stuff have always been an international community ready to exchange tips on hops, malts, yeast, and the like. This site is primarily a compendium of recipes, reviews, and a plug for Michael Johnson's CD-ROM. Not ready at time of writing were links to other cool brew sites and a BBS. Beer is best tasted fresh and locally, so Mike gets around, with reports from Europe and around North America. He's got previous articles archived, which is always a nice feature.
Overall Rating: 18
The Tea Man
URL: http://www.teatalk.com/index.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The cynic will doubtless see The Tea Man as nothing but an extensive and clever sales pitch, a whole encyclopedia of tea published for the sole purpose of getting people to click on the link to The Tea Shop (http://www.teashop.com) conveniently placed at the bottom of almost every page. But in the same way that the culture of tea transcends the leaf, the writing in The Tea Man evinces a love for the product beyond the base desire to sell. The pages are simply and nicely designed, presenting a succinct history of tea the world round, espousing the health benefits of a good infusion, and a look at the finer points of sipping.
Overall Rating: 16
MapQuest
URL: http://www.mapquest.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
MapQuest is the best interactive map on the Internet. (There. I said it, and I'll say it again.) The detail level on these maps is astounding. First choose your continent or country, then zoom in on the state, county, city, and finally your own block! Want to see the nearest hotels and restaurants? Just click on any local points of interest and--voila--they'll pop up on your map. The clickable maps make it easy to point and click to any area in North America as well as many of the major cities around the world. People who register (it's free) can personalize their maps and save them for later. Another feature, TripQuest, allows you to enter a starting point and destination, then gives you detailed driving directions. Incredibly enough, you can also search for business names and addresses anywhere in the U.S. and MapQuest will map their locations for you. Don't miss this one, folks. It'll keep you on track.
Overall Rating: 18
LawCrawler
URL: http://www.findlaw.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 0197
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Think of this as a Yahoo for lawyers. Just enter a few keywords and you'll get a wide array of documents of special interest to law researchers. This important resource cuts out the Info-dreck on the Internet and gets you just the legal information you need. They keep law journal abstracts and full texts of many cases. Of course, you can also browse their law categories: law journals, law reviews, worldwide law, law firms, law schools, government law information, law... publishers, organizations, case law and yet more law. In short, everything law. This is the next best thing to buying a subscription to the professional legal search system, WestLaw.
Overall Rating: 16
Rulers
URL: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/1058/rulers.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
This is a great resource for journalists or those wanting to settle bar bets. You can find the heads of state or any country in the world: kings, queens, princes, princesses, presidents and prime ministers. Simply browse the country you're looking for and it lists every known ruler of that country, including dates in office and birthdates. Another option gives you a monthly chronicle of political events, with emphasis on changes of power and election results. Information only dates back as far as January 1,1996, however, but there's already so much. Rulers also maintains a list of people in charge of worldwide organizations like the United Nations, the Arab League, and the European Union. Interesting factoid: world rulers like to keep their birthdates secret, apparently.
Overall Rating: 16
Demography and Population Studies WWW VL
URL: http://coombs.anu.edu.au/ResFacilities/DemographyPage.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0197
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
When you need demographic information, come here. There are currently 155 sites listed here with demography information all around the world: official government pages, university studies, organizations interested in demographics, and many other such resources. You can also search 'Irena - The Web Connections Finder' in case you need some more specific information. A drab, gray site, it nevertheless gets the job done. There is a mountain of information here. Just wait until you actually need this site and you will see how good it is.
Overall Rating: 14
Profound for the Internet
URL: http://www.profound.com
Category: Professional
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
If you acquire enough trade-journals, magazines, newspapers, and reports in a week to merit your own personal recycling center, Profound has a solution for you. What we've got here is 100 million pages of highly organized, subscription based, business data pipelined directly to your desktop, not your FedEx box. On the site, get a sneak peek at Eddie Executive gripping his ergonomically correct mouse with fierce determination as he tracks the moves of his competitors, and discovers new product development opportunities. Not a loose paper in sight. So if you're ready for an absolute onslaught of information, dig out your monitor from beneath all those memos and point your browser to profound.com.
Overall Rating: 18
Net Lingo
URL: http://www.netlingo.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
As the Web is woven, a new language emerges that those in-the-know use to communicate. Words and terms like ISDN, daemon, and packet switching are examples of the specialized jargon of the online world. For both newcomers and long-time denizens, techno-conversations can be a Tower of Babel unless certain definitions are set down. That's where Net Lingo comes in. A glossary to hundreds of Internet-related technical terms, Net Lingo is searchable, hyperlinked and elegantly simplistic. The definitions are clear and concise, with a "more" button for those who want to delve deeper. Finely designed and intelligently produced, Net Lingo is positioned to be the semantics storehouse of cyberspace.
Overall Rating: 18
Life on Mars?
URL: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/marsfile
Category: Science
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Mike Hase
As most of us know, several single-celled organisms hitched a ride between Mars and Earth on meteorite ALH84001 a few million years ago. After spending two years studying this meteorite and its fossilized creatures, the scientists at NASA and Stanford have made their findings available on the Web. Whether you read the scientific reports on the discovery or check out some stunning electron microscope images, you can be secure in the fact that you're getting your information straight from the horses' mouths. Drop by, see what all the ruckus is about, and watch your tax dollars at work.
Overall Rating: 15
NIST Physical Reference Data
URL: http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/contents.html
Category: Science
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Mike Hase
Has your work ever come to a grinding halt because you didn't know the latest accepted value for the muon g-factor or you lacked the information to properly calibrate your infrared spectrometer? Well, NIST has got the web site for you. With a smorgasbord of physical constants for serious researchers and/or the seriously anal, this site also provides numerous articles (in PDF) on how they do their least-squares fits and how they calculate the uncertainties in their reported values. If things like bremsstrahlung cross-sections don't figure largely into your daily plans, you may want to skip this one; otherwise, NIST has the information you need.
Overall Rating: 14
SpaceBound
URL: http://www.nwlink.com:88/~sclick/space
Category: Science
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Mike Hase
Put simply, Shawn Click's SpaceBound is a beautiful place. Although dedicated largely to space simulation software, this site will hold the interest of anyone fascinated with space. Extensive news clippings, informative articles, and great links to the rest of the web make SpaceBound both educational and entertaining. Follow the 'News' link to obtain up-to-date reports on the progress of space exploration, or check out the monthly 'Destination' feature and learn about a particular astronomical object. The 'Explorations' page, a collection of space-related links, could stand alone as an umbrella site. Easily navigable and peppered with breathtaking shots from outer space, this site is not to be missed.
Overall Rating: 18
The Tree of Life
URL: http://phylogeny.arizona.edu/tree/phylogeny.html
Category: Science
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Mike Hase
If words like Seymouriamorpha and Scarabaeoidea don't make your eyes glaze over, then you could spend days climbing around the Tree of Life, an ambitious title for an ambitious project. Beginning with the Eukaryotes, you can descend through phylogenies and clades seemingly forever (I never made it to the bottom). Each page contains pictures of the chosen organisms, linked branches that allow you to descend the tree, and information about the class (or phylum, or whatever). Toolbars, coupled with powerful search engines, make navigation a breeze. As one might expect, this is a work in progress so there are still several noticeable gaps.
Overall Rating: 15
ShopPBS
URL: http://www.pbs.org/shop/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
PBS, in an ongoing effort to raise money, has put up some items for sale at their online store. Some of the merchandise is pretty unspectacular, like the Frontline wrist pad and the T-shirts. No surprise that the biggest part of the store is the PBS Home Video Collection where you can choose from dozens of shows that aired on public television. Some of the stranger titles include "The 15-Minute Acupressure Face Lift", "Torvill & Dean: Face The Music Tour" and the horrific-sounding "Dolphins With Robin Williams." The video selection is searchable though, so you don't have to browse by title like I did. ShopPBS uses Cybercash instead of credit cards but plans to accept checks soon.
Overall Rating: 17
Databoat
URL: http://www.databoat.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Lost in a sea of bad marine-related web sites? Put on your sea legs and come on board the Databoat, a great resource for all your boat needs. I can't imagine anything that isn't covered here. There are boat-related books, videos, kits, supplies, and music for sale here. And if it isn't for sale, the site probably links to it. Databoat connects to other boating companies and archived press releases so you can stay up-to-date on the latest in boating news. Databoat claims to be the first "CD-ROM Yachting E-Magazine" and you can purchase the latest edition here, too. Contests and other fun stuff round out this site nicely.
Overall Rating: 16
Enviroshop
URL: http://www.enviroshop.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Buy with your conscience. Enviroshop brings you cruelty-free, pesticide-free, non-allergenic, socially responsible products. Items include cleaning supplies, toys, clothing, jewelry, books, videos, pet items, and office supplies. All very green. And speaking of green, this is a secure site that accepts credit cards. The hierarchical layout lets you go from category to sub category. There are detailed descriptions of the products and pictures too, so you know what you're getting. If you can get past all the corny clip art images here, you should have a fine, environmentally-friendly shopping experience.
Overall Rating: 15
Spiegel Directions
URL: http://www.spiegel.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Dorrit Tulane Walsh
It's slick, speedy, sightly, and. . .Spiegel? That's right, reliable old Spiegel has gone upscale, and produced a Web site to match their new image. Starting with the slogan, "shopping @ the speed of life," not only can you view full descriptions of products (Barbie even has her own section!), but you can also search for a particular item, see what's on sale, order online, and even learn how the family Spiegel got its name. Not all catalog items are here, but it's a good selection to start with--plus, you can order anything from the catalog online, too.
Overall Rating: 17
Music dot Apple dot Com
URL: http://music.apple.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0197
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Dorrit Tulane Walsh
"Rotten apple?" Nah, that's just too easy. This site's a tease--really good looking, but you quickly discover there isn't a smidgen of substance behind the facade. Allegedly "some of the coolest music known to man," is here, but all I found was an opportunity to join a "Digital Party List," which brings you dates of QuickTime Live events via e-mail. "Find the Music" is all the CDs nominated for Grammies in 1995. Hey, Apple--the Grammies were given out last February! No sound samples, either; clicking a CD just shoots you over to CDNow. Calling Dr. Kevorkian. . . AESTHETICS: 3 CONTENT: 1 TECH SAVVY: 2 Pat--If the Dr. Kevorkian remark's too much, you can change to: Please, put this site out of its misery.
Overall Rating: 15
ROLLERBLADE
URL: http://www.rollerblade.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This site can be viewed in either a high or low-bandwidth version and sports a great-looking design by Adjacency (www.adj.com), purveyor of spiffy Web sites. The site contains nine sections, including instructions for skating and a directory of events, places and associations related to the sport/fad/empire/religion of in-line skating. The directory even includes resources for skaters in such far-flung locales as Alaska and Tahiti. Why anyone in Tahiti would want to risk road rash and broken teeth is beyond me.
Overall Rating: 18
Ballparks
URL: http://www.ballparks.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
No big baseball fan, I still dug this one. Stadiums are part of American history, after all: the hallowed ground where legends are made, each one a diamond. For too long, stadiums have been shown no respect. Some of the greatest parks of old are now nothing more than a bronze plaque in the ground floor of an apartment building. Polo Grounds, Ebbetts Field, and dozens of others have gone the way of the wrecking ball. This site recounts the history and vital stats of all the current parks in the majors, pays tribute to the fallen stadiums, and even anticipates future construction. It's all a whole lot of fun, smartly designed with plenty of photos for the image-hungry. Plans are in place to include NFL venues.
Overall Rating: 18
The Ultimate Page
URL: http://www.access.digex.net/~cdl/ultimate.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Why did it take so long for someone to think of Ultimate? Frisbee is not just something you throw to your dog. A sport without a ball may have been a revolutionary idea at the time, but by now it makes a whole lotta sense. This site offers a little perspective on the sport, a quick history, plenty of action photos, and the complete Ultimate Players Association Rules (they're a lot longer than you think). This is also a great place to find that summer league your looking for or the pick-up game you need to get your skills up; there's info on all fifty states. Ultimate is one of those games people love--once they're exposed to it. So expose yourself.
Overall Rating: 17
The Local Guy's Guide to San Diego
URL: http://members.aol.com/localspage
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Local Guy, a San Diego native of 38 years, has crafted this dynamic Web site as an online ode to San Diego. Venturing off the beaten track, the local guy helps visitors and residents alike locate neighborhoods, restaurants, and night spots that aren't swarming with bermuda-clad tourists. As a former San Diegan myself, I can tell you he has covered a wide range of destinations and activities as he demonstrates that there's a lot more to this sunny city than Tijuana, the beach, the Republican Convention, and Pete Wilson. The site also looks good and is easy to use, which is an extra added bonus.
Overall Rating: 17
Jesus Ali Industries Home Page
URL: http://www2.corenet.net/jesusali
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Jesus Ali is an 18 year-old graphic designer and Aeon Flux fan with a few solid goals in mind. He wants to find his sister Evy Jo whom he hasn't seen since she was adopted away as a young girl; he wants to be part of tomorrow's underground mediascape; and, he wants people to check out his modified digital art and icons and know how much he loves his grandmother, who he happens to be living with. His home page manages to cover all of these bases with equal amounts of heart, humor, and intelligence.
Overall Rating: 18
Gravity
URL: http://www.newsavanna.com/gravity/default.shtml
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0197
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
More than a 'zine, Gravity is a virtual community with its roots in African-American culture, art, music, and issues. Beautifully designed, the site is crisp, clear, and actually readable (a rarity for text-based sites!). Gravity is a discussion spot, where members of the community create the content--reviews of books, media commentary, sports talk, etc.. Often when this is the case, the content suffers. Not everyone is a writer. But the small Gravity community features high-quality postings, well thought-out opinion, and a true sense of "interaction," not with machines but with people.
Overall Rating: 18
Real Saigon
URL: http://www.realsaigon.com
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0197
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Real Saigon is one of the most beautiful cultural experiences I've ever had the pleasure of visiting on the Web. Dedicated to all things Vietnamese, and filled with animations, music, and fine writing, Real Saigon is a highly immersive and educational site. Everything from business to women's issues to Vietnamese food to children's folk tales is exquisitely presented here. Take a look through this window onto an exciting and intriguing community created by and for people of Vietnamese descent.
Overall Rating: 18
Net Lingo
URL: http://www.netlingo.com/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0197
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
As the Web is woven a new language emerges that those in-the-know use to communicate. Words and terms like ISDN, daemon, and packet switching are examples of this meta-language, jargon used online to describe the online world. For both newcomers and long-time denizen, techno-conversations can be a Tower of Babble unless certain definitions are defined. That's where Net Lingo clicks in. A glossary to hundreds of Internet-related technical terms, Net Lingo is searchable, hyperlinked and elegantly simplistic. The definitions are clear and concise, with a "more" button if you want to delve deeper. Finely designed and intelligently produced, Net Lingo is positioned to be the semantics storehouse of Cyberspace.
Overall Rating: 18
IWorld
URL: http://www.iworld.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0197
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Deb Richardson
iWorld is Mecklermedia's stunning online newspaper which offers Internet news, information, and analysis by way of this content-intensive Web site. "Netday News" contains the latest headlines and notes from the wild world of the Net and the people who use it, with new stories and features every day of the week. The "Developers' Forum" is another mini-zine on the site with its own daily news items, features, tips and tricks for Web-developers of all experience levels. Anyone who wants to put a zine or newspaper on the Web should drop by iWorld to see how it's done. Double-plus-good job all 'round.
Overall Rating: 16
Dark Alliance
URL: http://cgi.sjmercury.com/drugs
Category: Media
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
ection. Similar stories have percolated through the media ever since. What is surprising, and sadly instructive, is the extent to which these stories have been ignored. Were it not for Dark Alliance, the Web version of the Mercury News story, this series might also have disappeared. Although Webb's investigation carried the story to significant new conclusions--namely establishing a link between the genesis of America's crack epidemic and funding for the Contras--it didn't exactly catch fire in the national media: over a month since it's publication, The New York Times has yet to devote coverage to the issue; The Washington Post acknowledged it only after demonstrators and the Congressional Black Caucus clamored for an investigation. Dark Alliance has received as many as 700,000 hits a day, demonstrating one clear advantage of the digital press: While the daily paper is here today, gone tomorrow, online content persists as long as the publisher cares to sustain it. Mercury Center--the paper's online counterpart--has done a commendable job with the site, adding value to the archived articles every step of the way. Visitors can link from the text directly to the reporter's primary sources: depositions, court documents, photographs, and recordings of audio surveillance are all available at the site, not to mention supplementary links to other online resources and a bibliography. The extensive documentation not only lends the story credibility, it also heightens the drama. On the technical side, the site falls for the usual trap: implementing gimmicks for gimmicks' sake. Available in both Shocked and Unshocked versions, the former adds scant audio narration and a gratuitous gunshot report for every click of the mouse. My advice: Skip it. But don't miss the site: Everyone should read this story.
Overall Rating: 18
First Monday
URL: http://www.firstmonday.dk/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Lauren Guzak
First Monday is a peer-reviewed journal about the Internet, on the Internet, covering a breadth of issues as they relate to the new technology. Although it makes the rather haughty claim of being a "truly scientific journal," that "expands the frontiers of academic publishing," First Monday is a compelling endeavor, sure to find an appreciative audience among the Web cognoscenti. While each issue is marked by a lineup of seemingly divergent topics, the touchstone of every article is the Internet and the "Global Information Infrastructure." The commitment, according to Editor-in-Chief Edward Valauskas, is to "larger concerns in the Internet community over trends." That simple mission is made manifest in articles like the one entitled "Indonesia: From Mainstream to Alternative Media," by Andreas Haresono. As with most of the pieces in First Monday, Haresono's piece serves as a catalyst for substantive debate on information technology. In it, he addresses not only the history of media control in Indonesia, but gives an in-depth analysis of the current state of Net communications in the infamously repressive country. Haresono's piece is well-researched and thorough, with numerous hyperlinks to a variety of obscure newsgroups and Web pages including the "Indonesia-L" mailing list and a news agency called "PIPA" at gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:2998/7REG-INDONESIA?PIPA. PIPA, or "the pipe" was established by professional journalists in Indonesia who were unable print their reports in that country's mainstream media. Past issues of First Monday are archived in the Index. Other provocative titles from the vault include: "The Mysterious Disappearance of the White House Speech Archive," by Richard Wiggins and "Possible Economic Consequences of Digital Cash," by Tatsuo Tanaka. The site also features relevant book reviews and interviews. Be warned: none of this is light reading. The journal is available in three forms: monthly, via the First Monday listserver; as an annual CD-ROM containing all articles published that year; and, of course, at the Web site, where you can subscribe, read the journal, and submit manuscripts for publication. Paper versions are available upon request, but, hey, it's a self-declared "experiment in electronic publishing, exploring the possibilities of communicating in this Internet medium," so try to resist the urge for the hard copy. Remember, there's no such thing as a hyperlink from the printed page.
Overall Rating: 18
alt.culture
URL: http://www.altculture.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
Ostensibly a page to promote the book by the same name, the alt.culture Web site may be destined to overshadow it's much-praised, bestselling print predecessor. Tailor made for hypertext, the material here--part dictionary of cultural literacy, part deconstructive commentary--makes for an informative, entertaining, and freewheeling romp. A good deal of the fun here is in following whatever thread you find yourself on. A search of alt.culture's database for comic, Harry Shearer (you gotta start somewhere), led me down a connect-the-dots course marked by: Saturday Night Live; comedian, Adam Sandler; filmmaker, Tamra Davis; Hang Ten surfwear; and, finally, the "infantilization" of street fashions. Of course, I needn't have followed that particular sequence nor stopped there. From infantilization, part of the so-called "pathetic aesthetic", I could choose from close to thirty links, ranging from closely related entries, like Urban Outfitters, to others far-flung: What does Vick's VapoRub have to do with it? And the plentiful links are only half the story. The writing at alt.culture is consistently breezy and intelligent, packing in as much edification as the brief format allows. And even prosaic topics are given interesting treatment. A potentially numbing entry on pagers gives a short rundown on the ubiquitous gizmos, moving fluidly from sales figures to song lyrics from New York rappers, A Tribe Called Quest, and neologisms like "beeper babies," the nineties equivalent of "latchkey kids". Off-site links supplement the material, as do photo images, soundclips, and video outtakes. The site is fully searchable and incorporates a number of WWW search engines as well. Visitors can also wend their way by autopilot or click "random" to be dealt an entry from anywhere in the deck. Don't agree with alt.culture's take on some aspect of pop culture? Want to add an entry for some new phenomenon or upspeak? The site invites visitors to submit new entries and corrections for consideration. They also maintain a BBS forum, for what it's worth. The dominant strings when I checked involved a cat fight over Courtney Love's fitness as a mother and Tom Cruise's cultural status: Icon or no? That nonsense aside, alt.culture is da kine, as the kids like to say. At over 900 entries and growing, you can spend a lot of time down this particular rabbit hole. My only question is how they expect to sell any books? I am sure the paper version is a fine resource, but, friends, this one was made to be online.
Overall Rating: 18
Pitcairn Island Home Page
URL: http://www.wavefront.com:80/~pjlareau/pitc1.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
What do the Mutiny on the Bounty and Pitcairn Island have in common? Well Pitcairn was settled by the Fletcher Christian party, once they'd taken their leave of Captain Bligh: "The British mutineers and their Tahitian wives/allies occupied Pitcairn Island as their new home because it lay some 200 miles from its charted position, was uninhabited, and could support a small settlement." There are 50 people on Pitcairn today, all ancestors of six Bounty mutineers, but for such a small population, this site is packed with info on daily life, photos, and articles about the Island. Learn Pitcairn Patois (Tahitian and English), read "Bloodless Genocide," a very interesting history of Pitcairn and nearby islands, and browse the Pitcairn Virtual Shopping Mall. Very interesting and informative.
Overall Rating: 16
Shanghai-ed
URL: http://www.shanghai-ed.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Shanghai...few place names resonant like that one. Conjures up murky docks, emigre palaces, and opium dens. That Shanghai disappeared with the Cultural Revolution, but with China's "Open Door" policy, this teeming city of 15 million (8 million in the city proper) is once again becoming a magnet for all sorts of international finance and appears to be booming. Shanghai-ed is extremely sophisticated and well designed, moving with ease between a history of the city and lists of restaurants, shops, and travel advice. May-May, cigarette-smoking, wartime partygirl that she is, will be your guide to the nightlife, providing lists of bars, karaoke joints, beer houses, and discos. A great site to visit...makes me wish someone would put me on a slow boat to China.
Overall Rating: 17
Search Engine Tutorial for Web Designers
URL: http://www.digital-cafe.com/~webmaster/set01.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
The first step in marketing your Web site is to understand how search engines ferret out the information you provide, and in essence, define it to the cyberpublic. Digital cafe has put forth a handy tutorial on the subject, and it's well worth the brief time it'll take to review the matter. There is a tabular breakdown on the stats of several major search engines, and well-written details on each of them, based on real-world test searches. Review these pages before putting up your site lest the search engines stuff you in the wrong pigeon hole.
Overall Rating: 15
Computer Virus Myths Home Page
URL: http://www.kumite.com/myths/home.htm
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Few things go bump in the night as do spectral computer viruses haunting the tender recesses of your private hard drive. But are your fears justified or are they just so much PC dandruff, over-advertised annoyances with more more bark than byte? Rob Rosenberger has made it his business to put forth the thesis that there is nothing to fear so much as fear itself with regard to viruses. His polemical strategy is to posit and dismiss a litany of myths and misconceptions, one by one. I, for one, am sleeping a little easier, thanks.
Overall Rating: 14
WWW Virtual Library: Java Programming
URL: http://acm.org/~ops/java.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
This is a part of the estimable W3VL this page amounts to a tabulated listing of Web resources available on the general subject of Java, including programming, implementation, and porting to various platforms. Any good Java site out there is probably within one or two saltatory clicks from here. Not the first place to go if you're an absolute beginner, others drawn by the aroma will do well to slip a bookmark here.
Overall Rating: 14
HTML Goodies
URL: http://www.htmlgoodies.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Excellent
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Not bad as vanity pages go. Seriously, though, this one has a generous amount of content and deserves to be listed under this category, despite the frequent plugs the author gives his services. The "goodies" are a set of tutorials for nascent web developers who are working on either the client or server side. Subject matter covers material from background patterns to image maps, Java scripts to writing HTML and CGI applications. The quality of the lessons is variable, and the underlying message is: if you get frustrated trying to do it yourself, Joe'll be glad to do it for you.
Overall Rating: 14
Electronic Beowulf Project
URL: http://portico.bl.uk/access/beowulf/electronic-beowulf.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The original manuscript for Beowulf, the English masterpiece starring Grendel the monster, was badly damaged in a fire 200 years ago. Taking the remains out of its display case in the British Library for scholarly study is obviously not the best idea. But in a hint at the future of the library, we are given the Electronic Beowulf Project, focused on scanning and analyzing the parchment to create a complete digital version of the document for study. With tons of related research and articles being added constantly, the Electronic Beowulf Project is an example of electronic media's power to archive artifacts from the pre-digital era of the written word.
Overall Rating: 16
Todd's Great Big Stupendous Poetry Page
URL: http://bigdog.engr.arizona.edu/~harrist/poetry.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Forget coffeehouses people, the Web is the new home for good (but too often really bad) poets: This page overflows with what Todd the poet calls his "Random Poetry" and he deserves kudos for taking the DIY approach to publishing his verbiage. For a hint of what's in store, check out "The," a Todd masterwork that really touched me. Todd better be careful though. Some of his contributors may edge him out in the absurd poetry arena. Take "Tablet Junker" from Amanda Parks for example: "Michael Jacko / Is a wacko / He went smacko / In a cracko / Now he's backo / He gets slacko / I think his new album is okay." Yeah... dig it.
Overall Rating: 15
The Scott Gallery
URL: http://haven.uniserve.com/~mscott/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Michael Scott has finally brought his unique melding of photography and poetry to the Web. (Never heard of him? Neither had I.) Anyway, Michael has graciously organized his textual and visual artworks under a half dozen themes, including love, war, philosophy and others. The photos -- birds, flowers, raindrops on a branch, etc.-- are quite serene and well shot in a New Age postcard kind of way -- the accompanying poetry is extremely melodramatic. Michael says he's offering his work as "an oasis of positive thought on the Internet." With that in mind, his page deserves a look just for the karma alone.
Overall Rating: 14
Mind and Body
URL: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/Table.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Mind and Body is the catalog from a 1992 exhibit of the same name at the National Library of Medicine on Rene Descartes, the origins of mind/body dualism, and the development of the field of psychology in America. In a very scholarly style, the largely-text site describes how Descartes came upon his findings and how the scholarship of philosophy then changed. If you know nothing about the subject, you might want to do some basic reading in philosophy first. If the subject interests you, you'll probably find some new info within the site, which includes illustrations and portraits from the exhibit. Not for the non-reader.
Overall Rating: 14
Teen Home Page
URL: http://www.cloud9.net/~thorpy/TEEN.HTML
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Clearly well-intended, this page is a big loser for its target audience of teenagers, who must be cool at all costs and could easily hoot this site off the Web en masse. Our anonymous HTML beginner doesn't spend enough time finding links (there's way too much plain text here) or hanging with the gang who embody the ideal teen. If you feel clueless, you might want to check off "the top five colognes guys like to wear" (there are six listed). But if you have a semblance of a clue, you'll be at a fun music or entertainment site, and not here.
Overall Rating: 13
The GRAMMY Awards
URL: http://www.grammy.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
By the time you read this, the Grammy Awards will be a glint in the eye of a fickle public. A visit to the Grammy page will yield a big list of who's been nominated in every category, from Rock to Classical. There's also a mysterious link to a Rock Artist Showcase which never works. A few days from when I am writing this, the site promises to have daily updates and live feeds leading up to the awards. Of course, by the time you read this it'll all be moot. My bold prediction for 1996: The Monkees sweep this year's awards... again!
Overall Rating: 14
Be Happy Or Die
URL: http://www.emba.uvm.edu/~jross/aonhome.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Be Happy or Die is dedicated to the 80's techno-pop band, Art of Noise, which is no longer with us. How sad. The discography features album cover art and track listings to most of their stuff. The "text" section separately features the liner notes to all the albums. The "images" area is simply a standard directory listing of all the images on the site. Not very helpful. Maybe a class on the Art of Web Design would be more in order.
Overall Rating: 15
Beyond Infinite Connections
URL: http://www.eelab.newpaltz.edu/~harple31/pm.dawn/index.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Infinite Connection celebrates the magical music of pop stars PM Dawn... and Beyond! The Web site includes a text-heavy discography, lyrics and liner notes to some of the songs, a few pictures, and some information on how to get in contact with the record company. The one unique resource on this page is a set of links to various music charts, like Billboard's Top 40 and the Gavin Report, which track PM Dawn's success (or lack thereof). Also check out the site's news bulletin center to follow the latest news on their DJ who was arrested for having sex with his 14 year-old cousin.
Overall Rating: 15
Labyrinth Oz Music Site
URL: http://jeack.apana.org.au/~rexx/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Personally, I think we have enough unsigned bands in this country, but If you're into local bands from Sydney and Melbourne, you'll like this site. There are links to information on independent bands including any e-mail addresses or Web pages they might have. The best link they feature is the Rick James Prison Web site which has been keeping him busy. Unfortunately all this information comes with a price: being so far away, it's incredibly slow. Save time, turn the graphics off, and read about the band SILVERTHRONE, a SILVERCHAIR knock-off... only these guys are 15!
Overall Rating: 15
NoMeansNo
URL: http://www.musicwest.com/wrong/nomeansno/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
NoMeansNo claim to have toured the world over since 1981 selling out stadiums and everything, but so does David Haselhoff. There are the usual lyrics, list of tour dates, and a nice set of publicity stills to prop up this otherwise anemic site. I'm not familiar with this band's music and might have liked some sound files or some other content to give me a sense of what they do. I guess if you're a fan (and I'm sure you are) you'd like this O.K. I just Say No.
Overall Rating: 15
Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
URL: http://www.georgetown.edu/irvinemj/english016/conrad/conrad.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Heart of Darkness is one of the most dense and murky short stories ever written, and Coppola's Apocalypse Now is a marvelous film adaptation of the work. A trip down a river becomes a metaphor for a journey to the darkest places in the human soul, an exploration of those fragile structures upon which civilization is constructed. This site offers the entire text of Heart of Darkness, searchable by keyword. In addition, there is a link to one of the most complete Apocalypse Now fan sites. All Conrad fans should visit this site at least once, if only to grab the e-text of the story.
Overall Rating: 15
The Papa Page
URL: http://www.ee.mcgill.ca/~nverever/hem/cover.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Hemingway was a one-trick pony who drank away what little talent he did possess, but that isn't reason enough to dislike this page. No, the client-pull embedded in the opening page inspired my ire. It annoys me when my client requests a document without my permission; call me a control freak, but I prefer to make these decisions. A short biography, a bibliography, a variety of related links including one to Real Audio files of the Old Man himself, this is a typical fan page. This site is a solid, if unexciting, source of information on the bearded suicide.
Overall Rating: 15
Virtual Urth
URL: http://www.users.interport.net/~cezanneh/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Someone spent a great deal of time building this site. More specifically, someone spent a great deal of time determining which background and text color combinations are most indecipherable, and then gleefully constructed a site based on that information. This is a poetry/literary 'zine, and I do wish I could have explored more of it. Unfortunately, poor HTML coding practices made for a mess while once again proving my first Law of the Web: frames are almost always a force for evil. The situation grew horrible enough to bring my Netscape 2.0 crashing down, carrying with it several telnet sessions and my mood.
Overall Rating: 14
Steinbeck
URL: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/steinbec/srchome.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Steinbeck's popularity among high school English teachers is only to his misfortune. There are too few instructors capable of placing Steinbeck's work within an historical context, and unfortunately, this site will do little to assist the individual trying to decipher Steinbeck and his catalog. Visitors find a bibliography, a timeline of his life, photos of the houses Steinbeck stayed in, and a few images of the landscapes in which the stories were set. Those researching Steinbeck's taste in dwelling places will enjoy this site; others should do a net search.
Overall Rating: 15
The Infinite Goof
URL: http://www.rain.org/~da5e/tom_robbins.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
It is a curious phenomena: nearly every existentially-aware, self-reflective female I know adores Tom Robbins. And few, if any, of the similarly-enlightened males I know can stand him. This is a Tom Robbins fan site, but is in no way a typical fan page. Of course there is a bibliography, critical essays, interviews, and related links -- but that's just the beginning. This is a fan site with JAVA objects, and a VRML version too! At last, an adoring fan space that is entertaining AND fawning. Bonus points for not using frames! I hope my exclamatory prose conveys my delight with this site!
Overall Rating: 17
Romantic Notions
URL: http://wwide.com/rnotions.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"Who among us has not wondered...what if?" And so begins the online version of the Romantic Notions newsletter, a review of the latest in Angel, Ghost, Time Travel and Vampire romance stories. Numerous book reviews and a brief interview with an author did nothing to inspire my curiosity, but those with an interest in tales of eternal love overcoming the shackles of time itself may find this site rewarding. I am compelled to point out the background color in use here, one of the most tasteful--and subject appropriate--which I have encountered on the Web.
Overall Rating: 15
Horror In Literature
URL: http://131.252.12.160/~caseyh/horror/book.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Clive Barker? Stephen King? Young punks, both of them. When it comes to horror only one name matters: H.P. Lovecraft. To my delight, I did find Lovecraft on this site, as well as many other personal favorites. Billing itself as a horror archive, this space offers a list of someone-or-another's Top 100 horror books, a large collection of links to author-related home pages, and a few excerpts from recent novels. Of greatest interest are the visitor submissions, offering a chance to peruse the bad and worse in surfer-submitted horror. You should never pass up a chance to read another's horror fiction.
Overall Rating: 15
Neveryona
URL: http://www.organic.com/Staff/ogd/neveryona/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
I am sick and tired of pretentious book-snobs maligning the integrity of the science-fiction and fantasy genre. I hate loud-mouthed know-it-alls who consider Proust the standard by which all text should be judged. This is a Samuel Delany fan page, featuring the requisite bibliography and critical pieces. Though there is nothing particularly striking about the layout or content of the site, the page creator seems articulate, a rare quality among fan site maintainers. Maybe there is cause to hope the Web may someday improve in quality.
Overall Rating: 15
William Gibson's yard show
URL: http://www.vkool.com/gibson/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Cyberpunk is nothing but a rehashed 1930's futurism coupled with a fetishizing of Intel's latest products. Espousing this creed, I approach with trepidation anything vaguely connected to William Gibson. As I wandered the site my unease turned to confusion, then curiosity, and finally bemusement. I'm not certain what any of this has to do with Gibson, but I like it. Peculiar images of keyboard playing sociopaths and detailed critiques of 50's era Atomic Disintegrator toys vie for the visitor's attention. Admittedly there are more than a few empty links, but the oddity factor is more than enough to excuse the mess.
Overall Rating: 15
American Studies Web
URL: http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~davidp/archives.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Every Web page has it: the obligatory list of links to other (questionably) relevant sites. The American Studies Web, however, is *all* links, to sites on matters as diverse as the U.S. Constitution, the San Francisco Diggers, and the great Irish famine of the mid-19th century. It's a huge list, but rather disheveled: neither alphabetization nor subject organization seem to have sullied its pure anarchistic gestalt. Use the "Find" command on your browser if you're looking for specific information, and be sure to go up one level (to http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~davidp/amstud.html) for the whole experience.
Overall Rating: 15
Electronic Journal of Sociology
URL: http://gpu1.srv.ualberta.ca:8010/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Scholarly journals usually need to be spiced up, and the Web is a perfect way to do it. So why is the Web-only Electronic Journal of Sociology as dull as a two-pound brick of paper? It has all that you'd expect to find in a paper journal: abstracts (in tiny, unreadable type), articles, and references. But no pictures, no search engines, no indices. Well, there are some smart messaging features which allow visitors to make comments but at the moment, there's not much traffic there. The articles are good, but the presentation needs work.
Overall Rating: 14
Soviet Archives Exhibit
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/expo/soviet.exhibit/soviet.archive.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
This archive of Soviet documents is arranged around a museum analogy: Go directly to either of the two "floors" or follow the golden footsteps for a guided tour of Soviet history over the last 80 years. Unlike a museum, however, there aren't many pictures to look at, although the knowledgeable guide's talk is full of imagery. Be warned: it's a lot of reading: missing are the songs, photos, and personal reminiscences that would humanize such a tour; also, the text is so biased toward cold-war ideas as to threaten its credibility as a history text.
Overall Rating: 14
American Civil War
URL: http://cobweb.utcc.utk.edu/~hoemann/warweb.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Like Jacqueline Dana's Irish History pages (see separate listing), George H. Hoemann and Mary E. Meyers' Civil War pages are basically just a collection of well-organized links. Unlike the Irish page, however, these links go mostly to outside servers, meaning that the material is less cohesive, and you'll occasionally not be able to get at the information you want. When you can get it, though, most of these links are well-researched: Civil War buffs are notoriously fetishistic. And Hoemann and Meyers are qualified guides to this world of six score and 16 years ago.
Overall Rating: 15
Viking Navy
URL: http://www.digalog.com/viking/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
It's a pity when passion gets subverted by incompetence. That's the situation with the Viking Navy Web page, a sorry advertising vehicle for a fascinating project. In brief, Californian Peter Sjolander is engaged in building Viking-style boats to "perform as well today as they did 1000 years ago." The site includes some photos, drawings, and descriptions of his experiments, but his appalling writing and HTML coding make the juicy fruit of his experiences inaccessible. Serious nautical history buffs and scholars may find this site interesting, but the casual Web browser would do best to skip it.
Overall Rating: 13
Edna Creek Mercantile
URL: http://www.libby.org/mds/mds2.htm
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This site was created for those who want to combine the old-fashioned home-y-ness of the small town Mercantile, with the speed and convienence of the Web. The Folk's over at Edna Creek have a love for the romantic imagery of the old west-- this site brims with it. The product selection is rather limited, but you can order all items over the Web, and they are featured on attractive, well designed pages. Anyone who prefers mountain villages to cities, and trout fishing to golf, will want to swing by the Merc when passing through Edna Creek.
Overall Rating: 16
Jerry's Music Shack
URL: http://www.freemusic.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Free music? No way. Jerry gives us an interesting, but short, list of 'free or almost free' music. The catch is you have to buy other items, such as books, and the CDs come thrown in. It seems kind of like calling those CD-ROMs that come pasted into the back of $50.00 computer books free -- I don't buy it. This site does have a delightfully random sampling of music, but there were only about five CDs listed when I visited, and they were arranged in an cumbersome, albeit attractive, manner.
Overall Rating: 15
A Tale of Two Kitties
URL: http://www.twokitties.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you like to display or even flaunt your love of cats, and you can tolerate intense cuteness, A Tale of Two Kitties could be for you. It's a well-organized, easy-to-view catalog of stuff for feline fans -- tote bags, T shirts, caps, and of course, computer accessories (you need a cat mouse pad, don't you?). Heavy on the pastels and cutesy copy, the products are clearly described and priced, and ordering is easy (fax, e-mail, mail, and phone). Not only can you outfit your entire house and body in cat-related goods, there are even a couple of products for your own tabby (more to come, no doubt).
Overall Rating: 15
AutoWeb Interactive
URL: http://www.autoweb.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Because they require research and comparison shopping, cars can be a good subject for Web sites. AutoWeb, "The Nation's Electronic Auto Mall," is a good place to check on current prices of new and used cars, by dealer, by state or metro area, and even by private owner. There's also Autos Wanted and Exotic / Classic Cars Wanted (this is a paid ad area), and with a decent connection you can easily browse though a respectable number of listings. Search for dealer info by location, services and hours, though the list is somewhat incomplete. It's a good start point.
Overall Rating: 15
EMusic Home Page
URL: http://www.emusic.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Here's a music site that offers some reasonably smart searching (by song, title, year, artist, genre, label) for a 100,000-item catalog. As with a number of other music sites, though, EMusic has only a thin veneer atop an ugly text database, and within moments you'll be peering at small type to decipher your finds. There are some nice features including links to new titles and concert dates (under construction at this writing), top 40 charts, top sellers by year, and a way to review both your current and previous orders. Eventually, with some of its links smoothed out and a more readable storehouse of titles, EMusic could be a good stop for music lovers, instead of just an adequate one.
Overall Rating: 14
Retail Slut
URL: http://www.hallucinet.com:80/retailslut/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you're the type who easily parts with money, do these items grab you? "Poet shirt, rayon, ties at neck $74; mini-skirt, shiny stretch vinyl, zipper back with snap, $28; stretch jeans, super stretch, standard cut (not shown), $68." Not enough info, you say? How about if you could see a small detail-indifferent black & white photo of these items on models? Welcome to Retail Slut. This Melrose Avenue store in LA offers you a table of item numbers and sketchy descriptions, or photos displaying same. Cute concept, now let's rebuild your page with real buyers in mind.
Overall Rating: 15
Sound Spectrum
URL: http://www.soundspectrum.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you don't need instant gratification, music is an easy shopping goal on the Net. You can often search your chosen site by title or artist, sometimes by genre, and order up a storm. Sound Spectrum claims 120,000 titles (30,000 of them classical), orders filled within 24 hours, online or fax ordering, and US orders to you within 3-7 days. These are good things. What's not so good is the less-than-smart search mechanism that doesn't tell you it needs last-name-first to deliver the titles you seek, and the plain-text database that doesn't provide release dates, labels, or genre clues. It's ok, but there's better.
Overall Rating: 13
The Great Fax Cover Sheet Co.
URL: http://www.iwsc.com/greatfax/index.html
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Hankering for a remote control holder? How about fax cover sheet cartoons or funny fax post-its for your outgoing communiques? Or can we interest you in a pair of rolling scissors for ease of cutting? If you want any of these things, stop on by and order them here. You can e-mail your order, call the office, or send your request to a BBS. (Naturally, you can also fax.) The items are adequately described, but this would be a more useful site if it offered more products. As it is, it's not bookmark quality - nor is there a compelling reason to visit.
Overall Rating: 14
World Wide Diamond Source
URL: http://plaza.interport.net/wwd/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Call me skeptical, but diamonds don't strike me as something folks are jumping to buy on the net. But if you're feeling compelled, you can do it here (at least, you can e-mail an order to be verified within 24 hours of providing a credit card number). Whether you want cut diamonds, engagement rings, studs, or tennis bracelets, there is a long list of item numbers and prices to choose from. If on the other hand you'd like to learn a little more about the gems before you start shopping, this is a helpful place to begin. There's a short FAQ and info on the cut, color, clarity, and carat-weight -- the 4 Cs of diamondology.
Overall Rating: 15
Preview Vacations
URL: http://www.vacations.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Boy, this site is pretty: pretty like a stuffed peacock. There are over 500 colorful pages here, including destination information, photos, multimedia stuff, and "real-time transaction capabilities." But when you get down to the meat of things -- booking vacations -- you're stuck with the usual, boring, pedestrian vacation standbys. ("Would you like the $100-per-night room in Paris or London?") There are lots of clever forms and games to noodle with as well. Fill out the survey: doing so enters you in a monthly drawing for $1,000 worth of credit toward a Preview vacation.
Overall Rating: 17
Mirage Resorts
URL: http://www.themirage.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Las Vegas is a singularly American place: In a terrain where there's nothing of interest, attractions are invented and packaged. The Mirage Hotel is a perfect epitome of this, in that (fake) European food is served by a (fake) volcano while watching (real) tigers in their (fake) environment. And it's all available for downloading! Get the Mirage experience through pictures, sound bites, and QuickTime video clips -- or buy t-shirts and plush tigers via their Web site! You'll never have to leave the house. And isn't that what you want in a vacation?
Overall Rating: 16
Healthy Flying
URL: http://www.maui.net/diana/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Flight discomfort is caused by more than just a fear of the plane crashing into the mountains and leaving your remains a charred, indistinguishable heap. Former flight attendant Diana Fairechild has documented why flying is uncomfortable in her book, Jet Smart, much of which is available in "quick tip" form via her Web page. There's a neat bit of animation on the first page, but the focus here is on the content -- be sure to read about the "Full utilization of air," and how pilots can change the amount of air passengers breathe. Scaaaary.
Overall Rating: 15
Boat To Bolivia
URL: http://www.londonmall.co.uk/conway/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
With a title like "Boat to Bolivia," I expected swashbuckling adventure -- or, at least., adventurous writing. Sad to say, Tracy Morris is no adventurer, and her writing is about as thrilling as your cousin's slide show. ("This is me in front of the house... this is me in back of the house..."). She relates the story of two middle-class Brits making their way around the Americas, eventually to (you guessed it!) Bolivia. Expect a slow server and scanned postcards for graphics. The spelling and grammar are good, though.
Overall Rating: 15
Have Toothbrush Will Travel
URL: http://www.globalpassage.com/netstop/storyboard/have_toothbrush/home.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
If travel writer Rick Steves embodies the American spirit in traveling -- fun, easygoing, out for a respectful good time -- then Simon Rowe is his Australian counterpart. From him, you'll learn as much about Australian culture as you will about his his destinations. He's brash, opinionated, a bit obnoxious... and he writes a lot. The site has about a dozen tastes of his writing, but it mostly serves as a way for him to market his sixty-odd stories to interested publications: he also does travel photography which is, sadly, not displayed here.
Overall Rating: 14
Project Candide Intro
URL: http://candide.utopia.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Of all the "you are there" travel writing on the Internet, Project Candide is one of the most ambitious undertakings around. Here's the plot: five yuppie-ish New Yorkers take off for Tanzania, to travel from Arusha to Zanzibar armed with little more than money, their wits, and some very expensive communications equipment. The result is... well, some will find it fun, some will find it patently offensive. (Our moneyed friends sure do love those charming third-world natives!) If you don't have Netscape, forget it: it's a multi-frame, background-patterned, referential-URLed mess.
Overall Rating: 16
Blender Web Popspeak Slang Dictionary
URL: http://www.blender.com/blender1.1/digest/popspeak/popspeak2.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Is her scarf too ABBA? Do you have a Barbie-Dream Boyfriend? Is the temp worker a bit more Nutrasweet than you expected? Visit the Blender Web Popspeak Slang Dictionary for a crash course in slang and hipster lingo. Each letter in the alphabet has a slang term, definition, corresponding graphic, an example of the word used in conversation and even a audio file to hear proper pronunciation. Many of the terms derive from television shows ("He's such an Urkel!"), movies, and music. Update your vocab or you could be considered to be a regular John-Boy.
Overall Rating: 17
Telephone Directories On The Web
URL: http://homepages.enterprise.net/rh/tel/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Reach out and touch someone online. Telephone Directories On The Web is a bookmark list of links to online telephone, fax and business directories from around the world. Every link from the Australia Yellow Pages to UK phone information is on this site. Look up a lost friend in Slovenia or call a pizza delivery place in Italy. Not much on the graphics side, the site can be a bit boring to visit unless you happen to be a fanatical phone phreak.
Overall Rating: 15
Leisa Goodman's Home Page
URL: http://www.theta.com/goodman/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
As an ordained SubGenius I hold great respect for the Church of Scientology. Their belief system is just as implausible and absurd as my own. Leisa Goodman, Director of Media Relations for the Hubbardites (church of Scientology), has a home page that provides numerous links to church-related matters. Especially amusing is the prominence given to recent court rulings protecting the copyright on Church materials. This page is a useful starting point for any contemporary Barnum looking to scout the competition.
Overall Rating: 15
Atheist Express
URL: http://www.hti.net/www/atheism/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
There are too few kick-butt atheists in this world. Some think organized religions deserve to be ridiculed and abused, and who better than a committed non-believer to deliver the punch line? Visitors to this page find news of religion-related court cases, calendars of upcoming atheist conventions, related links, and such -- exactly the kind of information one would expect. But something is missing: am I wrong to expect more joy in all of this? Afterall, one would think an atheist page might convey more glee found in announcing, "Hey! We're alone down here!"
Overall Rating: 15
Ogmios Home Page
URL: http://www.ogmios.com/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Ogmios is the organization dedicated to opposing the coming reign of the antichrist. Ogmios also refers to the European who will lead this opposition. The Ogmios organization is recruiting individuals of all backgrounds to join the struggle: astrologists, numerologists, writers, scientists, and others. Each has a role to play as the End-Times draw near. Related links provide information on Nostradamus, channeling, ufology, and " the photon belt phenomenon increasingly referred to in the channeled literature." As the twentieth-century draws to a close, it is reassuring to know that the fourteenth century is still very much with us.
Overall Rating: 15
Alpha Net
URL: http://www.azstarnet.com/~fbarnes/alphanet.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Surely everyone will agree that the King James Bible can be a confusing hodgepodge at times. It is obvious that editors were in short supply when the Scripture was initially being put to paper; how else can one explain the organization and presentation of the Good Book? Thankfully the good people at Alpha Net have provided a solution. The essential Biblical tales--Adam and Eve, Noah, and such--are presented in a concise and easily digested format, with verse annotations for those who care. Related links can carry the interested to a range of Bible sites.
Overall Rating: 15
The Wyrd Page-Germanic Nordic Heathen Religion
URL: http://www.nmia.com/~seaxnet/Test1.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"Oh no, " I thought, "more of those annoying pagan types, the ones that dress up in capes and armor and spend their weekends bashing each other with wooden poles." Admittedly one will find a bit of that here: mention is made of a group which meets to celebrate the major days of yet another pagan sect. But in addition, a great deal of information is available. Book lists, contact groups, and an extensive collection of related links would be of use to anyone researching those Teutonic/Nordic/Northern European faiths.
Overall Rating: 15
The Towers of Avalon
URL: http://www.neca.com/~ice/avalon/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This site is a collection of links related to the usual suspects: Pagans, Wiccans, shamans and witches. It is as broad as any I have found on these matters, and should be of use to anyone who cares about such things. I find it interesting how quickly fringe religions -- and fringe types in general -- latched on to the Internet and WWW. For all the crap out there in cyberspace, it is still the most efficient means by which people can contact each other and add their voice to the noisy din of modern life.
Overall Rating: 15
PawSafe
URL: http://www2.pcix.com/users/pawsafe/public_html/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
"Making a difference, one pet at a time." Hmmm. Hope my pet is first in line! Actually though, this site is about pets that need to be rescued -- dogs and cats to adopt (with pictures as a super bonus). PawSafe also lists ways you can help --a wish list and volunteer opportunities. Check out the organizations mission (yawn) or trot over to the store for pet purchases. Woof. The layout is ok, with some nifty Table construction, but overall it's pretty dry.
Overall Rating: 15
Mark Richardson World
URL: http://www.mountain.net/hp/bluetic/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This site *looks* busy, busy, busy. But basically, like most Vanity sites, it's filled with a whole lot of nothing. But at least ol' Mark's been keeping up with the Web wizardry tricks of the day. MIDI sound, ticker tape at the bottom of the page, tables and other nifty gimmicks demonstrate the latest in home page painting, even if the content is questionable. But why shouldn't it be? This is Mark's world, not your domain. For example, Mark has graciously installed links to Tia, Jim, Paul and his other pals' home pages. And I'm sure they appreciate it.
Overall Rating: 16
Karl Tiedemann
URL: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~tiedeman/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This is easily one of the best designed and technically superb vanity home pages to emerge from the bowels of the Web. Shockwave, Tables, VRML -- Karl experiments with all of it. But then again, it's his biz. This guy runs an interactive video and graphic design company that bleeds professionalism, unlike the current crop of money-grubbing "Web Designers" that are advertising up a storm in your town. Karl also has included a bonus rant on his site about the Ann Arbor, MI chapter of the Anti-Squirrel Coalition. I don't get it either. But you still better watch out for this guy. Or hire him.
Overall Rating: 17
John's house of Weirdness
URL: http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/1033/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Zzzzzzzzzz.... John's House of Weirdness is yet another Vanity page that offers nothing but an insignificantly shallow insight into the creator's life. The usual: links to his friends, significant moments in his Web-wandering life, and the annoyingly ubiquitous Douglas Adams funny face character (whatever the hell it's called.) And, of course, the pointless use of Frames. In fact, John's "Thought of the Day" is that "Frames are most cool!!!" They sure are, but check somebody else's site for proof of this. Well, maybe I'm being too harsh. Kudos to John for at least experimenting with HTML. After all, who am I to talk. I don't even *have* a home page.
Overall Rating: 15
Jon & Francis Berndt
URL: http://www.hal-pc.org/~jsb/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Wow! In August, Jon and Francis visited Jon's parents in Minnesota. The weather was nice, and ooooh, the pictures! Lake Superior sure looks mighty purty with the boats floating on it. These kind of anecdotes and snapshots give me that same warm fuzzy feeling I get when I read about Jon and Francis' family history, also presented on this site. Once you've learned all about the Clan from Derbyshire, check out this pair's links of choice. My favorite has to be the "Presentation of Purported Flaws in Evolution Theory." Well, maybe the "Romance Writers' Resources" is even a little bit cooler than that. A page only Jon's mother could love. Or maybe members of his church.
Overall Rating: 15
Fat Tire Wire
URL: http://www.Fat-Tire-Wire.com/ftw/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Dedicated to the sport of mountain biking, Fat Tire Wire would be a great place if it's most interesting features weren't "Under Construction." The Bike Swap free classified section would be cool if it worked. The Discussion area doesn't work either. Their racing database, matching you to a race, is incomplete. However, there is a complete list of races by region and a working list of links to some bike companies, but besides some photos and stuff, that's it. If you're going to put up a Web site, make sure at least half of it is running. And don't use cheesy graphics while you're at it.
Overall Rating: 14
NFL PLAYERS Inc
URL: http://www.nflplayers.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The NFL Players Inc.'s site might be worth a look if you have a hankering for some player stats or have a player trivia bug. Type a name, team or whatever into the massive NFL player database, press the button and voila! An Instant Electronic Football card appears, only without the picture (which would be a good idea). The Fan Club contains a Profile of the Week and in the Trivia Quiz area you're given $500 to gamble on your NFL player knowledge. Too bad it's just pretend money, since I just kept backing up the browser until I got all the questions right. All in all, a fair visit.
Overall Rating: 16
Scottie Pippens Home Court
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/cardman/pippen/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
If you're a Scottie Pippen fan, you'll want to check out this electronic homage to a basketball star. This site has got photos of Scottie, up-to-the minute statistics on Scottie, highlights from Scottie's last four games, a section detailing all the MVP awards he's won, and some Bulls' games highlights. My favorite part is the collection of Scottie's thought-provoking quotes which bare his naked, tortured soul to the world. The site looks good, works pretty well, and makes me wish I was seven feet tall.
Overall Rating: 16
Tennis Country
URL: http://www.tenniscountry.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Tennis Country is setup like a country club that you can't play tennis in. Go and gossip about tennis in the chat area, check out the latest news , follow tournament coverage, and discover playing and fitness tips to keep you competitive. A section for the kids has it's own chat area and some college court coverage, and a partner matching service helps you find a tennis date. I personally expect to meet a delicious tennis babe because I said I was a 7.0 rated pro. The only problem is that the look and feel of the place made it resemble the town courts more than an exclusive club, but that shouldn't deter you.
Overall Rating: 11
Tour DuPont
URL: http://www.lubricants.dupont.com/Tour95/Tour95.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Tour DuPont is a big bike race sponsored by the manufacturers of a lubricant. Access schedules, course maps, details of the teams and riders, and more info about lubricants than you can ever hope to use. The coolest feature is the Predict the Winner option. First they explain a bunch of physical stats like lactate threshold (which has nothing to do with milk), and then you compare the stats of the competitors to choose a winner. Only it doesn't work. Probably this is because I reviewed the '95 page (the '96 one wasn't up yet) and it wouldn't be very challenging to predict something that happened a year ago.
Overall Rating: 15
Ocean & Snow Surfer
URL: http://www.southcoast.com/browse/scwindan/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Snow and surf boarders like to think of themselves as cutting-edge with their hip sensibilities and style -- you'd expect a Web site by a surf shop to reflect this. The Ocean & Snow Surfer page fails miserably. Is blinking text radical? Is poor organization a cool style? There are some pretty good photos, but they're poorly scanned and laid out. Sure, some of the content is useful. There are profiles on different manufacturers, a bit of industry gossip, and some stories about exotic surfing locales, but the most useful feature is the list of links to other sea and snow surfing sites. Swoosh.
Overall Rating: 14
Annals of Saudi Medicine
URL: http://www.kfshrc.edu.sa/annals/annals.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
The Annals of Saudi Medicine is a good resource for health care professionals interested in geographically focused medical studies. Original articles, case reports, letters to the editor, editorials, and review articles deal with all aspects of clinical, academic, and investigative medicine and research. Papers are written in English, and include studies with appropriately convoluted titles and obscure subject-matter, like the one detailing a 10-year retrospective review of patients with scorpion stings at the Emergency Department of the King Fahad National Guard Hospital in Riyadh.
Overall Rating: 15
Museum of Science and Industry Chicago
URL: http://www.msichicago.org/
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This museum has some really cool things in it, the kind of things that you don't expect to see in a museum. There is a German U-Boat and a Boeing 727 inside that you can walk around in. I believe in the 727, because I saw pictures of it, but the U-Boat will have to remain unconfirmed. My point is that the Web site has a very small slice of the over 2,000 exhibits that are in the physical museum. What is shown on the site makes it pretty enticing to come and see the museum, which may be the master plan, but with all the material it possesses, the museum could be a great contributor to the richness of Web content.
Overall Rating: 16
Animation Nerd's Paradise
URL: http://www.loop.com/~mhass703/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Fanatically loyal and often technically inclined, it is no wonder that animation devotees have taken so quickly to the Web. Visitors to this site find news and info on the latest animated works and the people responsible. The distinguishing point to mark this from other fan sites is a keen sense of humor. The favorite meat recipes of the biggest names in cartooning are available, as is a guide to speaking like an animator. It is this irreverent humor which makes the page worth visiting by anyone, regardless of their interest in animation.
Overall Rating: 15
John Travolta Page
URL: http://www.execpc.com/~aemog/travolta.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Too few people realize how lucky we are to live in this age. Cellular phones, fat-free food and John Travolta are just a few of the many wonders surrounding us. From Scientology poster boy and kitsch symbol to resurrected pop icon, Mr. Travolta has traveled all the paths of celebrity. This site offers a brief bio, a few movie stills, a list of Travolta's films, and a handful of related links--a less than adequate tribute to the legend. Fans may want to visit in search of a previously overlooked nugget of Travolta-trivia; the merely curious should try a net search.
Overall Rating: 15
The Cult Shop
URL: http://lasarto.cnde.iastate.edu:80/Movies/CultShop/
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
No one has benefited more from the video revolution than cult movie fans. Even the most obscure title is now available through mail order, if not at the local video store. The Cult Shop spotlights the latest theater and video releases of cult directors and performers. Images and related links for the profiled works are present , as are FAQ's and Internet-based reviews. Though not a huge site, the information is presented in a straightforward and easy to access style. This certainly isn't the definitive Web page for cult movie information, but it is worth visiting.
Overall Rating: 15
Philosophy
URL: http://www.physics.wisc.edu/~shalizi/hyper-weird/philosophy.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
If you want to find out about hall-of-famer philosophers, this is the place to do it. The page offers a paragraph or so of bio information about many famous old-school think tanks -- Plato, Descatres, and Locke to name a few. Also included are links to writings of these great minds at other sites. A nice starting place if you are doing some research, but if you come for new style (ie. Derrida, Foucault, etc.) you'll have to look elsewhere.
Overall Rating: 16
The Robot Wisdom pages
URL: http://www.mcs.net/~jorn/home.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
This quirky, text heavy site is one man's, Jorn's, rants and raves. There is interesting cultural discourse on James Joyce, thoughts on artificial intelligence, and science goop in general lodged here. The design is simple in the typical gray and blues and he's quick to offer some credible rants on Web design (/~jorn/checklist.html). It's just O.K.
Overall Rating: 16
CultureFinder The Internet Address for the Performing Arts
URL: http://www.culturefinder.com/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
CultureFinder is a straightforward site to cover "high" culture, like theater, classical music, and dance. With lots of text heavy pages, containing reviews of dance performances and classical music events, there's definitely some solid content here. And the bonus: Search the entire country for culture events near you. It's extremely informative, quick, and valuable to those who love the classical arts.
Overall Rating: 15
BEARS in Moral and Political Philosophy
URL: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/bears/homepage.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Trudging through philosophy papers is a time-consuming task, especially when most of them are not worth the paper they're printed on. That's where BEARS comes in. BEARS is literally the Brown Electronic Article Review Service from Brown University. Offering short reviews of philosophical treatises of all kinds, BEARS let's you know what's worth your time, and what's not -- sort of like a philosopher's Cliff's Notes. Let's face it, in these fast times even short stories are too long.
Overall Rating: 15
Laurie Anderson's Green Room
URL: http://www.voyagerco.com/LA/VgerLa.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The multimediatrix of performance art arrived on the Web last year, just in time for her "Nerve Bible" tour. While the itinerary on this site are long outdated and there isn't any "backstage" left to interact with, there is plenty of information on the Puppet Motel, Voyager's CD-ROM -- trip deep into the twisted caverns of Anderson's mind. Also of interest on this site are details about the Real World theme park that Anderson, Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno have been "planning" since the early 1980s. I'm still waiting. Anxiously.
Overall Rating: 15
Black Harlequin Space
URL: http://www.peg.apc.org/~agarton/bhspace.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Black Harlequin is..... ummmm.... a "new media opera." At least that's what they call this artsy collection of images, music, and words. And who am I to argue? I say kudos to these artists for pushing the envelope. While the music (Real Audio and Wav files) and poetry isn't especially cutting-edge, the creator's philosophy about using a text-free graphical interface to navigate the site is a step in the non-linearity direction of true new media. While you still may be drawn to the URL at the bottom of the browser to find your bearings, at least this approach is more creative than simply hammering out new "back" and "forward" buttons.
Overall Rating: 16
Deco-Echoes
URL: http://www.deco-echoes.com/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I really wanted to like the Deco-Echoes site. After all, I'm a big fan of the 1950s Jetson's aesthetic. But unfortunately, this page is one of those good ideas/poorly executed deals. For example, the site's history of mid-twentieth century design is ridiculously cursory and graphics-light with only one visual example of each decade's design style. One redeeming factor on Deco-Echoes though are the links to vintage dealers -- probably a good bet if you're in the market for a spacey TV set circa 1958. While I'm excited to check out "The Echoes Report" magazine hyped on this page, Echoes' site-creation skills, like their subject matter, seems to be stuck in the past.
Overall Rating: 15
MSARP Virtual Slide Show
URL: http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/SS/ARKY/show/showintro.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
No, not your neighbor's Florida vacation photos, but images of archaeological research in the Canadian High Arctic. Clear and impressive images of a house excavation and metal artifacts like bone needles are examples of the nearly two dozen server-pushed JPEGs in the show. You can even loop samples of Inuit Throat Singing or ambient environmental sounds to get you more into the Arctic mood. A fine use of the technology, but nothing interactive except a chance to ooh and ahh at the sometimes snowy landscape. Just like a grammar school slide show -- only slower. Guess you had to be there.
Overall Rating: 16
The Birdhouse
URL: http://www.birdhouse.org/users/shacker/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Birdhouse is a loose collective of Dadaists, Surrealists, Situationists, and almost any other kind of avant-garde "ist" you can think of. A virtual literary/art magazine of sorts, the Birdhouse is a collaborative gallery of fringe art, text and meldings of all media presented in the spirit of Duchamp, Dali and Breton. Expose the world to the twisted musings of your subconscious via the Conspiracy of Sleepers Deus Ex Machina Dream Input Device. Fragment your linear lives with cut-ups and collage. Surreal splendor through Java, Frames, and freaks! What an insanely beautiful combination.
Overall Rating: 17
Pat Meier Associates
URL: http://www.patmeier.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Part advertisement for the firm, part platform to promote its clients, this site ends up as a disjointed mix of elements. It doesn't give much information about the PR firm, and the client information has the feeling of a small industrial fair -- press-releases from seemingly unrelated companies all thrown together on one site. I got no sense of what Pat Meier Associates has done for their clients or any 'feel' for the company. There is an interesting guide to restaurants in San Francisco's 'Multimedia Gulch', though, that would be of interest if you are planning to visit the area.
Overall Rating: 17
Eastgate Systems
URL: http://www.eastgate.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Hypertext fiction is a fascinating literary form in which you pick your starting point and then follow whatever links catch your eye. Eventually the disparate elements begin to crystallize into a cohesive work. This site provides two sample hypertexts for your perusal, as well as descriptions and reviews of the works Eastgate publishes. The company also publishes non-fiction, a hypertext authoring system, and Web Squirrel -- a drag and drop URL manager. You can download a demo (Mac only) and check out other peoples URL collections. If you have never experienced hypertexts, check this site out.
Overall Rating: 15
Forte Technologies, Inc.
URL: http://www.fortevr.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Forte's personal virtual reality headset is on the cutting edge of gaming technology. For game junkies who haven't purchased one yet, this site offers excellent product information, tables of software that support it, and locations of Forte retailers. If you're already the proud owner of a VFX1, there is an excellent software archive, mediocre technical support, links to VRML sites, VR news, and developer information to keep you up to date with the rapidly evolving VR world. All game fans will love the excellent graphics and the section on hacks and cheats for popular computer games.
Overall Rating: 17
NovaLogic, Inc.
URL: http://www.novalogic.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Looking for a good war machine simulator? Whether your fetish is tanks, subs, planes, or helicopters, NovaLogic has your software. The site offers in-depth descriptions of its products, including reviews from the critics, a less than impressive collections of links, and customer support information. If you are considering buying one of it's games, this would be a very good site, if not, there is not much reason to visit.
Overall Rating: 17
Airwalk Online
URL: http://www.airwalk.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Few things are as important in todays hip sports as having the right footwear. In this spirit, Airwalk is happy to provide us with a sampling of product information, pictures, links, and interviews with the pros who endorse its skating, snow boarding, and mountain biking shoes. Also included is an interesting reader feedback section where you can read letters such as the "skater who beat up the fool who tried to steal his Airwalks." This is an extremely well done site: slick graphics, cool technology, and a cohesive theme. When I visited, it was still under heavy construction, so it should be even cooler by the time you read this.
Overall Rating: 17
Grossman and Roth, P.A.
URL: http://www.gateintl.com/GR/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This is a classic example of the McWeb site: little information about the law firm, few links in places that almost demand them, and very little information about law in general. Especially bad are the scanned newspaper articles by the partners -- bandwidth hogs and almost totally unreadable. It seems like a pretty admirable law firm, but you don't get much of an impression of it from the little information the site provides.
Overall Rating: 15
Franco Public Relations Group
URL: http://franco.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This site provides a clear image of the Franco Group, and includes many items of interest to the PR community in general. The run-down of the company gives a good view of the different organizational units, what services it provides, and some of its current clients. A very well done staff bio section includes pictures, phone numbers, a biographical sketch, and a favorite link for each of the group members (no e-mail!). For those not interested in the Franco group, the site includes some excellent PR case studies, a section of useful pointers for public speaking and presentations, and an art gallery of the groups graphic design work.
Overall Rating: 17
Speedware Corporation, Inc.
URL: http://www.speedware.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This site is geared toward developers using, or considering purchasing, Speedware software, including its 4GL for interfacing applications with networks, an open platform development environment, and other network development tools. If you're a web developer and have never heard of Speedware, this site is worth a visit; the company offers good product information and the site is very attractive. Current users will want to check out the Speedware partnership deal and the customer support database (only accessible by registered users.)
Overall Rating: 16
Neiman Marcus
URL: http://www.neimanmarcus.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Neiman Marcus is assured a place in Internet history for the notorious "$250.00 Cookie recipe" story, which has mysteriously appeared in my inbox at least twice a year for the past several years. (If you see it, do us all a favor, don't forward it.) The site addresses this myth directly, and provides a variety of promotional material: Neiman Marcus history, a not too helpful fashion section, a store finder, and calendars of upcoming events in individual stores. Regular shoppers will want to sign up for an e-mailing list to receive special notices about upcoming sales and events near them.
Overall Rating: 17
The Electric Library
URL: http://www.elibrary.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
EL is a hot idea that has a short way to go before it really catches fire. The service conducts topical searches through the full text of some 150 newspapers and 900 magazines, as well as newswires, books, etc. It's a great way to get a roundup of reviews or articles on a topic that interests you. But after a two-week trial period, you'll have to pay $9.95 a month for the privilege; and the searches bring up articles randomly, not from newest to oldest or most mentions to least. With smarter search mechanisms and alternate pricing schemes (how about one month and three-month increments?), I'd say bookmark EL. Right now, it's worth a look.
Overall Rating: 17
Building Blocks to Reading
URL: http://www.NeoSoft.com/~jrpotter/karen.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Karen Potter offers a real public service for parents of 3-6 year-olds -- lots of activities, word games, and puzzles to encourage little kids to start reading. There's an excellent A-Z list of activities that focus on reading and vocabulary building. There are also tips about how to reinforce reading and words throughout the home every day. As a bonus, there are a couple of other useful pages, like a home safety checklist and tips on finding good childcare. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 15
Mister Rogers Neighborhood
URL: http://www.pbs.org/rogers/mrr_home.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The comfortable, and awfully nice sweater-clad guy beckons us to sample some tasty bits from his long-running public TV show on this easy to use page. You'll find some of his wisdom (and suggested activities) about separation anxiety, competition, disabilities, and fears. There are also lyrics to a number of Mr. R's songs ("Parents Were Little Once Too" is but one), and a bibliography of books the nice man recommends. From here, you can link to PBS program schedules, stations, and previews.
Overall Rating: 15
Brooks Landon's Horizon of Invisibility Homestead
URL: http://www.uiowa.edu/~english/landon.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Prof. Landon teaches modern literature and sci-fi at the University of Iowa. He seems to be an affable and thoughtful sort who keeps busy studying Web culture, interactive lit, and the zine scene. Predictably, his page features links to those zines and personal sites that reveal this culture. His students are encouraged to make Web pages, too -- samples available here. And about that title: it's from a book on technology and culture and represents the lofty philosophical stance of this professor.
Overall Rating: 17
Truth, Lies, Rumors, and Rumbles
URL: http://www.cris.com/~Awolinsk/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
"As the Board Churns" is the subtitle of this text-based saga, about the tensions between teachers, parents, and citizen-players with various agendas in a southern New Jersey school district. Our "netitor" is Abe Wolinsky, a technology teacher who decided to publish Web reports on the community squabbles. All the details may not interest you, but this will: the original arguments (about building a new high school vs. saving money, and a subsequent teachers' contract) were quickly eclipsed by new crossfire because Abe put the story on the on the Web. You can even join in via e-mail if you'd like.
Overall Rating: 16
Arkansas Little Rock College of Education
URL: http://www.ualr.edu/~coedept/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
You don't have to attend the U. of Arkansas to appreciate its meta-page of educational resources. A big box of Frames provides links for undergrads (calculate your GPA!), grad students, teachers, and parents (links to good educational sites that might inspire Net-oriented moms and dads). You'll find out plenty about the UA educational programs and class schedules, lots of library site links, pointers to other Arkansas pages, even investment planning sites for teachers. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 14
Adventures in Education
URL: http://www.tgslc.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The nice folks at the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation bring us Adventures in Education, a useful overview about how to get into various federal programs, what it will take to repay them, deferments, current interest rates, and so on. Then it goes a few steps beyond the basics, providing career guidance advice, info for parents and guidance counselors, financial aid officers, and even tips on selecting a college or university. No heavy pitches for Texas or the corporation, either -- just a good shot at public service for the educationally-determined.
Overall Rating: 15
The Chronicle: Academe This Week
URL: http://chronicle.merit.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Chronicle is the proverbial Bible for college-level teachers and administrators. The Web page is well-organized, pointing you to news and resources on information technology, academic research, government programs and legislation, professional development, and more. But you must subscribe to the paper version ($75/year) to get Academe Today, the daily online features and links publication, (with a registration and password scheme that insures that no one else gets in.) If you are a Chronicle subscriber or are thinking about it, Academe Today is a definite plus. If not, this is just a nice brochure describing what's on paper.
Overall Rating: 17
CyberEd
URL: http://www.umassd.edu/cybered/distlearninghome.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
We'll be seeing a growing number of "cyberclasses" soon, essentially extension courses that lend themselves to online study. A small southern campus of the University of Massachusetts now offers a few grad and undergrad classes -- composition and technical writing, American politics, and astronomy -- as well as a non-credit Web page design class. You register online, pay for the class, and then do the reading, studying, practicing on your own. This no-frills site is an indicator of what's to come; a trend other small or remote campuses will plug into soon.
Overall Rating: 16
AdZe MiXXe, Astrologer Extraordinaire
URL: http://www.adze.com/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
AdZe MiXXe isn't your average astrologer, but a man with a mission. A mission to spread the good word of astrology and his unique sense of capitalization across the globe. The site isn't just a listing of daily horoscopes, but a complete astrological forecast. Check out the current phase of the moon and it's affect on you, how you and your mate match up astrologically, predictions of the weather, stock prices, and political events. There are even star charts for the stars, with tips for Bill Gates, Charles, and Diana. Superstition doesn't get more exciting.
Overall Rating: 14
Cindy Crawford Concentration
URL: http://www.facade.com/Fun/concentration/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Remember Concentration? The game where you try to match up pairs of cards? Here's a concentration game featuring Cindy Crawford made especially for her. The author claims this game is harder than the traditional game because who can screw with your concentration more than Cindy? The pictures on the cards are "inspiring", and the game itself is a nice bit of programming. If you have a supermodel fetish it might be worth a ten minute visit.
Overall Rating: 16
Data Goes Out On the Town
URL: http://pulsar.cs.wku.edu/~travibr/data.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Here we have a guy with too much free time on his hands. He kidnaps a cardboard cutout of Star Trek's Data from his girlfriend and tries to be funny. He dresses it up and takes it's picture with a bunch of people in a variety of "wacky" situations, and then posts the images online. Some of the photos, like Data taking a shower, are funny -- but most aren't. The text that's supposed to tie the pictures together is ill-conceived and annoying. They should have come up with a coherent story before taking the pictures. Maybe go out on a limb and torture him, or take some compromising photos of Data and a donkey. Something.
Overall Rating: 14
Ripped Off By A Landlord
URL: http://ocf.berkeley.edu/~andyneal/r-home.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Have you ever had a Landlord from hell? Your psycho Mr. Roper doesn't hold a candle to the weirdo these guys had to deal with. Read their long-but-interesting account of what they've had to go through just to get their deposit back from the paranoid schizophrenic they rented from. There are also some links to legal resources on the web that might help you out if you're in a similar situation. Although there aren't any graphics to speak of, and some of the links don't work, it doesn't take too much away from the horror of their situation.
Overall Rating: 15
Mentholgook
URL: http://sulaco.bsd.uchicago.edu/~shong/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Mentholgook is a recent college graduate who toils in his parents convenience store by day, and plays with Photoshop by night. He's posted his portfolio online, and some of it's pretty good. You might want to look at his proposed Wired magazine covers. Or you might want to see some art by a guy with a kooky name. Why's he called Mentholgook? He just likes the sound of the word in English.
Overall Rating: 17
Mullet Watch
URL: http://www.zeta.org.au/~ash/mullet/mullet.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Mullet is the Australian term for a type of haircut best described as short-in-front-long-in-back. The type of haircut worn by a particular male country star. The type of haircut (shudder)... I used to have. This site has pictures of all kinds of mullets from Brad Pitt's celebrity bouffant to random hair sculptures found on the web. There's also a list of hair-related links for visiting fetishists. Hair doesn't grow like this naturally, and Mullet Watch is about the only place you can go to celebrate this visionary art form.
Overall Rating: 15
The Particles of Star Trek
URL: http://www.hyperion.com/~koreth/particles/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Every time I hear someone on Star Trek babble on about bobyon particles or phase-induced anti-matter, my head spins. Did you know Paramount pays "science advisors" tons of money to keep track of this stuff? Now you can too with The Particles of Star Trek. It's simply a big list of every imaginary, real, and quasi-real particle ever mentioned in any of the show's incarnations. If, Heaven forbid, there's a particle you know of but isn't listed, you can add it with a handy form at the bottom. A few graphics, or any formatting at all would help this site out a bit, but it's still a funny document.
Overall Rating: 15
The Pronoia Page
URL: http://myhouse.com/pronoia/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Pronoia, this site explains, is the sneaking suspicion others are conspiring to do you good. Beyond posting this definition, the idea has little to do with the site. There's a list of books and some links to religious and community oriented sites that I suppose espouse pronoia. There's the table of contents from three issues of the British magazine, Head, along with some of the artwork, and four whole articles which have nothing to do with pronoia at all. That's about it. I have a sneaking suspicion you won't like it very much.
Overall Rating: 15
The SPLEEN
URL: http://www.mcad.edu/home/faculty/szyhalski/Piotr
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Spleen is a nice piece of work when it isn't busy being long-winded and "arty." The site is divided into separate segments, each with it's own mood. While the presentation of each piece is top-notch, much of the actual text is dense and makes little sense. Maybe I just didn't get it. There are a bunch of little animations viewable through Netscape or Shockwave, like the one of a studying student turning into a devil -- that was super-nifty. The Spleen is named after an organ who's exact function is unknown and you can live without. If it weren't for those animations, the same might be said for this site.
Overall Rating: 16
WardoWorld
URL: http://www.actwin.com/csn/WardoWorld/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
WardoWorld is the home of the "Daily Fun Fact " and "Games for the Simple." Almost every day, a short, obscure Fun Fact is posted on the Web for your trivia-starved brain. It's like a fact-a-day wall calendar without the wall. You can also sign up to get them via e-mail which seems like a much better way to me. The other part of the site, Games for the Simple, is a small collection of really easy games. Really easy. Stuff like: Which line is longer? A) ----- or B) --------------- ? I've seen this joke a million times before, but it's still sort of amusing for about three minutes.
Overall Rating: 14
Richard Downs
URL: http://www.earthlink.net/~downsart/
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
For the best honey go to the bee hive. For the best art go to The Hive, the virtual studio of illustrator Richard Downs. See both abstract illustrations and smooth 3D design that Downs was commissioned to do for such big names as Disney, Apple computers, and Business Week magazine. The dark tale, "The Masque of the Red Death," is also illustrated by Downs in a graphic novel form online.
Overall Rating: 17
Mythopoeia
URL: http://www.myth.com/mythopoeia/mythopoeia1.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Enter the realm of morbid Bible tales where John the Baptist is a decapitated head surrounded in fruit and Jesus glows in the dark on a neon cross. Mythopoeia mutates myth into digital emotion and sensory satisfaction. Aside from Biblical characters, the site illustrates bios of the Furies, vampires, sea nymphs, Sleeping Beauty, Bird of Paradise and more. Real life needs to be this artistic. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 17
Seattle's Center on Contemporary Art
URL: http://www.subpop.com/coca/
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
A large case of pink plastic found objects would normally be found in the "free" box at a garage sale, but at Seattle's Center on Contemporary Art it's a mixed media gallery installation. Every subject from the O.J. Simpson trials to portraits of Oscar Wilde are captured in paint, plaster, metal, and sometimes even plastic junk. Of the artists featured, CoCA focuses on a mishmash of popular art scenesters such as the Survival Research Laboratories and Hernandez brothers, as well as the more obscure folks.
Overall Rating: 17
High Museum of Art
URL: http://isotropic.com/highmuse/highhome.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Atlanta isn't just the home for the 1996 Summer Olympics, but also it's considered the grande casa of African, American, contemporary, decorative, European art, and photography at The High Museum of Art. The museum features more than 10,000 objects of art but the online site only has a limited number photos and brief descriptions of artifacts and paintings. Most of the content has more to do with the museum's services than the actual exhibits.
Overall Rating: 17
SF MOMA
URL: http://www.sfmoma.org/
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Paintings of country dogs and suburban cars riddle The San Francisco Modern Art Museum Web site. Read about special exhibitions such as highlights from Mexican Modernism and Maya Deren film series, or look at slides of selections from the permanent collection (without holding them up to the light.) Study up on the history of the museum or plan your life around the calendar of exhibitions.
Overall Rating: 16
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
URL: http://www.mfa.org/
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Discover the mythical art of the ancients and the captivating canvases of the post moderns at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Web site. The museum's first online exhibition explores the work of nineteenth-century New England painter, Winslow Homer, best known for his painting, "Long Branch, New Jersey." After artistic enlightenment, order a free museum catalog to be sent via snail mail. The site needs more interactivity before it can rank high with the other online masterpieces.
Overall Rating: 16
Design Vision
URL: http://w3.one.net/~mtgarvin/
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Starving artists would never have trouble finding a job if their resume and portfolio looked like M. Todd Garvin's Design Vision. Garvin is a Cincinnati area designer and artist who knows the power of the Internet and uses it to the fullest with his amazing eye candy portfolio. Look at his designs for packaging, logos, kiosks, multimedia presentations, and even a brand identity for a carbonated, vitamin-enriched fruit drink. Garvin isn't afraid of exploiting Shockwave either, though he does use a "Beavis and Butthead" sound byte on the first page. Yiesh.
Overall Rating: 17
Enoch's Art & Design
URL: http://jumpnet.uoregon.edu/enoch/ENOCH'S_connection_point.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Not all artists have to be worm food to have a gallery dedicated to their work. As a University of Oregon undergrad art/design student, Enoch has his "flat" art on display for the Web to ogle. Of his subjects, family and friend portraits seem to prevail, but Enoch creates some amazing nudes too. If curiosity gnaws at your bones, Enoch will give you the history behind each piece if you e-mail him.
Overall Rating: 17
Transparanoia Bros Gargoyle Quest
URL: http://www.razorfish.com/bluedot/gargs/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A trip through France to photograph architecturally enhanced rain spouts from the middle ages becomes a journey into the darknesses of the human soul and the outer limits of sanity as 2 brothers are driven on a quest to discover ancient mysteries. Or you could call this site "What to do with those neat vacation photos you took last summer." Lots of gargoyle pictures from the cathedrals of France are interwoven into a gonzo narrative that actually has some real historical information. Points off for various misspellings and gratuitous scary sound files.
Overall Rating: 16
College Money Matters
URL: http://www.infi.net/collegemoney/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
While many "informational" sites sponsored by corporations are just slightly veiled marketing attempts, Signet Bank should be applauded for their soft sell approach on this guide to funding a college education. There are Signet Bank loan applications and information, but a lot of the content (which mostly seems lifted from printed guides) does not bear Signet's stamp. One of the best resources here is "Don't Miss Out, A Student's Guide to Financial Aid." A good portion this book is available online.
Overall Rating: 15
Library Project: African-American Culture
URL: http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/LibraryProjectsIV.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The content here is a collection of essays about African-American Culture that cover ground from the slave trade to 20th century literature. The essays were written by students of a class titled "General Education 101," and take the form of mini-book reports. The site is really only useful as a reference for books about African-American Culture as the essays are too short to provide any substantive information. It also suffers from a poor use of Netscape Frames; the only way to get back to the table of contents is to reload the whole site.
Overall Rating: 14
NetNoir Education
URL: http://www.netnoir.com/emp/edu/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Following precedence set by the rest of NetNoir's Web space, it's no surprise that the education section of NetNoir.com is pleasant to look at with insightful content. This area hosts a wonderful archive of African folk tales, as they were told originally, with colorful artwork and an interesting weave of hyperlinks to connect them all. Also found are "classes online." These classes have a mini lecture, recommended readings, and mention something about online discussions (though I couldn't find the discussion area.) There's still room for improvement, but NetNoir's off to a nice start.
Overall Rating: 17
Macrobiotics On Line
URL: http://www.macrobiotics.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Someone's gonna have to teach these people how to use the anti-alias feature when creating Web graphics. Too many jagged edged pictures does not a happy surfer make. Sigh. The organization is also off kilt, with a confusing arrangement of click to the menu of more menu's and more menus still, until at last, a smidgen of content about how to financially support Macrobiotics. If you can stomach the search, there are some deeper areas, such as the Cancer and Diet nutrition section. While, like the rest of the site, our healthy living tips are poorly organized, the section at least offers some credible content.
Overall Rating: 14
Children's Nutrition Research Center
URL: http://www.bcm.tmc.edu/cnrc/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
I want to like this site, after all it has noble intentions: Keep our kids healthy! To it's credit, it has a semi-updated news section to inform parents about new nutrition "issues," and offers tips on fibers, sweets and general diet quandaries. Unfortunately, though, the rest of the site is a pamphlet for the program started at Baylor College in Texas, with some faculty info, seminar overviews, and a mini-mission statement. Not to mention it's all fashioned in Netscape gray...
Overall Rating: 17
The Body Electric Welcome Page
URL: http://www.surgery.com/body/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Hmm -- health site or 1970's disco dance move... Neither. It's a site that advocates liposculpture (??) and breast implants, which as far as I've ever known is not healthy or related to dancing. See before and after pictures, get cost estimates (from an objective source, which is valuable), and use the doctor finder to get in touch with a plastic surgeon type near you. The layout is a bit of an eye sore -- cheesy graphics and clunky text -- but if you're looking for info about body modification, this might be of some service.
Overall Rating: 15
LucasArts Entertainment Company
URL: http://www.lucasarts.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
The LucasArts web pages are a lot like the games the George Lucas multimedia empire produces -- exceptionally well done technically, but lacking, sometimes, in any kind of spirit. Anyway, what you've got here is about exactly what you'd expect: screen shots; downloadable demos; a catalog of available merchandise; a tech support section with trouble shooting guides and an online recruitment section. I don't know, maybe I'm just tired of licensed Star Wars games, but I found this web site profoundly unmoving. If you want to know everything about the latest LucasArts games, come here. If you're looking for something soul-enhancing, something like THE FORCE, maybe, look elsewhere.
Overall Rating: 15
Mac Flight Simulators
URL: http://www.xmission.com:80/~morrison/MFS/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Tom Morrison has collected an extensive collection of links to every Mac Flight simulator site on the Internet (as far as we can tell), from Graphic Simulatons to someone who has a Mercury space mission simulator. He also has news and gossip (current and archived) about Mac flight sims and links to several FTP sites and the Flight Simulator FAQ. A great one-stop directory for anyone who wants to play pilot on the Mac. Not super deep, not super ornate, but very complete -- you'll get what you want quick.
Overall Rating: 15
The Cheats Page
URL: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~cjm2/cheat/cheat.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This is a very small site with lists of cheats for about eight different PC games. Not bad, but not much that couldn't be found elsewhere. There are also some links to other sites. From Chris's homepage there are more links, including one to Games Domain, which is cool. I don't know why, but for the Doom cheats, he thought white text on a light gray background was a good idea. To be fair, the page is under construction, so it may be worth another look by the time you read this.
Overall Rating: 15
Warlords II Players
URL: http://www.princeton.edu/~rfheeter/w2home.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
As mentioned in the Warlords II FAQ, this is thee site on the Internet for Warlords II players, Mac and PC. Warlords II being, of course, the cult favorite strategy game from SSG. The site is basically a very long nap-on-the-scroll-bar page with a ton of links to places with more storage space for scenario archives and listings of people wanting to play Warlords II via e-mail. If you like the game, you'll like the site. It's well organized and complete.
Overall Rating: 15
Bridge on the Web
URL: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~sater/bridge/bridge-on-the-web.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Hmmm... Bridge... played around the world... by... well, by a lot of people, even if you and I don't know any. And this is their site. Many of the documents here are in PostScript, so you'll need a reader (they provide a link to a PC one, but no Mac), but aside from that, this appears to be a very complete accomplishment, with lots of links to PC bridge game sites, info about tournaments, etc. It's pretty plain looking, but has plenty of information that will no doubt be of interest to Bridge players worldwide.
Overall Rating: 14
Flags of the World
URL: http://www.cesi.it/flags/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
A none to glamorous website with more than 400 flags of nationalities, ideas, sexual orientation, ethnicities, politics, geographical areas, and supposed fictional societies found throughout the world. While the idea is good, the site lacks uniformity in content. While a hyperlink to Nazi flags will lead one to gifs of several flag types and explanations on the use of red and white colors, a hyperlink to Ethiopia's flag contains a gif of the flag and nothing more. Furthermore, the managers of the site do not guarantee the veracity of the information provided by their contributors.
Overall Rating: 15
ISO Online
URL: http://www.iso.ch/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
One can access the International Organization for Standardization's homepage in English or French. The ISO is an international group that sets and agrees upon the quality of products, materials or services that are offered or sold globally. They standardize everything from shipbuilding and food technology to condom durability. Although plagued by technological jargon, the site is information packed with the ISO's history, long- and short-term goals, organizational structure, and vision. Unfortunately, if one wants ISO literature on the standardization of surgical instruments, the site would hyperlink that person to an address and telephone number for further information.
Overall Rating: 15
LookUP
URL: http://www.lookup.com/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
LookUP! is a free, simple-to-use name to email retrieval service. In theory, one can input a name and address, click search, and then find that person's e-mail address. However, to retrieve an email address the person being sought after must be registered with LookUP! The site's members are privy to advanced search mechanisms, a Web site, and special e-mail programs that offer access to LookUP!'s e-mail database. It sounds great for now. But be warned, check the FAQs. The site's managers warn that LookUP! may charge members a fee in the future.
Overall Rating: 17
QWorld
URL: http://www.qworld.org/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
QWorld is a well-organized forum for the queer community, complete with chat rooms, message boards, and regional resources of lesbian and gay businesses in your area. For a good time, check out the QFiles filled with Lesbian and Gay graphics icons, sounds and other relevant resources. Once you're ready to journey out of QWorld, the massive collection of links will help you follow the rainbow streaming through the net. While the site is still under construction, it has the potential to be a bustling virtual town square for digital queers.
Overall Rating: 16
GeroWeb
URL: http://www.iog.wayne.edu/GeroWeb.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Brought to you by the Institute for Gerontology at Wayne State University, GeroWeb is a rich information clearing-house for researchers, educators, and care-takers. The site design is quite bland, but somehow appropriate for the academic and dry, yet useful, resources linked from its pages. Included are pointers to universities offering gerontology information, organizations of interest to the aging community, and government agencies useful to service providers and researchers. Not much fun, but seemingly purposeful information for the target audience.
Overall Rating: 15
Largesse the Network for Size Esteem
URL: http://www.fatgirl.com/largesse/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Largesse, the Network for Size Esteem, is a feminist resource center for "size diversity empowerment." What that means is that this insubstantial site is supposed to be a clearinghouse of health, diet, and legal information for "people of size." And these pages aren't just for adults either. Self-help and body image books for fat kids (phrase used on the site) are reviewed along with audiotapes, newsletters and other information for overweight children and their parents and teachers. As a resource it's fine, though it still has a way to go.
Overall Rating: 15
Welcome to Cybersmith
URL: http://www.cybersmith.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The real Cybersmith in Boston is one of the finest cyber-cafes I've ever guzzled mochas and megabytes in. Ironically though, their Web site is completely uninteresting. While they claim this site to be their "temporary" location, I'd expect much much more from people whose business is the net and community. There's little more here than lists of the top 10 CD-ROMs, games in the shop, and a boring list of links. Are the Boston City Hall or the RealAudio home pages really "hot sites?" C'mon kids, put down that cappuccino and get back to work
Overall Rating: 15
Victorian Women Writers
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
No men. No Edwardians. Just Victorian women writers. Which ought to tell you that this is a site by and for those with an academic interest in that bygone era of corsets, courting gentlemen and purple prose. But don't be fooled; there's a political edge, oft-overlooked, with a few radical feminist writers here. Apparently the "project" in the title refers to the ongoing effort to assemble literary works of this type online (for the moment the content is limited). Be warned, these are big files. While you *could* download them to your hard drive, are you really going to read it all afterwards? Well, maybe you are...
Overall Rating: 15
American Literature
URL: http://www.en.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/amlit.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This is a survey course in American Literature, digitally preserved, complete with student papers and class discussions. I'd bet the compositions have been plagiarized by now -- poached by unscrupulous college kids. As for the discussions, they're full of chat room-style interference and non sequiturs (Teacher: Helen, I liked your comment about Hester Prynne as feminist martyr, but I wonder if Hawthorne would have seen it that way? Butthead: This sucks, Beavis. Beavis: Yeah, he he.) Good for a laugh, maybe, but not much else. Butthead's right.
Overall Rating: 15
NWHQ
URL: http://www.knosso.com/NWHQ/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
You have to be a little wary of anything that describes itself as being "constructed somewhat like a labyrinth," but my brief foray into this "web-journal of hypertexted literature" was not so unrewarding as I expected it to be. In fact, most of the writing I encountered was actually pretty good, adventurous with the language and suited ( pace- and lengthwise) to the medium; maybe a little long on angst and short on inspiration, but good nonetheless. And the visuals weren't half bad either. And in the end, it's not even all that labyrinthine -- navigation back home is easy -- just a good read.
Overall Rating: 16
The Papa Page
URL: http://www.ee.mcgill.ca/~nverever/hem/pindex.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Another shrine to old Hem, another devotional on the web. I'm cool to this one without knowing exactly why. Content-wise it seems rich enough, with links to other resources. The interface is clean, simple, and straightforward -- like Ernie's prose. Good enough. Still, something seems to be lacking. The biography is pretty sparse, for one thing. And the images are generally the ones you've seen a hundred times; the man is an icon, after all. And maybe that's my problem with it; all the attention Hemingway gets just seems to further the self-promoting and self-mythologizing agenda he himself had. So why bother?
Overall Rating: 15
What the Thunder Said T.S Eliot
URL: http://www.usl.edu/Departments/English/authors/eliot/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This site has something I think every literary site should have in order to be truly useful: a search engine. After all, the best thing about having text served up digitally is the ability to cross-reference and index and hyperlink the hell out of it. That way it becomes a pretty spiff tool for students and scholars; otherwise you're just stuck with text on your monitor, the appeal of which I for one don't get. Aside from the search engine though, the site is pretty run-of-the-mill. Fair, but by no means outstanding. With time and increased content, however, it should improve considerably.
Overall Rating: 15
THOMAS WOLFE WEB PAGE
URL: http://www.cms.uncwil.edu/~connelly/wolfe.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Aside from a photographic tour (be prepared to wait) of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial -- the "Old Kentucky Home" in Asheville, N.C. -- there are no real surprises here. The biographical and critical information on Wolfe is brief but well-presented, as are the few choice quotes culled from the writer's work. The bibliography is just a skeleton -- just titles, no synopses or further links. Devotees may want to jump on the Thomas Wolfe Commemorative Stamp Campaign (oh boy) and stay up on the annual Thomas Wolfe Festival (wow), but for most visitors, this site will be a one-time fly-by.
Overall Rating: 15
Weblit
URL: http://www.sojourn.com/~rothfder/web/weblit.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This site provides a pretty exhaustive list of links to things literary on the web. It also rates some of those sites -- a little too charitably methinks. In addition to indexing individual web pages, it also indexes photographic images as pertain to literary figures, as well as downloadable texts available on the Web. As such, a pretty decent resource, I spose. There are some minor technical glitches, however, (clicking on the alphabetal index got me an advertisement for sojourn.com, the server, and who needs that?) and a backlog of URL's which have yet to be reviewed.
Overall Rating: 15
City TV
URL: http://www.citytv.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
One has to chuckle at television station and network Web sites. The Web is simply the precursor to technological changes which are going to swamp the broadcasting industry; how many broadcasters see it coming? This is the Chumcity Internet Site, offering up programming schedules and information for several Canadian television networks: CityTV, Bravo, and MuchMusic. Though better organized than most such Webspaces, this page suffers a near universal affliction -- a lack of engaging content. In the absence of attractive content, one must take advantage of the latest Web bells and whistles to attract attention.
Unfortunately, that is not done here.
Overall Rating: 15
SMASH
URL: http://smash.cs.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Smash bills itself as a Web magazine devoted to science-fiction, fantasy, comics, and games. Fine graphics and a well-organized, hierarchial presentation make this site pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. Unfortunately, Smash suffers a lack of content. This doesn't have to be a damning condition, as many content-light but flashy sites demonstrate. But Smash does not offer the quantity or quality of information one would expect to find in a magazine purchased at a newsstand, and Smash fails to exploit the Web's strengths to hide this lack of content. If a site is going to call itself a magazine, then we have every right to judge it by magazine standards.
Overall Rating: 15
Internet 1996 World Exposition
URL: http://park.org/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
The World's Fair is a delightful anachronism persisting from that long past age when "progress" and "science" were going to solve the world's problems and put a helicopter in every garage. This is the Internet 1996 World Exposition, a "World's Fair for the Information Age." Visitors find information on the exhibits -- many still under construction--and hints to the future direction of the Internet. Especially interesting are the details of the Internet Railroad, a multi-national effort to circle the globe with a 45 Mb/sec connection. Excellent graphics and a model presentation make this site a delight to visit.
Overall Rating: 17
An Unofficial Republican Homepage
URL: http://www.netrunner.net/~covers/republic/
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
These are curious days, indeed, when political parties inspire fan sites. This is an unofficial Republican party home page, a fan site which distinguishes itself by being enjoyable to visit and useful. Great graphics only accentuate the clear organization of the extensive and varied content. Numerous related links and extensive contact information for state-level Republican organizations throughout the country make this a valuable resource for anyone surfing for political information. It was especially pleasing to see a conservative attack on the Communications Decency Act; no matter your opinion of Republicans, these guys are on the correct side of the CDA issue.
Overall Rating: 15
Eagle Forum - Phyllis Schlafly
URL: http://www.basenet.net/~eagle/eagle.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum is now on the Web--some of the most reactionary individuals in contemporary politics have found a home in cyberspace. Most people know Schlafly through her tireless opposition to the ERA; this site is an excellent introduction to her other political activities. News from Capitol Hill, an archive of Schlafly's editorial columns, Eagle Forum information and more--though the politics may offend some, this is a thoughtfully-presented and visually appealing site. Why is it that the Right always manages to present its opinions and material in a format much more slick and accessible than anything offered by the Left?
Overall Rating: 15
TMIWeb Big Free Area
URL: http://www.tmiweb.com/Bigfree/Xofree/xofree.html
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
XO's mission is "to rewire real men for vitality, joy and creative success in the context of today's capitalist urban society." Huh? If you don't understand this site, you won,t be alone. The bias slant of XO makes Rush Limbaugh look liberal. Take a ten-minute quiz to see if you have what it takes to strike it rich on your own. Discover the "truth" why feminist overkill is driving single men out of the traditional dating scene. Most of the photos just happen to be scantily-clad women looking to have relationships with REAL men.
Overall Rating: 15
TST ON-DEMAND
URL: http://www.tstradio.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Turn your computer into a talk radio Mecca with TST ON-DEMAND. Taylor Subscription Talk is an audio on-demand service that lets users subscribe to talk radio programs on subjects such as politics, health, alternative lifestyles, arts, entertainment and news. The site itself serves as an advertisement to convince Internet surfers they need a talk show playing on their computers as they wander through the Web. The only interactive quality on TST,s Web site is the Real Audio download of the demo. The graphics look like they were kidnapped from Apple,s ill-fated eWorld service.
Overall Rating: 17
Hieroglyphics Music Promotions
URL: http://www.webcom.com/~stinke/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Archeologists study hieroglyphics to learn about the past, music lovers visit Hieroglyphics Music Promotion to learn about the future sounds of Hip-Hop. For a small fee, musicians can sell their demos and mix tapes on this site or download sound clips of albums before buying them. However, for a site named after important drawings, Hieroglyphics Music Promotion,s space online has limited graphics, even with the snazzy Java zipper at the beginning.
Overall Rating: 16
Great American Country Home Page
URL: http://www.countrystars.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The Great American County Home Page has more information on country musicians than you can shake a fiddle at. Dedicated to bringing fans closer to their favorite country stars, the site is sponsored by the 24-hour country music video network G.A.C Great American Country. Get the latest dirt on Garth Brooks from Katy Bee's Nashville Newsline. Read the history behind every hit maker band from Alabama to Trisha Yearwood. However, the site needs audio and video to really deserve the Patsy Cline seal of approval.
Overall Rating: 15
96 WCMF Rochester's Home of Rock & Roll
URL: http://www.wcmf.com./
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Kathy Tafel
If I were an aging baby-boomer into classic rock, I might listen to WCMF. I'd have to move to Rochester, first, but that's a minor detail. There's a mildly amusing Star Wars-esque intro to the site. The home page uses bright primary colors that really pop of the page. The self-congratulatory introduction to the morning circus, events that the DJs go to, and the staff bios are really the only sections worth looking at. If you live in Rochester, and listen to WCMF, go ahead and scrounge around. But there really isn't anything else of interest to ordinary netizens.
Overall Rating: 15
BMG Classics World
URL: http://classicalmus.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Classification is one problem that faces us reviewers, and in this case it was whether to put this site in Music or Shopping. Classical music is a bit harder to get a handle on than pop music because if you hear a poor performance of the greatest composition, it's not going to sound very good. Classics World, however, has enough information to help the novice get an appreciation of classical music. Then, of course, there's the easily accessible BMG catalog where you can buy the music.
Overall Rating: 16
Pizzicato Five fan page
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/fan/pizz.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
While this isn't a huge fan site with magazine articles and album reviews, it is very well-designed and generally has a very solid feel. The content is basic stuff, such as a discography, Pizzicato Five timeline, pictures, and sound clips. Considering that most of their albums are hard to get in America, the discography is rare information, if not immediately useful. I've never seen a site that didn't use backgrounds and still looked this good. The secret seems to be good, well-placed graphics.
Overall Rating: 16
1996 Centennial Olympic Games
URL: http://www.atlanta.olympic.org/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Everyone wants a piece of the 1996 Olympic Games and IBM is no exception. Look at its site for cute animations of blinking stars and flying Olympic tickets available to purchase online. Search the program for schedules of the 26 sporting events or learn more about the 1996 Olympic Arts Festival. Watch out for glitches in the system where it won't let users access the fun side. Maybe someday debugging Web sites will be an Olympic event!
Overall Rating: 17
1996 Olympic Games
URL: http://pathfinder.com/si/athens/olyhome.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Sports Illustrated makes a grab for the torch. Sports fans can read the schedule of events, Olympic news and almanac, sport-by-sport breakdown, and an Olympic timeline. Unfortunately, though, half of the site, including information on Sports Illustrated coverage of the events, is still under construction. If Sports Illustrated took the same time and effort on this Web site as it does on the print version, the site would earn a gold medal. However, the SI 1996 Olympics Games doesn't even earn a consolation prize.
Overall Rating: 15
Olympic Sailing
URL: http://www.process.com/launch/olysail.htm
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The Olympic Sailing site is sinking, but no one has jumped ship. Even with basic information on Olympic sailing classes, competition schedules, and a listing of the different boats and their crews, the site falls short of sailing that extra mile. Olympic Sailing only has one photo and lacks any other design forethought. Throw the Web master a life jacket and move on.
Overall Rating: 15
Portland Marathon
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~pdxmar/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Lace up your running shoes and sprint over to the Portland Marathon Home Page for the latest news and information on the September 29, 1996 running and walking marathon. Print out an entry form directly from the Web site or browse through the historical photos of races from the past. Read why so many Portland residents get up early in the morning to run in a big crowd across town.
Overall Rating: 15
Taylor Made Golf
URL: http://www.taylormadegolf.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Taylor Made Golf is no more than a commercial for selling metal driving golf clubs. Read the news to see which pro golfer won a tournament with the new Bubble Burner golf club or study up on the history of the company. The only section that seems void of the "buy our clubs" message is "It's Your Shot" where golfers can share tips, stories and jokes. Download golf games and screen savers in the "Gimmies" section (after filling out a survey.) Even though the site is well-designed, the content is still swinging aimlessly in the sand trap.
Overall Rating: 17
Dodd's Linking Pages
URL: http://www.netdepot.com/~gargoyle/magic.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Abracadabra! Pull a great Web site out of Dodd's hat. Serving as a portal to magic on the Net, this site has links to people's pages who like getting out of straightjackets such as escape artist Mathew Cooper (see vanity site of the Month) or those who like waving a magic wand with a sick sense of humor ala Penn and Teller. This online directory has too many links up its sleeve to do it justice in a single paragraph. Jump to magic supply stores or find out how to join up with the members of the I.B.M. Ring 2100.
Overall Rating: 16
Willa's Journal
URL: http://darknet.com:80/wcline/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Don't expect stories of hatred, sex, and scandal from Willa's Journal. Willa writes about birds, magical candles, and rain. Journals are a dime a disease on the Web and this one stands alone as being the warm and fuzzy one. Not only does Willa write about her daily thoughts on books, poems, and ways to be good to herself, she also keeps an online dream journal. Check out Willa's site when it's raining out and all you feel like doing is sipping coffee and petting a cat.
Overall Rating: 15
A digital canvas
URL: http://www.primenet.com/~vytasg/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
View heavenly planets without a telescope. A digital canvas is the Web night sky painted with green spikes, yellow orbs, and blue 3D stars. The canvas becomes an online Rorschach test as images of blurry circus elephants and floating tops decorate the site. This is abstract art at its best. Enjoy the confusion!
Overall Rating: 17
Lyndy's Country Cupboards
URL: http://www.imall.com/stores/lyndys/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Our gal Lyndy says that her store, 45 minutes from downtown Houston, is in the "country shopping mecca of Texas," and that her Web page offers "the only warm and cozy shopping experience on the Net!!" I'll give her this: the photos of products she's selling online are good-sized, and it's easy to find the descriptions, dimensions, and shipping costs right by each item. But I'll leave it to you to decide if you need to order a pair of fuzzy bears. Ordering seems easy (but your only delivery choice is UPS Ground), so if you're feeling warm and cozy, stop on by.
Overall Rating: 15
Biggest Little Craft Mall
URL: http://www.craftmall.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
OK, I haven't walked a mile in this mall's moccasins, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't call my cyber-mall "The Biggest" anything until I made sure I had a lot of vendors signed up. The BLCM doesn't. When I looked, there was one seller in each of five areas (knitting, woodworking, cross-stitch, crafts, and stitch-pattern software). Not that they don't mean well. The site has built the capability for searching by geography, posting classifieds and email threaded discussion, tips on what sells, materials, and where to find supplies. They're trying.
Overall Rating: 15
Diners Grapevine
URL: http://www.dinersgrapevine.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Grapevine: Read menus, check prices, hours, reviews, get directions, find out which credit cards they take, or if kids are welcome. Unfortunately, most of the databases for these guides fall mighty short of offering these reasonable features, and Diners Grapevine is no exception. You can search by location, cuisine, atmosphere, entertainment, all right; but what you'll get is a listing, plain and simple, with street address and phone number. Period. The Guide's obvious emphasis is to get more listings (and salespeople to work for the Grapevine), and to feature restaurants using the Transmedia discount card, which not surprisingly is a sponsor of the page. Duh!
Overall Rating: 15
New York Food
URL: http://www.nyfood.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Got a yen for pizza, bagels, chow mein, or pasta delivered to your door? If you live in Manhattan, you might have luck with New York Food. At this writing, the selection of restaurants is predictably heavy in the deli department, but downright skimpy in cuisines like Indian, Thai, or Japanese. The criteria for cost and geographical boundaries are still very vague, but that's OK because other features of the service -- an area for posting your own reviews and reading others, for example -- are limited to New York customers of Internet provider Pipeline. The foundation is here for a nice service; New Yorkers, check back next year.
Overall Rating: 15
PlanetMARS Inline Skate
URL: http://www.gateintl.com/PlanetMARS/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Like running shoes, roller skates have gone totally high tech. The inline skates favored today by hip rollers look like space boots on steroids. Blast off to Planet Mars, for a BIG dose of skating gear -- and of the Netscape blink feature -- and start shopping (pay by check, credit card, or wire transfer). The site is very graphics -- and Tables -- intensive, but the Martians don't provide any background about the products you're considering other than low-res photos, and low, low Planet Mars price. Planet Mars is probably better suited for the average-sized, diehard fan who already knows it all and doesn't want pointers to other resources or additional info.
Overall Rating: 14
Rent Net
URL: http://www.rent.net/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The value of information on the Web is only as good as the database behind it. Rent Net's onto a good idea, letting you search by Canadian province or US state, city, number of bedrooms, and price range for apartments. But of course there are only a handful of listings for any given search because the service needs many more participants to be truly useful. The features Rent Net offers are good ideas, too: listings include icons for pets, whether the place is a home, single unit or vacation site. There are even snapshots of a number of the buildings. It's small, but on the right path.
Overall Rating: 15
Nazarene Adult Mission Educator
URL: http://www.sky.net/~rdouglas/mission.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Bob's Resource is a supplemental guide for Nazarenes who are going abroad to serve God and the church. While the site features good usage of Netscape's Frames and has some passable graphics, much of the material presented is useless unless you have the book the site was designed to supplement. The links to maps and resources of different parts of the world might be helpful, and the hints on dealing with local populations is amusing on it's own. The site is a must-see for any Nazarene itchin' to be a missionary, but really not for anyone else.
Overall Rating: 16
Bilabong's House of Wav's
URL: http://www.dakota.net/~bilabong/tommy.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
More correctly titled Bilabong's House of Chris Farley, this is the site for Tommy Boy sound samples. So many samples, you might want to download all this stuff and forget renting the movie altogether. An annoying little Java-coded bulletin scrolls across the bottom of the browser window promising to have some Billy Madison, Black Sheep, and Happy Gillmore samples up by the time you read this. I think this guy loves those nutty Saturday Night Live alums a bit too much for his own good. Black Sheep? Please. Only visit this site if you like fat guy jokes without seeing Fatty himself.
Overall Rating: 15
Significant Bits
URL: http://world.std.com/~nevins/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Pat Nevins puts information about himself on the Web in a unique way. When you enter Significant Bits, you're presented with a deck of cards. Depending on which card you pick, you either get to see his resume, a short biography, his favorite links, a collection of his writing, or get sent to the Missing Children's Homepage for no obvious reason. His writings are only fairly interesting but each piece automatically loads a short .wav file of his original music in the background which helps set the mood. The physical production though isn't top-notch, but assembling Pat's bits is an interesting diversion.
Overall Rating: 16
California Academy of Sciences
URL: http://www.calacademy.org/
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This site From the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco could be a shining example of what it means to bring a museum online. Unfortunately, it's just... well... average. There are a few interesting exhibits presented here, most notably the "Frogs Of The Arabuko-Sokoke Forest in Kenya," with beautiful images of these surreal-looking toads in their natural habitat. But the site overflows with the mundane -- museum hours, list of classes offered, and, of course, the gift shop. This site is only worth a bookmark if you want to learn how to build your own Foucault Pendulum. Which I do....
Overall Rating: 15
Pepsi World Introduction
URL: http://www.pepsi.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Wow! This is sort of a Pepsi "Challenge" for the digital generation --an example of Web technology at it's finest. See if you can cut through all the bells, whistles, Shockwave, Java, VRML, Real Audio, Frames, etc. to make it to the content. And that's no easy task. While this site is technically and graphically superb, navigation is not intuitive. It's way too easy to lose yourself in the chat rooms, message board, pop culture snippets, music reviews, games, contests, and Doom-esque graphical interface. Very elaborate, but then again, too much is sometimes just that. Sensory overload! Ahhhhhh! You're losing me! Give me Lynx quick! Text only!!!! Text only!!!!
Overall Rating: 17
Web Communications Publishing
URL: http://www.webcom.com/html/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Web is the great equalizer, enabling the teenager in her bedroom to have as elaborate and exciting a page as MTV. For those getting started in Web publishing, this site is a good place to start. Primarily just a list of links, the pages Web Technology points to guides on Web access, basic HTML, forms, site promotion, and, of course, how to publish your page on their server. While there are many similar sites out there, I say the more the merrier. Let's spread our own memes to the masses while we still can.
Overall Rating: 15
Galaxy Features
URL: http://hou.lbl.gov/galaxyfeaturesonline.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This page will be of interest to anyone who has ever been dumbstruck by the thought of galaxies. Those REALLY big things spinning around in the heavens above us have always been a source of amazement, and this site will only fuel that interest. Basic information on galaxies, several images of the more noteworthy examples, and a quiz to test your knowledge make this a fun and distracting space to visit. Children with an interest in astronomy will be especially tickled, as they should be; HOU is the hands-on universe project sponsored by the NSF and DOE, targeting youngsters of all ages.
Overall Rating: 15
Miralite Communications Satellite Directory
URL: http://www.miralite.com/Glossary.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Miralite Communications manufactures earth station systems, those incongruous boxes sitting in the middle of the arctic tundra which track the Sputniks zipping by overhead. Miralite's site is standard corporate fare, offering an introduction to the firm and its products with a few clever graphics. Making the site more palatable is this glossary of satellite terms -- yes, you too can sound like a rocket scientist. Impress your friends by deciphering the control room chatter in Apollo 13; wow your family by translating astronaut gobbledygook off the evening news. This space is worth visiting, if only to pick up a few pieces of technoslang.
Overall Rating: 15
INNroads
URL: http://www.on-the-net.com/inns/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
The bed and breakfast fad has continued unabated for almost a decade and shows no signs of fading. It is no surprise then that fans of this cottage industry should have arrived on the Web. This page offers a guide to inns and bed & breakfasts throughout much of the U.S. Arranged by locale, a comprehensive survey of each outlet is presented, including rates, special dates and events, and an overview of facilities. This is a no-frills site, with sparse graphics and a direct user interface; as the underlying database of inns grows, the usefulness of the site will increase accordingly.
Overall Rating: 15
The Adventure Shop
URL: http://www.ashop.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This site will appeal to anyone who has ever wanted to climb a mountain or explore a coral reef. The adventure shop offers the low-down on adventures of every sort, whether they be air, land, or water based. Just a few minutes of surfing this page is guaranteed to reveal some kooky, off-the-wall challenge you never imagined anyone would be daring -- or foolish -- enough to try. Rates and contact information are offered for each of the packages, of course, and tasteful graphics serve to further whet the appetite. Those who can afford such hobbies -- as well as those who can only dream -- will all appreciate this space.
Overall Rating: 15
The Civilized Explorer
URL: http://www.crl.com/~philip/home.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is the home page for the Civilized Explorer, a movement for those who believe vacations are meant to be peaceful. Arguing that free time should be spent wandering about and relaxing, not rappelling down cliffs or diving beneath coral reefs, the Civilized Explorer offer tips and suggestions for the more reflective among us: profiles of quiet spots on the map worth exploring, tips for filling the time, and more. A sly sense of humor imbues throughout, and the visitor leaves with the suspicion that these people may very well be onto something. Nicely arranged and tastefully presented, the traveler -- not tourist -- may appreciate this space.
Overall Rating: 15
Air France
URL: http://www.airfrance.fr/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The Concord, Air France's aging flagship, is featured prominently in this online equivalent of a corporate brochure. There's a brief history of the SST here with just a soupcon of the old Gaulist trademark, false pride. Another section is devoted in a cursory fashion to traveller's health concerns. There is no route, schedule, or fare information. While some sections are bilingual, others, like the new Concorde, le livre, are exclusively in French. And while the overall appearance of the site is nice enough, hot buttons did not necessarily reside on icons but oftentimes lingered out in the margins somewhere, aloof.
Overall Rating: 15
The International Study and Travel Center
URL: http://www.isp.acad.umn.edu/istc/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The ITSC is a non-profit organization specializing in budget travel for students. Located at the University of Minnesota, some of the site's features are primarily geared to resident Gophers, as with the information regarding the ITSC's actual, physical library. There is, however, a virtual library as well. Travel magazines are available in Gopher format and there (appropriately) are numerous links to send you to many other online resources. A good place to get started planning for a semester abroad.
Overall Rating: 15
Ultimate World
URL: http://www.ultimatew.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The name here is a little misleading. Clicking South on the signpost doesn't get you to Tierra del Fuego or even Tijuana. It takes you to Dixie (you know, away down South). There is a search engine of limited usefulness; it only deals with major cities, and its restaurant and hotel listings are geared to those on expense accounts. What does it do? I haven't really figured that out yet.
Overall Rating: 15
United Airlines Flight Center
URL: http://www.ualfltctr.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
If you're looking for United Airlines flight information this is not the place. You want http://www.ual.com/. This site is for those flight sim fans who want to try the real flight simulator (pardon the oxymoron) like the one the big people learn on. That's right, for about 500 bucks an hour, you can "fly" the training simulator at United's flight center in Denver, Colorado. Oh boy, oh boy. And, hey, maybe on the flight home from Denver you can talk the flight officer into handing over the controls for a spell, let you take her for a couple of barrel rolls er somethin.'
Overall Rating: 15
Bob and Dave's Wiffleball Page
URL: http://home.ptd.net/~murray49/wiffle.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: The Spectacle
Green grass and summer nights; we used to play wiffleball 'till it was so dark we got smacked in the face. So one can imagine how thrilled I am to have a hommage to wiffleball on the Web. With an all to cute hand drawn image of a wiffleball field, history and game synopsis from Bob and Dave wiffleball experiences. There are some quirky layout problems, and a little too much gray, but all in all, this is a fun site for wiffleball fans!
Overall Rating: 15
1 800 SEX-STUD
URL: http://www.oj.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
This self-proclaimed "Pothole on the Information Superhighway" offers up a mix of links to phone sex ads, super model home pages, U.F.O. theorists, and stuff about O.J. -- the man and the citrus drink. (Yes, there really are links to orange juice concerns!) All of this is presented like the front page of a supermarket tabloid, with plenty of beefcake butts and B-I-I-I-I-G, colorful headlines. There's not much original content (except for the phone sex ads), but it's loads o' fun for slackers and perverts anyhoo.
Overall Rating: 16
Ovi's World of the Bizarre
URL: http://netmar.com/users/ovigher/ovi.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Ovidiu Gherghe has collected some very funny stories on this Web site --stories of the incredible sort that friends are always e-mailing to friends. You know the kind. And while it's a great read, the presentation is lacking; the text is split into dozens of pages, navigational buttons are rare, and on the day that I visited it none of the main page's graphics loaded properly. Ovi does know some fun HTML tricks (he shows 'em off at http://netmar.com/users/ovigher/webplay.htm), but these pages need work.
Overall Rating: 13
Page from the Future
URL: http://members.aol.com/futurepage/future.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
100 years from now it's possible to look into the past, scientists are puzzled by the most trivial facets of our lives, and they like posting their personal diaries for long-dead people (us) to read. These are some of the impressions I got from this fanciful site, purportedly the work of a team doing research on the late 20th century in the year 2090. But as a present-day reader asks, "If you are from the future, how come you're using America Online, you fools?"
Overall Rating: 14
Educaid Online
URL: http://www.educaid.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
A lot of places offer general information on college entry requirements and government student loan programs. But where do you go to actually get the money you need? Educaid is one such place. With FAQs, quizzes, application forms, as well as background information on the company and the loans they offer, this site is the epitome of a corporate "advertising" entity. As such, there are no external links, which is disturbing. (Are they afraid you'll get information elsewhere?) Colorful image maps dress up every page, making the site attractive but slow.
Overall Rating: 15
UK Lifelong Learning
URL: http://www.transcend.co.uk/LIFELONG_LEARNING/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
The Brits seem to have a ministry for everything, with sub-ministries and rooms full of clerks endlessly shuffling papers. Well, some of the clerks have turned in their green eyeshades for PC's at the Department for Education and Employment, Individual Commitment Division. (Yes, that's really its name, bureaucratic lex for "the state wishes you to stay in school and stop being a worthless git.") While the site is extensive, it suffers from a bone-dry officialdom that subverts the intended message: Learning is fun.
Overall Rating: 15
WHITE TRASH CAFE
URL: http://gramercy.ios.com/~rcwiley/trash/trash.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The question is: do you want to eat or shop? These are the only two things to do at the White Trash Cafe; well, that and wait. It seems that the creators forgot about the critical element of convenience! You know, like a drive-thru? The shopping has two sections: White Trash (t-shirt, briefs, timer and fragrance) and Celebrity Trash (OJ'S Evidence Collection). At least you don't have to waddle from the parking lot to the mall entrance...
Overall Rating: 15
BUREAU OF MISSING SOCKS
URL: http://www.jagat.com/joel/socks.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
This site boldly explores the occult, conspiracy and extra-terrestrial theories of missing socks throughout the world, with a Missing Socks Secret Agents Home Page link. On a lighter note, the Bureau is doing whatever is possible to reunite socks throughout the world, or find new homes for orphaned socks: The Missing Sock Singles' Club, for example. Fill out a sock "personality" profile, and send it in the hopes of locating a sock soul mate, or join the communal vibe efforts of Woodsock '96! Praise unto The Bureau of Missing Socks; leading the way in sock reuniting efforts worldwide.
Overall Rating: 15
SEA MONKEY WORSHIP PAGE!!!
URL: http://haven.uniserve.com/~sbarclay/seamonk.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Sticking to the undersea theme with aqua lettering set against a beautiful ocean backdrop, this site pertains to all things Sea-Monkey, accompanied by the registered trademark stamp throughout. This means links aplenty: to the Sea-Monkey Celebration Page, Sea-Monkey Christmas, Birth Announcements, FAQ, etc., etc.. Our Aussie friends recognized this Canadian site with the "Top 1% of the World's Web sites" award; still, the site creator warns us that these lovable creatures may not appear as illustrated in several hilarious images!
Overall Rating: 16
TRUE SCIENCE
URL: http://www.dnaco.net/~ivanjs/truescience.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Did you know that integrated circuits are your friends? Lingering precariously close to direct links to Selvia's Art Cave, the True Science site gets to the bottom of the "true" meanings of those little contraptions of the modern world. First the reader is forewarned of the "false" definition which they may have enountered via the Popular Press Society (PPS). Full of acronyms such as (WLD) Wonderful Little Device, text links lead to seven individual pages describing the contraption pictured in the site's full-color icon.
Overall Rating: 15
THE AMAZING MAGIC 8 BOB
URL: http://inp.cie.rpi.edu/cgi-bin/bob
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The BOB site opens to several horrendously-superimposed horizontal frames. The effect is clutter until the initial link is discovered. Born of boredom, Bob and the creator are currently depressed. Humorous, I suppose, but pretty techie. Any jokes containing Perl script referencing are a bit of a stretch... It is possible to "draw upon Bob's infinite wisdom by entering a yes/no question." This can be sent directly to the source. I'm just not sure about the quality of Bob's divine wisdom..
Overall Rating: 14
Flicker
URL: http://www.chapel-hill.nc.us/flicker/
Category: Film
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Though named after a bimonthly film festival in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Flicker's web site is anything but festive. The web site provides filmmakers with information on Flicker's film festivals and types of Kodak film, including Super 8 and Regular 8 film. Also, there are first-person narratives of when so-in-so got his first Super 8 camera or how much so-in-so loves "the rich color of Kodachrome ..." Unfortunately, for a web site devoted to a visual art, the graphics are poor.
Overall Rating: 13
RAND Institute on Education and Training
URL: http://www.rand.org/centers/iet/
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
IET is part of Rand's, a non-profit public policy research organization, larger web site. The site's purpose is to improve American's public policy through research and analysis, and to train policy analysts. IET provides links to summaries on more than 55 Rand research papers. Some topics covered include worldwide communications, economics, education, crime, NATO, housing, game theory, terrorism, and water resources. Full-text for some of these papers are free, others are not.
Overall Rating: 14
Theatre Education Literature Review
URL: http://www.aaae.org/theatre/thfront.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Theatre... is a home page of 59 theater-educational questions or topics with links to their brief answers or explanations, including footnotes. Simple. Kent Seidel, of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program of the University of Cincinnati, asks questions, such as "Why study theatre?," or introduces topics, such as "Theatre for at-risk students," as the points relate to scholars' views of theater's positive effect in education.
Overall Rating: 14
Andrew Shachat
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/artbaby/
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Not every artist can say he's illustrated for the New York Times, Village Voice, Seventeen and a children's book called "Stop That Pickle." Andrew Shachat's online portfolio captures dogs playing guitar, a devil munching on lollipops and cats selling cleaning fluid. Hang out with hipsters in his online art opening or try to decipher the humor behind his link to the Doctor Correlius Chimp's Hospital of Digital Genetics.
Overall Rating: 15
The Unknown Photographer
URL: http://home.earthlink.net/~dpuglia/
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Java applets and still photography combine to make an obscure gallery unknown to the average Web wanderer. Some of the photographers in the exhibit do have names, unlike its title suggests. Miko Yamaguchi and David Puglia take viewers on a special trip through a strange world of broken hotel signs, cereal boxes in the snow and balloons on sticks that should make any shy shutterbug look for similar inspiration in the commonplace.
Overall Rating: 16
Victoria Benatar Urban Home Page
URL: http://www.columbia.edu/~vb45/vb.index2.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
If you could tear down New York City and start designing it over again on your computer, what would you do differently? The Victoria Benatar Urban Home Page showcases projects from students at the graduate school of architecture, planning and preservation at Columbia University. Students present their 3-D renderings of lower Manhattan and Harlem. Some of the text is a bit too academic to give a good understanding of the project, but the pictures might remind you of movie stills from *Blade Runner.*
Overall Rating: 16
Rembrandt
URL: http://amsterdam.park.org/Netherlands/pavilions/culture/rembrandt/
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The long-deceased Dutch artist comes alive in this multimedia presentation of the Rembrandt Research Project. View Quicktime video explanations of "The Jewish Bride" or listen to project director, Ernst van de Wetering discuss various Rembrandt works. Detailed papers on "The Rough Manner: Rembrandt & Titian" and "Paint Surface & the Evocation of Space." Read how research found Rembrandt forgeries by dating not the paint but the wood panels behind the canvas.
Overall Rating: 17
The Art Line
URL: http://grimmy.santarosa.edu/~sfaught/art.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
From neoclassical to modern, The Art Line offers short descriptions of theme through art. Special articles take a closer look at the rapidly changing scenes and the freedom artists have to experiment. Any art lover or student will appreciate the vast spectrum of art jpegs as well as a huge directory of links to museums, university art departments and artists themselves.
Overall Rating: 16
Blacksun
URL: http://www.dnai.com/~blacksun/
Category: Art
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
This Java boy-wonder of a site displays art on canvas and on skin. Blacksun shows off paintings and tattoo designs, along with an article on taking care of the more "permanent" works of body art. This site also revolves around a galaxy of Java animations: whirling squiggles, blooming flowers and dancing stick people add life to the monitor. Check out Blacksun's message board and guest book for more tattoo advice and Web design praises.
Overall Rating: 16
The City of Lost Children
URL: http://spebbn.spe.sony.com/Pictures/SonyClassics/city/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A wayside stop on the vast Sony Online site, the City of Lost Children features the French film by that name. Disappointing in relation to its more cohesive (but less expensive) predecessor, *Delicatessen*, the movie was nevertheless inventive and visually stunning. Here, fans of the film can peruse notes on the making of the film, read an interview with creative duo, Jeunet and Caro, and, best of all, download movie stills and video segments. But, all in all, the site is surprisingly text-heavy and a little dull. Worth a visit, but probably not a return.
Overall Rating: 16
Fade In
URL: http://www.best.com:80/~market/fadein/
Category: Film
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Think you want to be a screenwriter? Or maybe you already are one? Well, here's the online version of the magazine that claims to have the inside track on that particular biz. Like most online versions of newsstand rags, you don't get the whole tomato here, just a few slices to give you an appetite. A few images grace the articles and the information is interesting even if you've never written a line of dialogue, but, as a whole, the presentation lacks the kind of extras that might persuade me to subscribe.
Overall Rating: 15
Killer Instinct 2 by ICE
URL: http://www.mindspring.com/~luisp/ki2/index2.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Addicted to Ninetndo/Rare's 2D arcade fighting game? Think Killer Instinct is the ultimate quarter snatcher? Then you'll do well checking out this page, which has all the fighting moves, combos, fatalities, humiliations, etc. for every character in the game, as well as general info about the game. So in-depth, it's a little frightening.
Overall Rating: 15
Hyper@ctive
URL: http://hyperactive.com/games/index2.html or http://hype.com.au/games/index2.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
Online incantation of an Australian gaming mag, this site is sharply designed, and full of well written on-target reviews and previews, as well as some news and plenty of downloadable demos. On the downside, the previews section was pretty spotty and the news was fairly out-of-date. I get the idea that Hyper@ctive is expanding rapidly (the site has want ads for writers and Web people), so maybe by the time you read this, it will have staffed up and hit its stride. Hope so, 'cause this could be a great site.
Overall Rating: 16
Congress in a Nutshell
URL: http://ssnet.com/~bef/Nutshell.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
"Congress in a Nutshell" -- sounds like a beginner's guide, doesn't it? But don't let the innocuous name fool you: CIN is a place for serious environmentalists to gather ammunition for their legislative fights. There's almost no original material here, and the entire archive rests on one page, but that doesn't diminish its utility; with more than 100 links to relevant articles and sympathetic organizations, you could spend days wandering the environmental neighborhood. It's not the prettiest 'hood -- scarce graphics and dense text may drive away all but the most dedicated activists -- but a community nonetheless.
Overall Rating: 14
Christian Music Online
URL: http://www.cmo.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Even if you're not down with Christianity, gospel and inspirational music can be a fun listen--if it's good. Everybody from traditional religious musicians to singer/songwriter types to Christian rappers (seriously) and Metalheads (swear to God!) are reviewed and represented here. (Don't worry, no Stryper). The writing is fluffy PR-type stuff, the design is kind of bland, but there's a lot of information and detailed tour itineraries for Christian music fans. And don't be fooled--there are plenty.
Overall Rating: 15
Bread
URL: http://wanda.pond.com/~jandock/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Apparently, Bread is a Christian "community" formed by young adults in Philadelphia. According to their sparse Web site, this group is interested in developing Christian ministries and social service programs like day care, counseling and arts therapy. And they're looking for collaborators. Umm, what else about this site? Ummmm.... Ummmm.....
Overall Rating: 13
Crystalian Stabalysis
URL: http://www.public.asu.edu/~amerist/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Very mysterious... The Crystalians seem to be a society of Celtic mythology enthusiasts involved in exploring and creating their own fantasy world of clans, elves, and dragons. Very Renaissance Faire meets Dungeons and Dragons with no clear indication as to what the Crystalians actually do on a daily basis. The only Crystalian clan so far is the "A'Toll" and they claim to be "a clan devoted to the attainment of knowledge and understanding. As a result," they continue, "we are here on the Internet doing such." Aren't we all...
Overall Rating: 13
NUDE2000
URL: http://www.nude2000.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Keep your pants on people, we're talking nudists not nymphos. You know--nude volleyball, size doesn't matter, it's healthy and natural, etc. Nude 2000 is a nudist catalog/resource guide promoting "social nudism in the 21st century." Browse the list of videos of nudist adventures and resorts from all over the world before subscribing to Naturally Magazine, a publication for those choosing the "let it all hang out" lifestyle. A tasteful if slightly boring site, I bet their hit count is through the roof!
Overall Rating: 15
Surfdog
URL: http://www.professionals.com/~surfdog/
Category: Music
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Surfdog is a company producing products for the surfer lifestyle; actual, in-the-ocean type surfing, not via computer. Surfdog doesn't sell wet suits or boards, however. Music and clothes that complement the surfer lifestyle are its specialty. The music isn't traditional surf music, but a range of Southern California bands that go from rock to reggae. CD's by some of the bands can be ordered via the site, and sound clips allow cagey consumers to preview the music. A number of the links didn't work but the graphics and organization were nice.
Overall Rating: 15
Rhino Records
URL: http://cybertimes.com/Rhino/Welcome.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Web sites have made leaps and bounds in design quality from the early days (about 2 years ago) of blue links and blinking text. The current look is slicker, with fonts and graphics seamlessly integrated into the design gestalt. Unfortunately, the Rhino site hasn't experienced the same evolution. This is a first-effort catalog of Rhino's CD's and tapes which doesn't really describe the music or performers, nor provide sound clips. And, while the music is for sale, there is no provision for online ordering. Rhino does claim to be working on a real Web site, however.
Overall Rating: 14
Staceyjoy's Knitting
URL: http://www.tiac.net/users/stacey/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
What better place to look for knitting patterns than on the web, right? Where else could you find patterns co-mingling with quotes from Wired? Anyway, this good natured, net-savvy, semi-folksy site has plenty of modern and antique patterns (including one for socks and another for a chihuahua sweater), some stuff on cables, and a few words on technique. Its a fun, well written site. The personal info is almost as exciting -- to me, anyway -- as the knitting stuff.
Overall Rating: 15
Barbies: The Dolls, the Dish and the Dollars
URL: http://www.servtech.com/public/pippa/barbie
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Wow, tons of Barbie stuff, with lists of which Barbie's the web master owns, links to other Barbie pages, Barbie news and a complete Barbie price guide. If you like Barbie -- especially if you like your Barbie with a touch of camp -- you'll probably dig this. For me, this was like a trip to a precious, pink, plastic hell. To me Barbie is evil incarnate, responsible for giving young girls image complexes, as well as reinforcing wretched gender stereotypes. To each his own, I guess.
Overall Rating: 15
Airship
URL: http://spot.colorado.edu/~dziadeck/airship.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This site, and it's sister, Zeppelin, are dedicated to blimps, balloons, derigibles, and zeppelins. Largely, the site contains lists -- either pointers to other sites or extensive bibliographies. There is also some news on new developments, some photos, a modicum of background info on specific subjects, like the posters used to advertise transatlantic zeppelin flights. A good place to start learning about these wonderful aircraft.
Overall Rating: 15
FireWalking
URL: http://heartfire.com/firewalk/homefire.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
I knew firewalking was surrounded by weird, new age hocus-pocus, but I never realized to what extent. If you view firewalking as the way to change the world, though, or at least redefine yourself, check it out. If you think firewalking could be kind of cool, but aren't sure, go here first. To the site's credit, they print the skeptic's view as well as the enthusiasts. You can judge for yourself.
Overall Rating: 15
Bearly a Page
URL: http://www.aa.net/~urizen/bears2.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
I'll say. Teddy Bears. Sweet, cloying, cute teddy bears. Pictures of Teddy Bears. Pictures of paintings of Teddy Bears. Links to other Teddy Bear sites. Quotes relating to Teddy Bears. Stories about Teddy bears. It's Teddy Bear mania, an experience sort of like sticking your head in a giant vat filled with honey. Frightening, but still somehow kinda cool.
Overall Rating: 15
Blender Web
URL: http://www.blender.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Blender Web is the online counterpart to Blender, a digital entertainment magazine. Although the site is full of reprint articles from the CD-ROM's, the Web site suffers from some of the limitations of the online medium -- audio and video are simply better integrated on discs. Follow image-icons to the zine's sections: Menu, Daily Blend, Pop Chop, Digest, Blend In and Music. Inside you'll find the typical pop culture suspects: Cobain, Dilbert, Bjork, et al.
Overall Rating: 16
CYBER CULTURE MAGAZINE
URL: http://www.cvp.com:80/cyber/
Category: Media
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The theme of Issue 3.0 is "cyberlove and friendship" and to get the ball rolling, it starts off with an essay called, "The Dark Side of Cyber Romance." Ooosh... hold up: frivolous use of the word "cyber" is a serious faux pas! Ah well,...the site has a daily column by Dave Daily. (Dave was moving the day I visited, though, and the column was on hold for a spell). The fiction I read was unspectacular, but you're encouraged to submit your own or comment on what you see.
Overall Rating: 14
Fair Play
URL: http://rmii.com/~jkelin/fp.html
Category: Media
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Updated bimonthly, Fair Play's features examine the conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK Assassination. There are original documents from the Assassination Records Review Board, tape recordings of Lee Harvey Oswald, and items concerning the possible affiliation of the Freemasons. The content consists primarily of huge articles, written in dense legalese and will therefore be of little interest to the casual surfer.
Overall Rating: 13
Hypermode
URL: http://www.hypermode.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
People are gonna start taking their cues from the fashion world as to what a Web site can do, methinks. Don't know why it is, but a good many fashion pages are way, way Web-savvy and nice to look at. Same holds true here at Hypermode, where the page functions like a greased preflambulator; that is to say, really well. As for content, while it amounts to a lot of pretty pictures, it'll link you up to a host of other eyeful pages, most slickly. (All right, so I made up "preflambulator," but I stand by the rest.)
Overall Rating: 17
PIG Intertainment
URL: http://www.pigweb.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
This Hollyweird publication, like its hometown, is very busy and full of strange twists. Links to photo collections and articles span the tres-LA content, stuff like The Digital Art Space, the Parficial Pig cartoon strip, and the photography of Gary and Pierre Silva. The Silvas' 'Fetish' gallery gets pretty far out there; I didn't dare click the thumbnails for close-ups. 'Fine Art' seemed more my speed -- a section containing black and white photos of leather-clad folks and Gothic statues.
Overall Rating: 15
Spank
URL: http://www.cadvision.com/spank/
Category: Media
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
I don't get the relationship between Spank's title and its content, Nor are the subtitles much help: "Alien Landing Zone" and "Youth Culture Online." Features include musician interviews, essays on topics like vegetarianism and the fur debate, as well as a regular column by Daria Kenin, called Ravings. The layout is a little ragged, and text is a little hard to read against the baby blue background. The site's creators knew enough to list 'Win Free Stuff' first in the table of contents. The prize: A matching CD and Mousepad set. Right On!
Overall Rating: 15
STUMP
URL: http://www.ipahome.com/stump.html
Category: Media
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This political site boasts a pretty nifty frames set-up, including a mildly humorous attraction called Build Your Own President. Scrolling horizontal in two separate frames allows you to match Pat Buchanan's eyes, say, with Lamar Alexander's chin. Or whatever. There's also some trenchant political commentary, by region.
Overall Rating: 15
Edna Creek Mercantile
URL: http://www.libby.org/mds/mds2.htm
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This site was created for those who want to combine the old-fashioned home-y-ness of the small town Mercantile, with the speed and convienence of the Web. The Folk's over at Edna Creek have a love for the romantic imagery of the old west-- this site brims with it. The product selection is rather limited, but you can order all items over the Web, and they are featured on attractive, well designed pages. Anyone who prefers mountain villages to cities, and trout fishing to golf, will want to swing by the Merc when passing through Edna Creek.
Overall Rating: 16
Jerry's Music Shack
URL: http://www.freemusic.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Free music? No way. Jerry gives us an interesting, but short, list of 'free or almost free' music. The catch is you have to buy other items, such as books, and the CDs come thrown in. It seems kind of like calling those CD-ROMs that come pasted into the back of $50.00 computer books free -- I don't buy it. This site does have a delightfully random sampling of music, but there were only about five CDs listed when I visited, and they were arranged in an cumbersome, albeit attractive, manner.
Overall Rating: 15
AutoWeb Interactive
URL: http://www.autoweb.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Because they require research and comparison shopping, cars can be a good subject for Web sites. AutoWeb, "The Nation's Electronic Auto Mall," is a good place to check on current prices of new and used cars, by dealer, by state or metro area, and even by private owner. There's also Autos Wanted and Exotic / Classic Cars Wanted (this is a paid ad area), and with a decent connection you can easily browse though a respectable number of listings. Search for dealer info by location, services and hours, though the list is somewhat incomplete. It's a good start point.
Overall Rating: 15
Retail Slut
URL: http://www.hallucinet.com:80/retailslut/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you're the type who easily parts with money, do these items grab you? "Poet shirt, rayon, ties at neck $74; mini-skirt, shiny stretch vinyl, zipper back with snap, $28; stretch jeans, super stretch, standard cut (not shown), $68." Not enough info, you say? How about if you could see a small detail-indifferent black & white photo of these items on models? Welcome to Retail Slut. This Melrose Avenue store in LA offers you a table of item numbers and sketchy descriptions, or photos displaying same. Cute concept, now let's rebuild your page with real buyers in mind.
Overall Rating: 15
Have Toothbrush Will Travel
URL: http://www.globalpassage.com/netstop/storyboard/have_toothbrush/home.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
If travel writer Rick Steves embodies the American spirit in traveling -- fun, easygoing, out for a respectful good time -- then Simon Rowe is his Australian counterpart. From him, you'll learn as much about Australian culture as you will about his his destinations. He's brash, opinionated, a bit obnoxious... and he writes a lot. The site has about a dozen tastes of his writing, but it mostly serves as a way for him to market his sixty-odd stories to interested publications: he also does travel photography which is, sadly, not displayed here.
Overall Rating: 14
Project Candide Intro
URL: http://candide.utopia.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Of all the "you are there" travel writing on the Internet, Project Candide is one of the most ambitious undertakings around. Here's the plot: five yuppie-ish New Yorkers take off for Tanzania, to travel from Arusha to Zanzibar armed with little more than money, their wits, and some very expensive communications equipment. The result is... well, some will find it fun, some will find it patently offensive. (Our moneyed friends sure do love those charming third-world natives!) If you don't have Netscape, forget it: it's a multi-frame, background-patterned, referential-URLed mess.
Overall Rating: 16
Ocean & Snow Surfer
URL: http://www.southcoast.com/browse/scwindan/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Snow and surf boarders like to think of themselves as cutting-edge with their hip sensibilities and style -- you'd expect a Web site by a surf shop to reflect this. The Ocean & Snow Surfer page fails miserably. Is blinking text radical? Is poor organization a cool style? There are some pretty good photos, but they're poorly scanned and laid out. Sure, some of the content is useful. There are profiles on different manufacturers, a bit of industry gossip, and some stories about exotic surfing locales, but the most useful feature is the list of links to other sea and snow surfing sites. Swoosh.
Overall Rating: 14
Animation Nerd's Paradise
URL: http://www.loop.com/~mhass703/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Fanatically loyal and often technically inclined, it is no wonder that animation devotees have taken so quickly to the Web. Visitors to this site find news and info on the latest animated works and the people responsible. The distinguishing point to mark this from other fan sites is a keen sense of humor. The favorite meat recipes of the biggest names in cartooning are available, as is a guide to speaking like an animator. It is this irreverent humor which makes the page worth visiting by anyone, regardless of their interest in animation.
Overall Rating: 15
The Cult Shop
URL: http://lasarto.cnde.iastate.edu:80/Movies/CultShop/
Category: Film
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
No one has benefited more from the video revolution than cult movie fans. Even the most obscure title is now available through mail order, if not at the local video store. The Cult Shop spotlights the latest theater and video releases of cult directors and performers. Images and related links for the profiled works are present , as are FAQ's and Internet-based reviews. Though not a huge site, the information is presented in a straightforward and easy to access style. This certainly isn't the definitive Web page for cult movie information, but it is worth visiting.
Overall Rating: 15
Philosophy
URL: http://www.physics.wisc.edu/~shalizi/hyper-weird/philosophy.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
If you want to find out about hall-of-famer philosophers, this is the place to do it. The page offers a paragraph or so of bio information about many famous old-school think tanks -- Plato, Descatres, and Locke to name a few. Also included are links to writings of these great minds at other sites. A nice starting place if you are doing some research, but if you come for new style (ie. Derrida, Foucault, etc.) you'll have to look elsewhere.
Overall Rating: 16
The Robot Wisdom pages
URL: http://www.mcs.net/~jorn/home.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
This quirky, text heavy site is one man's, Jorn's, rants and raves. There is interesting cultural discourse on James Joyce, thoughts on artificial intelligence, and science goop in general lodged here. The design is simple in the typical gray and blues and he's quick to offer some credible rants on Web design (/~jorn/checklist.html). It's just O.K.
Overall Rating: 16
CultureFinder The Internet Address for the Performing Arts
URL: http://www.culturefinder.com/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Bremser
CultureFinder is a straightforward site to cover "high" culture, like theater, classical music, and dance. With lots of text heavy pages, containing reviews of dance performances and classical music events, there's definitely some solid content here. And the bonus: Search the entire country for culture events near you. It's extremely informative, quick, and valuable to those who love the classical arts.
Overall Rating: 15
BEARS in Moral and Political Philosophy
URL: http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Philosophy/bears/homepage.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Trudging through philosophy papers is a time-consuming task, especially when most of them are not worth the paper they're printed on. That's where BEARS comes in. BEARS is literally the Brown Electronic Article Review Service from Brown University. Offering short reviews of philosophical treatises of all kinds, BEARS let's you know what's worth your time, and what's not -- sort of like a philosopher's Cliff's Notes. Let's face it, in these fast times even short stories are too long.
Overall Rating: 15
Laurie Anderson's Green Room
URL: http://www.voyagerco.com/LA/VgerLa.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The multimediatrix of performance art arrived on the Web last year, just in time for her "Nerve Bible" tour. While the itinerary on this site are long outdated and there isn't any "backstage" left to interact with, there is plenty of information on the Puppet Motel, Voyager's CD-ROM -- trip deep into the twisted caverns of Anderson's mind. Also of interest on this site are details about the Real World theme park that Anderson, Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno have been "planning" since the early 1980s. I'm still waiting. Anxiously.
Overall Rating: 15
Black Harlequin Space
URL: http://www.peg.apc.org/~agarton/bhspace.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Black Harlequin is..... ummmm.... a "new media opera." At least that's what they call this artsy collection of images, music, and words. And who am I to argue? I say kudos to these artists for pushing the envelope. While the music (Real Audio and Wav files) and poetry isn't especially cutting-edge, the creator's philosophy about using a text-free graphical interface to navigate the site is a step in the non-linearity direction of true new media. While you still may be drawn to the URL at the bottom of the browser to find your bearings, at least this approach is more creative than simply hammering out new "back" and "forward" buttons.
Overall Rating: 16
MSARP Virtual Slide Show
URL: http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/SS/ARKY/show/showintro.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
No, not your neighbor's Florida vacation photos, but images of archaeological research in the Canadian High Arctic. Clear and impressive images of a house excavation and metal artifacts like bone needles are examples of the nearly two dozen server-pushed JPEGs in the show. You can even loop samples of Inuit Throat Singing or ambient environmental sounds to get you more into the Arctic mood. A fine use of the technology, but nothing interactive except a chance to ooh and ahh at the sometimes snowy landscape. Just like a grammar school slide show -- only slower. Guess you had to be there.
Overall Rating: 16
The Birdhouse
URL: http://www.birdhouse.org/users/shacker/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Birdhouse is a loose collective of Dadaists, Surrealists, Situationists, and almost any other kind of avant-garde "ist" you can think of. A virtual literary/art magazine of sorts, the Birdhouse is a collaborative gallery of fringe art, text and meldings of all media presented in the spirit of Duchamp, Dali and Breton. Expose the world to the twisted musings of your subconscious via the Conspiracy of Sleepers Deus Ex Machina Dream Input Device. Fragment your linear lives with cut-ups and collage. Surreal splendor through Java, Frames, and freaks! What an insanely beautiful combination.
Overall Rating: 17
Pat Meier Associates
URL: http://www.patmeier.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Part advertisement for the firm, part platform to promote its clients, this site ends up as a disjointed mix of elements. It doesn't give much information about the PR firm, and the client information has the feeling of a small industrial fair -- press-releases from seemingly unrelated companies all thrown together on one site. I got no sense of what Pat Meier Associates has done for their clients or any 'feel' for the company. There is an interesting guide to restaurants in San Francisco's 'Multimedia Gulch', though, that would be of interest if you are planning to visit the area.
Overall Rating: 17
Eastgate Systems
URL: http://www.eastgate.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Hypertext fiction is a fascinating literary form in which you pick your starting point and then follow whatever links catch your eye. Eventually the disparate elements begin to crystallize into a cohesive work. This site provides two sample hypertexts for your perusal, as well as descriptions and reviews of the works Eastgate publishes. The company also publishes non-fiction, a hypertext authoring system, and Web Squirrel -- a drag and drop URL manager. You can download a demo (Mac only) and check out other peoples URL collections. If you have never experienced hypertexts, check this site out.
Overall Rating: 15
Forte Technologies, Inc.
URL: http://www.fortevr.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Forte's personal virtual reality headset is on the cutting edge of gaming technology. For game junkies who haven't purchased one yet, this site offers excellent product information, tables of software that support it, and locations of Forte retailers. If you're already the proud owner of a VFX1, there is an excellent software archive, mediocre technical support, links to VRML sites, VR news, and developer information to keep you up to date with the rapidly evolving VR world. All game fans will love the excellent graphics and the section on hacks and cheats for popular computer games.
Overall Rating: 17
NovaLogic, Inc.
URL: http://www.novalogic.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Looking for a good war machine simulator? Whether your fetish is tanks, subs, planes, or helicopters, NovaLogic has your software. The site offers in-depth descriptions of its products, including reviews from the critics, a less than impressive collections of links, and customer support information. If you are considering buying one of it's games, this would be a very good site, if not, there is not much reason to visit.
Overall Rating: 17
Airwalk Online
URL: http://www.airwalk.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Few things are as important in todays hip sports as having the right footwear. In this spirit, Airwalk is happy to provide us with a sampling of product information, pictures, links, and interviews with the pros who endorse its skating, snow boarding, and mountain biking shoes. Also included is an interesting reader feedback section where you can read letters such as the "skater who beat up the fool who tried to steal his Airwalks." This is an extremely well done site: slick graphics, cool technology, and a cohesive theme. When I visited, it was still under heavy construction, so it should be even cooler by the time you read this.
Overall Rating: 17
Grossman and Roth, P.A.
URL: http://www.gateintl.com/GR/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This is a classic example of the McWeb site: little information about the law firm, few links in places that almost demand them, and very little information about law in general. Especially bad are the scanned newspaper articles by the partners -- bandwidth hogs and almost totally unreadable. It seems like a pretty admirable law firm, but you don't get much of an impression of it from the little information the site provides.
Overall Rating: 15
Franco Public Relations Group
URL: http://franco.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This site provides a clear image of the Franco Group, and includes many items of interest to the PR community in general. The run-down of the company gives a good view of the different organizational units, what services it provides, and some of its current clients. A very well done staff bio section includes pictures, phone numbers, a biographical sketch, and a favorite link for each of the group members (no e-mail!). For those not interested in the Franco group, the site includes some excellent PR case studies, a section of useful pointers for public speaking and presentations, and an art gallery of the groups graphic design work.
Overall Rating: 17
Speedware Corporation, Inc.
URL: http://www.speedware.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This site is geared toward developers using, or considering purchasing, Speedware software, including its 4GL for interfacing applications with networks, an open platform development environment, and other network development tools. If you're a web developer and have never heard of Speedware, this site is worth a visit; the company offers good product information and the site is very attractive. Current users will want to check out the Speedware partnership deal and the customer support database (only accessible by registered users.)
Overall Rating: 16
Neiman Marcus
URL: http://www.neimanmarcus.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Neiman Marcus is assured a place in Internet history for the notorious "$250.00 Cookie recipe" story, which has mysteriously appeared in my inbox at least twice a year for the past several years. (If you see it, do us all a favor, don't forward it.) The site addresses this myth directly, and provides a variety of promotional material: Neiman Marcus history, a not too helpful fashion section, a store finder, and calendars of upcoming events in individual stores. Regular shoppers will want to sign up for an e-mailing list to receive special notices about upcoming sales and events near them.
Overall Rating: 17
Building Blocks to Reading
URL: http://www.NeoSoft.com/~jrpotter/karen.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Karen Potter offers a real public service for parents of 3-6 year-olds -- lots of activities, word games, and puzzles to encourage little kids to start reading. There's an excellent A-Z list of activities that focus on reading and vocabulary building. There are also tips about how to reinforce reading and words throughout the home every day. As a bonus, there are a couple of other useful pages, like a home safety checklist and tips on finding good childcare. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 15
Mister Rogers Neighborhood
URL: http://www.pbs.org/rogers/mrr_home.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The comfortable, and awfully nice sweater-clad guy beckons us to sample some tasty bits from his long-running public TV show on this easy to use page. You'll find some of his wisdom (and suggested activities) about separation anxiety, competition, disabilities, and fears. There are also lyrics to a number of Mr. R's songs ("Parents Were Little Once Too" is but one), and a bibliography of books the nice man recommends. From here, you can link to PBS program schedules, stations, and previews.
Overall Rating: 15
Brooks Landon's Horizon of Invisibility Homestead
URL: http://www.uiowa.edu/~english/landon.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Prof. Landon teaches modern literature and sci-fi at the University of Iowa. He seems to be an affable and thoughtful sort who keeps busy studying Web culture, interactive lit, and the zine scene. Predictably, his page features links to those zines and personal sites that reveal this culture. His students are encouraged to make Web pages, too -- samples available here. And about that title: it's from a book on technology and culture and represents the lofty philosophical stance of this professor.
Overall Rating: 17
Truth, Lies, Rumors, and Rumbles
URL: http://www.cris.com/~Awolinsk/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
"As the Board Churns" is the subtitle of this text-based saga, about the tensions between teachers, parents, and citizen-players with various agendas in a southern New Jersey school district. Our "netitor" is Abe Wolinsky, a technology teacher who decided to publish Web reports on the community squabbles. All the details may not interest you, but this will: the original arguments (about building a new high school vs. saving money, and a subsequent teachers' contract) were quickly eclipsed by new crossfire because Abe put the story on the on the Web. You can even join in via e-mail if you'd like.
Overall Rating: 16
Arkansas Little Rock College of Education
URL: http://www.ualr.edu/~coedept/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
You don't have to attend the U. of Arkansas to appreciate its meta-page of educational resources. A big box of Frames provides links for undergrads (calculate your GPA!), grad students, teachers, and parents (links to good educational sites that might inspire Net-oriented moms and dads). You'll find out plenty about the UA educational programs and class schedules, lots of library site links, pointers to other Arkansas pages, even investment planning sites for teachers. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 14
Adventures in Education
URL: http://www.tgslc.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The nice folks at the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation bring us Adventures in Education, a useful overview about how to get into various federal programs, what it will take to repay them, deferments, current interest rates, and so on. Then it goes a few steps beyond the basics, providing career guidance advice, info for parents and guidance counselors, financial aid officers, and even tips on selecting a college or university. No heavy pitches for Texas or the corporation, either -- just a good shot at public service for the educationally-determined.
Overall Rating: 15
The Chronicle: Academe This Week
URL: http://chronicle.merit.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Chronicle is the proverbial Bible for college-level teachers and administrators. The Web page is well-organized, pointing you to news and resources on information technology, academic research, government programs and legislation, professional development, and more. But you must subscribe to the paper version ($75/year) to get Academe Today, the daily online features and links publication, (with a registration and password scheme that insures that no one else gets in.) If you are a Chronicle subscriber or are thinking about it, Academe Today is a definite plus. If not, this is just a nice brochure describing what's on paper.
Overall Rating: 17
CyberEd
URL: http://www.umassd.edu/cybered/distlearninghome.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
We'll be seeing a growing number of "cyberclasses" soon, essentially extension courses that lend themselves to online study. A small southern campus of the University of Massachusetts now offers a few grad and undergrad classes -- composition and technical writing, American politics, and astronomy -- as well as a non-credit Web page design class. You register online, pay for the class, and then do the reading, studying, practicing on your own. This no-frills site is an indicator of what's to come; a trend other small or remote campuses will plug into soon.
Overall Rating: 16
AdZe MiXXe, Astrologer Extraordinaire
URL: http://www.adze.com/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
AdZe MiXXe isn't your average astrologer, but a man with a mission. A mission to spread the good word of astrology and his unique sense of capitalization across the globe. The site isn't just a listing of daily horoscopes, but a complete astrological forecast. Check out the current phase of the moon and it's affect on you, how you and your mate match up astrologically, predictions of the weather, stock prices, and political events. There are even star charts for the stars, with tips for Bill Gates, Charles, and Diana. Superstition doesn't get more exciting.
Overall Rating: 14
Ripped Off By A Landlord
URL: http://ocf.berkeley.edu/~andyneal/r-home.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Have you ever had a Landlord from hell? Your psycho Mr. Roper doesn't hold a candle to the weirdo these guys had to deal with. Read their long-but-interesting account of what they've had to go through just to get their deposit back from the paranoid schizophrenic they rented from. There are also some links to legal resources on the web that might help you out if you're in a similar situation. Although there aren't any graphics to speak of, and some of the links don't work, it doesn't take too much away from the horror of their situation.
Overall Rating: 15
Mentholgook
URL: http://sulaco.bsd.uchicago.edu/~shong/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Mentholgook is a recent college graduate who toils in his parents convenience store by day, and plays with Photoshop by night. He's posted his portfolio online, and some of it's pretty good. You might want to look at his proposed Wired magazine covers. Or you might want to see some art by a guy with a kooky name. Why's he called Mentholgook? He just likes the sound of the word in English.
Overall Rating: 17
The Particles of Star Trek
URL: http://www.hyperion.com/~koreth/particles/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Every time I hear someone on Star Trek babble on about bobyon particles or phase-induced anti-matter, my head spins. Did you know Paramount pays "science advisors" tons of money to keep track of this stuff? Now you can too with The Particles of Star Trek. It's simply a big list of every imaginary, real, and quasi-real particle ever mentioned in any of the show's incarnations. If, Heaven forbid, there's a particle you know of but isn't listed, you can add it with a handy form at the bottom. A few graphics, or any formatting at all would help this site out a bit, but it's still a funny document.
Overall Rating: 15
The SPLEEN
URL: http://www.mcad.edu/home/faculty/szyhalski/Piotr
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Spleen is a nice piece of work when it isn't busy being long-winded and "arty." The site is divided into separate segments, each with it's own mood. While the presentation of each piece is top-notch, much of the actual text is dense and makes little sense. Maybe I just didn't get it. There are a bunch of little animations viewable through Netscape or Shockwave, like the one of a studying student turning into a devil -- that was super-nifty. The Spleen is named after an organ who's exact function is unknown and you can live without. If it weren't for those animations, the same might be said for this site.
Overall Rating: 16
WardoWorld
URL: http://www.actwin.com/csn/WardoWorld/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
WardoWorld is the home of the "Daily Fun Fact " and "Games for the Simple." Almost every day, a short, obscure Fun Fact is posted on the Web for your trivia-starved brain. It's like a fact-a-day wall calendar without the wall. You can also sign up to get them via e-mail which seems like a much better way to me. The other part of the site, Games for the Simple, is a small collection of really easy games. Really easy. Stuff like: Which line is longer? A) ----- or B) --------------- ? I've seen this joke a million times before, but it's still sort of amusing for about three minutes.
Overall Rating: 14
Richard Downs
URL: http://www.earthlink.net/~downsart/
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
For the best honey go to the bee hive. For the best art go to The Hive, the virtual studio of illustrator Richard Downs. See both abstract illustrations and smooth 3D design that Downs was commissioned to do for such big names as Disney, Apple computers, and Business Week magazine. The dark tale, "The Masque of the Red Death," is also illustrated by Downs in a graphic novel form online.
Overall Rating: 17
Mythopoeia
URL: http://www.myth.com/mythopoeia/mythopoeia1.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Enter the realm of morbid Bible tales where John the Baptist is a decapitated head surrounded in fruit and Jesus glows in the dark on a neon cross. Mythopoeia mutates myth into digital emotion and sensory satisfaction. Aside from Biblical characters, the site illustrates bios of the Furies, vampires, sea nymphs, Sleeping Beauty, Bird of Paradise and more. Real life needs to be this artistic. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 17
Seattle's Center on Contemporary Art
URL: http://www.subpop.com/coca/
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
A large case of pink plastic found objects would normally be found in the "free" box at a garage sale, but at Seattle's Center on Contemporary Art it's a mixed media gallery installation. Every subject from the O.J. Simpson trials to portraits of Oscar Wilde are captured in paint, plaster, metal, and sometimes even plastic junk. Of the artists featured, CoCA focuses on a mishmash of popular art scenesters such as the Survival Research Laboratories and Hernandez brothers, as well as the more obscure folks.
Overall Rating: 17
High Museum of Art
URL: http://isotropic.com/highmuse/highhome.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Atlanta isn't just the home for the 1996 Summer Olympics, but also it's considered the grande casa of African, American, contemporary, decorative, European art, and photography at The High Museum of Art. The museum features more than 10,000 objects of art but the online site only has a limited number photos and brief descriptions of artifacts and paintings. Most of the content has more to do with the museum's services than the actual exhibits.
Overall Rating: 17
SF MOMA
URL: http://www.sfmoma.org/
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Paintings of country dogs and suburban cars riddle The San Francisco Modern Art Museum Web site. Read about special exhibitions such as highlights from Mexican Modernism and Maya Deren film series, or look at slides of selections from the permanent collection (without holding them up to the light.) Study up on the history of the museum or plan your life around the calendar of exhibitions.
Overall Rating: 16
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
URL: http://www.mfa.org/
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Discover the mythical art of the ancients and the captivating canvases of the post moderns at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Web site. The museum's first online exhibition explores the work of nineteenth-century New England painter, Winslow Homer, best known for his painting, "Long Branch, New Jersey." After artistic enlightenment, order a free museum catalog to be sent via snail mail. The site needs more interactivity before it can rank high with the other online masterpieces.
Overall Rating: 16
Enoch's Art & Design
URL: http://jumpnet.uoregon.edu/enoch/ENOCH'S_connection_point.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Not all artists have to be worm food to have a gallery dedicated to their work. As a University of Oregon undergrad art/design student, Enoch has his "flat" art on display for the Web to ogle. Of his subjects, family and friend portraits seem to prevail, but Enoch creates some amazing nudes too. If curiosity gnaws at your bones, Enoch will give you the history behind each piece if you e-mail him.
Overall Rating: 17
Transparanoia Bros Gargoyle Quest
URL: http://www.razorfish.com/bluedot/gargs/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A trip through France to photograph architecturally enhanced rain spouts from the middle ages becomes a journey into the darknesses of the human soul and the outer limits of sanity as 2 brothers are driven on a quest to discover ancient mysteries. Or you could call this site "What to do with those neat vacation photos you took last summer." Lots of gargoyle pictures from the cathedrals of France are interwoven into a gonzo narrative that actually has some real historical information. Points off for various misspellings and gratuitous scary sound files.
Overall Rating: 16
College Money Matters
URL: http://www.infi.net/collegemoney/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
While many "informational" sites sponsored by corporations are just slightly veiled marketing attempts, Signet Bank should be applauded for their soft sell approach on this guide to funding a college education. There are Signet Bank loan applications and information, but a lot of the content (which mostly seems lifted from printed guides) does not bear Signet's stamp. One of the best resources here is "Don't Miss Out, A Student's Guide to Financial Aid." A good portion this book is available online.
Overall Rating: 15
Library Project: African-American Culture
URL: http://www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/LibraryProjectsIV.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The content here is a collection of essays about African-American Culture that cover ground from the slave trade to 20th century literature. The essays were written by students of a class titled "General Education 101," and take the form of mini-book reports. The site is really only useful as a reference for books about African-American Culture as the essays are too short to provide any substantive information. It also suffers from a poor use of Netscape Frames; the only way to get back to the table of contents is to reload the whole site.
Overall Rating: 14
NetNoir Education
URL: http://www.netnoir.com/emp/edu/index.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Following precedence set by the rest of NetNoir's Web space, it's no surprise that the education section of NetNoir.com is pleasant to look at with insightful content. This area hosts a wonderful archive of African folk tales, as they were told originally, with colorful artwork and an interesting weave of hyperlinks to connect them all. Also found are "classes online." These classes have a mini lecture, recommended readings, and mention something about online discussions (though I couldn't find the discussion area.) There's still room for improvement, but NetNoir's off to a nice start.
Overall Rating: 17
Macrobiotics On Line
URL: http://www.macrobiotics.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Someone's gonna have to teach these people how to use the anti-alias feature when creating Web graphics. Too many jagged edged pictures does not a happy surfer make. Sigh. The organization is also off kilt, with a confusing arrangement of click to the menu of more menu's and more menus still, until at last, a smidgen of content about how to financially support Macrobiotics. If you can stomach the search, there are some deeper areas, such as the Cancer and Diet nutrition section. While, like the rest of the site, our healthy living tips are poorly organized, the section at least offers some credible content.
Overall Rating: 14
Children's Nutrition Research Center
URL: http://www.bcm.tmc.edu/cnrc/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
I want to like this site, after all it has noble intentions: Keep our kids healthy! To it's credit, it has a semi-updated news section to inform parents about new nutrition "issues," and offers tips on fibers, sweets and general diet quandaries. Unfortunately, though, the rest of the site is a pamphlet for the program started at Baylor College in Texas, with some faculty info, seminar overviews, and a mini-mission statement. Not to mention it's all fashioned in Netscape gray...
Overall Rating: 17
The Body Electric Welcome Page
URL: http://www.surgery.com/body/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Hmm -- health site or 1970's disco dance move... Neither. It's a site that advocates liposculpture (??) and breast implants, which as far as I've ever known is not healthy or related to dancing. See before and after pictures, get cost estimates (from an objective source, which is valuable), and use the doctor finder to get in touch with a plastic surgeon type near you. The layout is a bit of an eye sore -- cheesy graphics and clunky text -- but if you're looking for info about body modification, this might be of some service.
Overall Rating: 15
LucasArts Entertainment Company
URL: http://www.lucasarts.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
The LucasArts web pages are a lot like the games the George Lucas multimedia empire produces -- exceptionally well done technically, but lacking, sometimes, in any kind of spirit. Anyway, what you've got here is about exactly what you'd expect: screen shots; downloadable demos; a catalog of available merchandise; a tech support section with trouble shooting guides and an online recruitment section. I don't know, maybe I'm just tired of licensed Star Wars games, but I found this web site profoundly unmoving. If you want to know everything about the latest LucasArts games, come here. If you're looking for something soul-enhancing, something like THE FORCE, maybe, look elsewhere.
Overall Rating: 15
Mac Flight Simulators
URL: http://www.xmission.com:80/~morrison/MFS/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Tom Morrison has collected an extensive collection of links to every Mac Flight simulator site on the Internet (as far as we can tell), from Graphic Simulatons to someone who has a Mercury space mission simulator. He also has news and gossip (current and archived) about Mac flight sims and links to several FTP sites and the Flight Simulator FAQ. A great one-stop directory for anyone who wants to play pilot on the Mac. Not super deep, not super ornate, but very complete -- you'll get what you want quick.
Overall Rating: 15
The Cheats Page
URL: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~cjm2/cheat/cheat.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This is a very small site with lists of cheats for about eight different PC games. Not bad, but not much that couldn't be found elsewhere. There are also some links to other sites. From Chris's homepage there are more links, including one to Games Domain, which is cool. I don't know why, but for the Doom cheats, he thought white text on a light gray background was a good idea. To be fair, the page is under construction, so it may be worth another look by the time you read this.
Overall Rating: 15
Warlords II Players
URL: http://www.princeton.edu/~rfheeter/w2home.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
As mentioned in the Warlords II FAQ, this is thee site on the Internet for Warlords II players, Mac and PC. Warlords II being, of course, the cult favorite strategy game from SSG. The site is basically a very long nap-on-the-scroll-bar page with a ton of links to places with more storage space for scenario archives and listings of people wanting to play Warlords II via e-mail. If you like the game, you'll like the site. It's well organized and complete.
Overall Rating: 15
Bridge on the Web
URL: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~sater/bridge/bridge-on-the-web.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Hmmm... Bridge... played around the world... by... well, by a lot of people, even if you and I don't know any. And this is their site. Many of the documents here are in PostScript, so you'll need a reader (they provide a link to a PC one, but no Mac), but aside from that, this appears to be a very complete accomplishment, with lots of links to PC bridge game sites, info about tournaments, etc. It's pretty plain looking, but has plenty of information that will no doubt be of interest to Bridge players worldwide.
Overall Rating: 14
Flags of the World
URL: http://www.cesi.it/flags/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
A none to glamorous website with more than 400 flags of nationalities, ideas, sexual orientation, ethnicities, politics, geographical areas, and supposed fictional societies found throughout the world. While the idea is good, the site lacks uniformity in content. While a hyperlink to Nazi flags will lead one to gifs of several flag types and explanations on the use of red and white colors, a hyperlink to Ethiopia's flag contains a gif of the flag and nothing more. Furthermore, the managers of the site do not guarantee the veracity of the information provided by their contributors.
Overall Rating: 15
ISO Online
URL: http://www.iso.ch/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
One can access the International Organization for Standardization's homepage in English or French. The ISO is an international group that sets and agrees upon the quality of products, materials or services that are offered or sold globally. They standardize everything from shipbuilding and food technology to condom durability. Although plagued by technological jargon, the site is information packed with the ISO's history, long- and short-term goals, organizational structure, and vision. Unfortunately, if one wants ISO literature on the standardization of surgical instruments, the site would hyperlink that person to an address and telephone number for further information.
Overall Rating: 15
LookUP
URL: http://www.lookup.com/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
LookUP! is a free, simple-to-use name to email retrieval service. In theory, one can input a name and address, click search, and then find that person's e-mail address. However, to retrieve an email address the person being sought after must be registered with LookUP! The site's members are privy to advanced search mechanisms, a Web site, and special e-mail programs that offer access to LookUP!'s e-mail database. It sounds great for now. But be warned, check the FAQs. The site's managers warn that LookUP! may charge members a fee in the future.
Overall Rating: 17
QWorld
URL: http://www.qworld.org/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
QWorld is a well-organized forum for the queer community, complete with chat rooms, message boards, and regional resources of lesbian and gay businesses in your area. For a good time, check out the QFiles filled with Lesbian and Gay graphics icons, sounds and other relevant resources. Once you're ready to journey out of QWorld, the massive collection of links will help you follow the rainbow streaming through the net. While the site is still under construction, it has the potential to be a bustling virtual town square for digital queers.
Overall Rating: 16
GeroWeb
URL: http://www.iog.wayne.edu/GeroWeb.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Brought to you by the Institute for Gerontology at Wayne State University, GeroWeb is a rich information clearing-house for researchers, educators, and care-takers. The site design is quite bland, but somehow appropriate for the academic and dry, yet useful, resources linked from its pages. Included are pointers to universities offering gerontology information, organizations of interest to the aging community, and government agencies useful to service providers and researchers. Not much fun, but seemingly purposeful information for the target audience.
Overall Rating: 15
Largesse the Network for Size Esteem
URL: http://www.fatgirl.com/largesse/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Largesse, the Network for Size Esteem, is a feminist resource center for "size diversity empowerment." What that means is that this insubstantial site is supposed to be a clearinghouse of health, diet, and legal information for "people of size." And these pages aren't just for adults either. Self-help and body image books for fat kids (phrase used on the site) are reviewed along with audiotapes, newsletters and other information for overweight children and their parents and teachers. As a resource it's fine, though it still has a way to go.
Overall Rating: 15
Welcome to Cybersmith
URL: http://www.cybersmith.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The real Cybersmith in Boston is one of the finest cyber-cafes I've ever guzzled mochas and megabytes in. Ironically though, their Web site is completely uninteresting. While they claim this site to be their "temporary" location, I'd expect much much more from people whose business is the net and community. There's little more here than lists of the top 10 CD-ROMs, games in the shop, and a boring list of links. Are the Boston City Hall or the RealAudio home pages really "hot sites?" C'mon kids, put down that cappuccino and get back to work
Overall Rating: 15
Victorian Women Writers
URL: http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/vwwp/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
No men. No Edwardians. Just Victorian women writers. Which ought to tell you that this is a site by and for those with an academic interest in that bygone era of corsets, courting gentlemen and purple prose. But don't be fooled; there's a political edge, oft-overlooked, with a few radical feminist writers here. Apparently the "project" in the title refers to the ongoing effort to assemble literary works of this type online (for the moment the content is limited). Be warned, these are big files. While you *could* download them to your hard drive, are you really going to read it all afterwards? Well, maybe you are...
Overall Rating: 15
American Literature
URL: http://www.en.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/amlit.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This is a survey course in American Literature, digitally preserved, complete with student papers and class discussions. I'd bet the compositions have been plagiarized by now -- poached by unscrupulous college kids. As for the discussions, they're full of chat room-style interference and non sequiturs (Teacher: Helen, I liked your comment about Hester Prynne as feminist martyr, but I wonder if Hawthorne would have seen it that way? Butthead: This sucks, Beavis. Beavis: Yeah, he he.) Good for a laugh, maybe, but not much else. Butthead's right.
Overall Rating: 15
NWHQ
URL: http://www.knosso.com/NWHQ/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
You have to be a little wary of anything that describes itself as being "constructed somewhat like a labyrinth," but my brief foray into this "web-journal of hypertexted literature" was not so unrewarding as I expected it to be. In fact, most of the writing I encountered was actually pretty good, adventurous with the language and suited ( pace- and lengthwise) to the medium; maybe a little long on angst and short on inspiration, but good nonetheless. And the visuals weren't half bad either. And in the end, it's not even all that labyrinthine -- navigation back home is easy -- just a good read.
Overall Rating: 16
The Papa Page
URL: http://www.ee.mcgill.ca/~nverever/hem/pindex.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Another shrine to old Hem, another devotional on the web. I'm cool to this one without knowing exactly why. Content-wise it seems rich enough, with links to other resources. The interface is clean, simple, and straightforward -- like Ernie's prose. Good enough. Still, something seems to be lacking. The biography is pretty sparse, for one thing. And the images are generally the ones you've seen a hundred times; the man is an icon, after all. And maybe that's my problem with it; all the attention Hemingway gets just seems to further the self-promoting and self-mythologizing agenda he himself had. So why bother?
Overall Rating: 15
What the Thunder Said T.S Eliot
URL: http://www.usl.edu/Departments/English/authors/eliot/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This site has something I think every literary site should have in order to be truly useful: a search engine. After all, the best thing about having text served up digitally is the ability to cross-reference and index and hyperlink the hell out of it. That way it becomes a pretty spiff tool for students and scholars; otherwise you're just stuck with text on your monitor, the appeal of which I for one don't get. Aside from the search engine though, the site is pretty run-of-the-mill. Fair, but by no means outstanding. With time and increased content, however, it should improve considerably.
Overall Rating: 15
THOMAS WOLFE WEB PAGE
URL: http://www.cms.uncwil.edu/~connelly/wolfe.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Aside from a photographic tour (be prepared to wait) of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial -- the "Old Kentucky Home" in Asheville, N.C. -- there are no real surprises here. The biographical and critical information on Wolfe is brief but well-presented, as are the few choice quotes culled from the writer's work. The bibliography is just a skeleton -- just titles, no synopses or further links. Devotees may want to jump on the Thomas Wolfe Commemorative Stamp Campaign (oh boy) and stay up on the annual Thomas Wolfe Festival (wow), but for most visitors, this site will be a one-time fly-by.
Overall Rating: 15
Weblit
URL: http://www.sojourn.com/~rothfder/web/weblit.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This site provides a pretty exhaustive list of links to things literary on the web. It also rates some of those sites -- a little too charitably methinks. In addition to indexing individual web pages, it also indexes photographic images as pertain to literary figures, as well as downloadable texts available on the Web. As such, a pretty decent resource, I spose. There are some minor technical glitches, however, (clicking on the alphabetal index got me an advertisement for sojourn.com, the server, and who needs that?) and a backlog of URL's which have yet to be reviewed.
Overall Rating: 15
City TV
URL: http://www.citytv.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
One has to chuckle at television station and network Web sites. The Web is simply the precursor to technological changes which are going to swamp the broadcasting industry; how many broadcasters see it coming? This is the Chumcity Internet Site, offering up programming schedules and information for several Canadian television networks: CityTV, Bravo, and MuchMusic. Though better organized than most such Webspaces, this page suffers a near universal affliction -- a lack of engaging content. In the absence of attractive content, one must take advantage of the latest Web bells and whistles to attract attention.
Unfortunately, that is not done here.
Overall Rating: 15
SMASH
URL: http://smash.cs.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Smash bills itself as a Web magazine devoted to science-fiction, fantasy, comics, and games. Fine graphics and a well-organized, hierarchial presentation make this site pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. Unfortunately, Smash suffers a lack of content. This doesn't have to be a damning condition, as many content-light but flashy sites demonstrate. But Smash does not offer the quantity or quality of information one would expect to find in a magazine purchased at a newsstand, and Smash fails to exploit the Web's strengths to hide this lack of content. If a site is going to call itself a magazine, then we have every right to judge it by magazine standards.
Overall Rating: 15
Internet 1996 World Exposition
URL: http://park.org/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
The World's Fair is a delightful anachronism persisting from that long past age when "progress" and "science" were going to solve the world's problems and put a helicopter in every garage. This is the Internet 1996 World Exposition, a "World's Fair for the Information Age." Visitors find information on the exhibits -- many still under construction--and hints to the future direction of the Internet. Especially interesting are the details of the Internet Railroad, a multi-national effort to circle the globe with a 45 Mb/sec connection. Excellent graphics and a model presentation make this site a delight to visit.
Overall Rating: 17
An Unofficial Republican Homepage
URL: http://www.netrunner.net/~covers/republic/
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
These are curious days, indeed, when political parties inspire fan sites. This is an unofficial Republican party home page, a fan site which distinguishes itself by being enjoyable to visit and useful. Great graphics only accentuate the clear organization of the extensive and varied content. Numerous related links and extensive contact information for state-level Republican organizations throughout the country make this a valuable resource for anyone surfing for political information. It was especially pleasing to see a conservative attack on the Communications Decency Act; no matter your opinion of Republicans, these guys are on the correct side of the CDA issue.
Overall Rating: 15
Eagle Forum - Phyllis Schlafly
URL: http://www.basenet.net/~eagle/eagle.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum is now on the Web--some of the most reactionary individuals in contemporary politics have found a home in cyberspace. Most people know Schlafly through her tireless opposition to the ERA; this site is an excellent introduction to her other political activities. News from Capitol Hill, an archive of Schlafly's editorial columns, Eagle Forum information and more--though the politics may offend some, this is a thoughtfully-presented and visually appealing site. Why is it that the Right always manages to present its opinions and material in a format much more slick and accessible than anything offered by the Left?
Overall Rating: 15
TMIWeb Big Free Area
URL: http://www.tmiweb.com/Bigfree/Xofree/xofree.html
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
XO's mission is "to rewire real men for vitality, joy and creative success in the context of today's capitalist urban society." Huh? If you don't understand this site, you won,t be alone. The bias slant of XO makes Rush Limbaugh look liberal. Take a ten-minute quiz to see if you have what it takes to strike it rich on your own. Discover the "truth" why feminist overkill is driving single men out of the traditional dating scene. Most of the photos just happen to be scantily-clad women looking to have relationships with REAL men.
Overall Rating: 15
TST ON-DEMAND
URL: http://www.tstradio.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Turn your computer into a talk radio Mecca with TST ON-DEMAND. Taylor Subscription Talk is an audio on-demand service that lets users subscribe to talk radio programs on subjects such as politics, health, alternative lifestyles, arts, entertainment and news. The site itself serves as an advertisement to convince Internet surfers they need a talk show playing on their computers as they wander through the Web. The only interactive quality on TST,s Web site is the Real Audio download of the demo. The graphics look like they were kidnapped from Apple,s ill-fated eWorld service.
Overall Rating: 17
Hieroglyphics Music Promotions
URL: http://www.webcom.com/~stinke/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Archeologists study hieroglyphics to learn about the past, music lovers visit Hieroglyphics Music Promotion to learn about the future sounds of Hip-Hop. For a small fee, musicians can sell their demos and mix tapes on this site or download sound clips of albums before buying them. However, for a site named after important drawings, Hieroglyphics Music Promotion,s space online has limited graphics, even with the snazzy Java zipper at the beginning.
Overall Rating: 16
Great American Country Home Page
URL: http://www.countrystars.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The Great American County Home Page has more information on country musicians than you can shake a fiddle at. Dedicated to bringing fans closer to their favorite country stars, the site is sponsored by the 24-hour country music video network G.A.C Great American Country. Get the latest dirt on Garth Brooks from Katy Bee's Nashville Newsline. Read the history behind every hit maker band from Alabama to Trisha Yearwood. However, the site needs audio and video to really deserve the Patsy Cline seal of approval.
Overall Rating: 15
96 WCMF Rochester's Home of Rock & Roll
URL: http://www.wcmf.com./
Category: Media
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Kathy Tafel
If I were an aging baby-boomer into classic rock, I might listen to WCMF. I'd have to move to Rochester, first, but that's a minor detail. There's a mildly amusing Star Wars-esque intro to the site. The home page uses bright primary colors that really pop of the page. The self-congratulatory introduction to the morning circus, events that the DJs go to, and the staff bios are really the only sections worth looking at. If you live in Rochester, and listen to WCMF, go ahead and scrounge around. But there really isn't anything else of interest to ordinary netizens.
Overall Rating: 15
BMG Classics World
URL: http://classicalmus.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Classification is one problem that faces us reviewers, and in this case it was whether to put this site in Music or Shopping. Classical music is a bit harder to get a handle on than pop music because if you hear a poor performance of the greatest composition, it's not going to sound very good. Classics World, however, has enough information to help the novice get an appreciation of classical music. Then, of course, there's the easily accessible BMG catalog where you can buy the music.
Overall Rating: 16
Pizzicato Five fan page
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/fan/pizz.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
While this isn't a huge fan site with magazine articles and album reviews, it is very well-designed and generally has a very solid feel. The content is basic stuff, such as a discography, Pizzicato Five timeline, pictures, and sound clips. Considering that most of their albums are hard to get in America, the discography is rare information, if not immediately useful. I've never seen a site that didn't use backgrounds and still looked this good. The secret seems to be good, well-placed graphics.
Overall Rating: 16
1996 Centennial Olympic Games
URL: http://www.atlanta.olympic.org/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Everyone wants a piece of the 1996 Olympic Games and IBM is no exception. Look at its site for cute animations of blinking stars and flying Olympic tickets available to purchase online. Search the program for schedules of the 26 sporting events or learn more about the 1996 Olympic Arts Festival. Watch out for glitches in the system where it won't let users access the fun side. Maybe someday debugging Web sites will be an Olympic event!
Overall Rating: 17
1996 Olympic Games
URL: http://pathfinder.com/si/athens/olyhome.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Sports Illustrated makes a grab for the torch. Sports fans can read the schedule of events, Olympic news and almanac, sport-by-sport breakdown, and an Olympic timeline. Unfortunately, though, half of the site, including information on Sports Illustrated coverage of the events, is still under construction. If Sports Illustrated took the same time and effort on this Web site as it does on the print version, the site would earn a gold medal. However, the SI 1996 Olympics Games doesn't even earn a consolation prize.
Overall Rating: 15
Olympic Sailing
URL: http://www.process.com/launch/olysail.htm
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The Olympic Sailing site is sinking, but no one has jumped ship. Even with basic information on Olympic sailing classes, competition schedules, and a listing of the different boats and their crews, the site falls short of sailing that extra mile. Olympic Sailing only has one photo and lacks any other design forethought. Throw the Web master a life jacket and move on.
Overall Rating: 15
Portland Marathon
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~pdxmar/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Lace up your running shoes and sprint over to the Portland Marathon Home Page for the latest news and information on the September 29, 1996 running and walking marathon. Print out an entry form directly from the Web site or browse through the historical photos of races from the past. Read why so many Portland residents get up early in the morning to run in a big crowd across town.
Overall Rating: 15
Taylor Made Golf
URL: http://www.taylormadegolf.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Taylor Made Golf is no more than a commercial for selling metal driving golf clubs. Read the news to see which pro golfer won a tournament with the new Bubble Burner golf club or study up on the history of the company. The only section that seems void of the "buy our clubs" message is "It's Your Shot" where golfers can share tips, stories and jokes. Download golf games and screen savers in the "Gimmies" section (after filling out a survey.) Even though the site is well-designed, the content is still swinging aimlessly in the sand trap.
Overall Rating: 17
Dodd's Linking Pages
URL: http://www.netdepot.com/~gargoyle/magic.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Abracadabra! Pull a great Web site out of Dodd's hat. Serving as a portal to magic on the Net, this site has links to people's pages who like getting out of straightjackets such as escape artist Mathew Cooper (see vanity site of the Month) or those who like waving a magic wand with a sick sense of humor ala Penn and Teller. This online directory has too many links up its sleeve to do it justice in a single paragraph. Jump to magic supply stores or find out how to join up with the members of the I.B.M. Ring 2100.
Overall Rating: 16
Willa's Journal
URL: http://darknet.com:80/wcline/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Don't expect stories of hatred, sex, and scandal from Willa's Journal. Willa writes about birds, magical candles, and rain. Journals are a dime a disease on the Web and this one stands alone as being the warm and fuzzy one. Not only does Willa write about her daily thoughts on books, poems, and ways to be good to herself, she also keeps an online dream journal. Check out Willa's site when it's raining out and all you feel like doing is sipping coffee and petting a cat.
Overall Rating: 15
A digital canvas
URL: http://www.primenet.com/~vytasg/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
View heavenly planets without a telescope. A digital canvas is the Web night sky painted with green spikes, yellow orbs, and blue 3D stars. The canvas becomes an online Rorschach test as images of blurry circus elephants and floating tops decorate the site. This is abstract art at its best. Enjoy the confusion!
Overall Rating: 17
Lyndy's Country Cupboards
URL: http://www.imall.com/stores/lyndys/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Our gal Lyndy says that her store, 45 minutes from downtown Houston, is in the "country shopping mecca of Texas," and that her Web page offers "the only warm and cozy shopping experience on the Net!!" I'll give her this: the photos of products she's selling online are good-sized, and it's easy to find the descriptions, dimensions, and shipping costs right by each item. But I'll leave it to you to decide if you need to order a pair of fuzzy bears. Ordering seems easy (but your only delivery choice is UPS Ground), so if you're feeling warm and cozy, stop on by.
Overall Rating: 15
Biggest Little Craft Mall
URL: http://www.craftmall.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
OK, I haven't walked a mile in this mall's moccasins, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't call my cyber-mall "The Biggest" anything until I made sure I had a lot of vendors signed up. The BLCM doesn't. When I looked, there was one seller in each of five areas (knitting, woodworking, cross-stitch, crafts, and stitch-pattern software). Not that they don't mean well. The site has built the capability for searching by geography, posting classifieds and email threaded discussion, tips on what sells, materials, and where to find supplies. They're trying.
Overall Rating: 15
Diners Grapevine
URL: http://www.dinersgrapevine.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Grapevine: Read menus, check prices, hours, reviews, get directions, find out which credit cards they take, or if kids are welcome. Unfortunately, most of the databases for these guides fall mighty short of offering these reasonable features, and Diners Grapevine is no exception. You can search by location, cuisine, atmosphere, entertainment, all right; but what you'll get is a listing, plain and simple, with street address and phone number. Period. The Guide's obvious emphasis is to get more listings (and salespeople to work for the Grapevine), and to feature restaurants using the Transmedia discount card, which not surprisingly is a sponsor of the page. Duh!
Overall Rating: 15
PlanetMARS Inline Skate
URL: http://www.gateintl.com/PlanetMARS/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Like running shoes, roller skates have gone totally high tech. The inline skates favored today by hip rollers look like space boots on steroids. Blast off to Planet Mars, for a BIG dose of skating gear -- and of the Netscape blink feature -- and start shopping (pay by check, credit card, or wire transfer). The site is very graphics -- and Tables -- intensive, but the Martians don't provide any background about the products you're considering other than low-res photos, and low, low Planet Mars price. Planet Mars is probably better suited for the average-sized, diehard fan who already knows it all and doesn't want pointers to other resources or additional info.
Overall Rating: 14
Rent Net
URL: http://www.rent.net/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The value of information on the Web is only as good as the database behind it. Rent Net's onto a good idea, letting you search by Canadian province or US state, city, number of bedrooms, and price range for apartments. But of course there are only a handful of listings for any given search because the service needs many more participants to be truly useful. The features Rent Net offers are good ideas, too: listings include icons for pets, whether the place is a home, single unit or vacation site. There are even snapshots of a number of the buildings. It's small, but on the right path.
Overall Rating: 15
Nazarene Adult Mission Educator
URL: http://www.sky.net/~rdouglas/mission.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Bob's Resource is a supplemental guide for Nazarenes who are going abroad to serve God and the church. While the site features good usage of Netscape's Frames and has some passable graphics, much of the material presented is useless unless you have the book the site was designed to supplement. The links to maps and resources of different parts of the world might be helpful, and the hints on dealing with local populations is amusing on it's own. The site is a must-see for any Nazarene itchin' to be a missionary, but really not for anyone else.
Overall Rating: 16
Bilabong's House of Wav's
URL: http://www.dakota.net/~bilabong/tommy.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
More correctly titled Bilabong's House of Chris Farley, this is the site for Tommy Boy sound samples. So many samples, you might want to download all this stuff and forget renting the movie altogether. An annoying little Java-coded bulletin scrolls across the bottom of the browser window promising to have some Billy Madison, Black Sheep, and Happy Gillmore samples up by the time you read this. I think this guy loves those nutty Saturday Night Live alums a bit too much for his own good. Black Sheep? Please. Only visit this site if you like fat guy jokes without seeing Fatty himself.
Overall Rating: 15
Significant Bits
URL: http://world.std.com/~nevins/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Pat Nevins puts information about himself on the Web in a unique way. When you enter Significant Bits, you're presented with a deck of cards. Depending on which card you pick, you either get to see his resume, a short biography, his favorite links, a collection of his writing, or get sent to the Missing Children's Homepage for no obvious reason. His writings are only fairly interesting but each piece automatically loads a short .wav file of his original music in the background which helps set the mood. The physical production though isn't top-notch, but assembling Pat's bits is an interesting diversion.
Overall Rating: 16
California Academy of Sciences
URL: http://www.calacademy.org/
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This site From the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco could be a shining example of what it means to bring a museum online. Unfortunately, it's just... well... average. There are a few interesting exhibits presented here, most notably the "Frogs Of The Arabuko-Sokoke Forest in Kenya," with beautiful images of these surreal-looking toads in their natural habitat. But the site overflows with the mundane -- museum hours, list of classes offered, and, of course, the gift shop. This site is only worth a bookmark if you want to learn how to build your own Foucault Pendulum. Which I do....
Overall Rating: 15
Pepsi World Introduction
URL: http://www.pepsi.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Wow! This is sort of a Pepsi "Challenge" for the digital generation --an example of Web technology at it's finest. See if you can cut through all the bells, whistles, Shockwave, Java, VRML, Real Audio, Frames, etc. to make it to the content. And that's no easy task. While this site is technically and graphically superb, navigation is not intuitive. It's way too easy to lose yourself in the chat rooms, message board, pop culture snippets, music reviews, games, contests, and Doom-esque graphical interface. Very elaborate, but then again, too much is sometimes just that. Sensory overload! Ahhhhhh! You're losing me! Give me Lynx quick! Text only!!!! Text only!!!!
Overall Rating: 17
Web Communications Publishing
URL: http://www.webcom.com/html/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Web is the great equalizer, enabling the teenager in her bedroom to have as elaborate and exciting a page as MTV. For those getting started in Web publishing, this site is a good place to start. Primarily just a list of links, the pages Web Technology points to guides on Web access, basic HTML, forms, site promotion, and, of course, how to publish your page on their server. While there are many similar sites out there, I say the more the merrier. Let's spread our own memes to the masses while we still can.
Overall Rating: 15
Miralite Communications Satellite Directory
URL: http://www.miralite.com/Glossary.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Miralite Communications manufactures earth station systems, those incongruous boxes sitting in the middle of the arctic tundra which track the Sputniks zipping by overhead. Miralite's site is standard corporate fare, offering an introduction to the firm and its products with a few clever graphics. Making the site more palatable is this glossary of satellite terms -- yes, you too can sound like a rocket scientist. Impress your friends by deciphering the control room chatter in Apollo 13; wow your family by translating astronaut gobbledygook off the evening news. This space is worth visiting, if only to pick up a few pieces of technoslang.
Overall Rating: 15
INNroads
URL: http://www.on-the-net.com/inns/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
The bed and breakfast fad has continued unabated for almost a decade and shows no signs of fading. It is no surprise then that fans of this cottage industry should have arrived on the Web. This page offers a guide to inns and bed & breakfasts throughout much of the U.S. Arranged by locale, a comprehensive survey of each outlet is presented, including rates, special dates and events, and an overview of facilities. This is a no-frills site, with sparse graphics and a direct user interface; as the underlying database of inns grows, the usefulness of the site will increase accordingly.
Overall Rating: 15
The Adventure Shop
URL: http://www.ashop.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This site will appeal to anyone who has ever wanted to climb a mountain or explore a coral reef. The adventure shop offers the low-down on adventures of every sort, whether they be air, land, or water based. Just a few minutes of surfing this page is guaranteed to reveal some kooky, off-the-wall challenge you never imagined anyone would be daring -- or foolish -- enough to try. Rates and contact information are offered for each of the packages, of course, and tasteful graphics serve to further whet the appetite. Those who can afford such hobbies -- as well as those who can only dream -- will all appreciate this space.
Overall Rating: 15
The Civilized Explorer
URL: http://www.crl.com/~philip/home.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This is the home page for the Civilized Explorer, a movement for those who believe vacations are meant to be peaceful. Arguing that free time should be spent wandering about and relaxing, not rappelling down cliffs or diving beneath coral reefs, the Civilized Explorer offer tips and suggestions for the more reflective among us: profiles of quiet spots on the map worth exploring, tips for filling the time, and more. A sly sense of humor imbues throughout, and the visitor leaves with the suspicion that these people may very well be onto something. Nicely arranged and tastefully presented, the traveler -- not tourist -- may appreciate this space.
Overall Rating: 15
Air France
URL: http://www.airfrance.fr/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The Concord, Air France's aging flagship, is featured prominently in this online equivalent of a corporate brochure. There's a brief history of the SST here with just a soupcon of the old Gaulist trademark, false pride. Another section is devoted in a cursory fashion to traveller's health concerns. There is no route, schedule, or fare information. While some sections are bilingual, others, like the new Concorde, le livre, are exclusively in French. And while the overall appearance of the site is nice enough, hot buttons did not necessarily reside on icons but oftentimes lingered out in the margins somewhere, aloof.
Overall Rating: 15
The International Study and Travel Center
URL: http://www.isp.acad.umn.edu/istc/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The ITSC is a non-profit organization specializing in budget travel for students. Located at the University of Minnesota, some of the site's features are primarily geared to resident Gophers, as with the information regarding the ITSC's actual, physical library. There is, however, a virtual library as well. Travel magazines are available in Gopher format and there (appropriately) are numerous links to send you to many other online resources. A good place to get started planning for a semester abroad.
Overall Rating: 15
Ultimate World
URL: http://www.ultimatew.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The name here is a little misleading. Clicking South on the signpost doesn't get you to Tierra del Fuego or even Tijuana. It takes you to Dixie (you know, away down South). There is a search engine of limited usefulness; it only deals with major cities, and its restaurant and hotel listings are geared to those on expense accounts. What does it do? I haven't really figured that out yet.
Overall Rating: 15
United Airlines Flight Center
URL: http://www.ualfltctr.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
If you're looking for United Airlines flight information this is not the place. You want http://www.ual.com/. This site is for those flight sim fans who want to try the real flight simulator (pardon the oxymoron) like the one the big people learn on. That's right, for about 500 bucks an hour, you can "fly" the training simulator at United's flight center in Denver, Colorado. Oh boy, oh boy. And, hey, maybe on the flight home from Denver you can talk the flight officer into handing over the controls for a spell, let you take her for a couple of barrel rolls er somethin.'
Overall Rating: 15
Bob and Dave's Wiffleball Page
URL: http://home.ptd.net/~murray49/wiffle.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: The Spectacle
Green grass and summer nights; we used to play wiffleball 'till it was so dark we got smacked in the face. So one can imagine how thrilled I am to have a hommage to wiffleball on the Web. With an all to cute hand drawn image of a wiffleball field, history and game synopsis from Bob and Dave wiffleball experiences. There are some quirky layout problems, and a little too much gray, but all in all, this is a fun site for wiffleball fans!
Overall Rating: 15
AS220
URL: http://www.ids.net/~as220/home.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The creator of this bold, blinking space, AS220 is a non-profit Rhode Island organization for the arts. It's taken its off-line community by storm with a local cafe, a publicly accessible darkroom, youth arts conferences, and more. The cyber companion unfortunately doesn't beam with the same ambition. It's merely one step above an advertisement for the *real-life* services, along with local resources, links to artsy sites, and some tech talk. If you poke around long enough, though, you'll find some nice artwork.
Overall Rating: 15
Combating Cult Mind Control
URL: http://virtumall.com/mindcontrol/main.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
"Truth is stronger than lies and love is stronger than fear!" And that is the tone of this site. Steven Hassan wants to help cult members break free. It could be interesting even if you're not a cult member, but want to look at one man's approach to combating the psychological warfare of "cults." The graphics, well, they aren't so interesting. In fact, except for the (ack) photo on the front end and a few GIFs of his book for sale (double ack), they don't exist.
Overall Rating: 15
Voodoo in New Orleans
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/LGilbert/voodoo.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Don't go to this site expecting to find information about Voodoo in New Orleans (as Yahoo! would have you believe). Instead, these are photographs of Voodoo temples and cemeteries in New Orleans, and as a work of art, the site is captivating. I especially liked the photo of the Haitian Voodoo flag. The site's small -- only a handful of photos -- but interesting for the curious. And it has a nice overall layout and general good feel about it.
Overall Rating: 17
SufiWorld
URL: http://www.unibio.com/spirit/sufiworld.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
"You are the center of your universe," the Sufi Islamic Page preaches. There are poems, essays, links to products ($$$), and a section on medical philosophies. Though the pages look very nice, it's hard to really submerge yourself in the concept if you aren't already practicing the faith or have a strong knowledge of Sufism. Overall, it left me a bit puzzled, but I wouldn't count it out, especially for those specifically curious about the religion.
Overall Rating: 17
Albert Einstein Online
URL: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~smfriedm/einstein.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Well, I can't hide my disappointment. I had hoped to find this a page created by an Einstein fanatic who had spent years researching and writing and compiling archives of or about Mr. Relativity. But no. It's just another hotsy shotsy link list of other people's content. Big deal. Sure, the layout and organization are nice, and the links are a bit more selective than, say, a Lycos search might provide, but overall, it's nothing special. Sigh.
Overall Rating: 15
Australasian Philosophy Network Home Page
URL: http://www.arts.su.edu.au/Arts/departs/philos/APS/APS.home.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
While this is supposed to be some kind of nexus for philosophers working in Australia and New Zealand, it really comes up short, primarily because of a lack of content. It does have the table of contents listings from the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, but no online articles. There's also a directory of philosophers working in Australasian Universities, but, besides addresses, there's no information about areas of study.
Overall Rating: 13
Literary and Critical Theory
URL: http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/SSPCluster/theorists.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This collection of mostly student essays seems very useful on the surface. It covers the greats of literary theory, such as Barthes, Baudrillard, Derrida, and and Foucault, but the texts of the essays isn't online. The only use for it is as a syllabus of important authors that could be used by the independent scholar, or the student who wants to impress a professor with a little bit of name-dropping.
Overall Rating: 15
Popular Culture Links
URL: http://www.mcs.net/~zupko/popcult.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Popular culture has become fair game for academic analysis, allowing episodes of "Gilligan's Island" to merit the same amount of attention as Joyce's *Ulysses*. Sign of a bankrupt culture, or do academics just want to have fun? No matter, this page is a bunch of links to all sorts of popular culture resources, and the only reason it's mentioned here is because the design is so bad that the text can only be read by putting your face about two inches from the monitor.
Overall Rating: 14
The Indian Scene Page By Nav
URL: http://www.interlog.com/~nverdi/bhangra.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
India has long been a culture rich with music. Unfortunately, this site is not too rich in content or aesthetics. It takes a stab at informing the curious net surfer about concert events around the world and new Indian music releases. Considering the site attempts to serve a global community but is only a few pages thick, it's missing a lot. For someone casually interested in exploring a little more of India's music who isn't that in touch with the community, it's an O.K. site. And the top-10 Bhangra charts are nice.
Overall Rating: 15
Spectrum
URL: http://www.autobaun.com/~kbshaw/Spectrum.html
Category: Publications
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Spectrum is a "Family" zine a la web. There's stuff for kids of ages; folktales, artwork, political humor (nothing too brash, fear not) and editorial features (usually geared for the older family members.) They also sport links to family-esque advertisers and software like the "Puzzle Pack" to use with the Spectrum designed "Puzzle Page." It's still a bit thin in places but it's got a good foundation. And make certain to read the story of "The Brave and Bold Little Squirrel."
Overall Rating: 17
REPUBLICANS WEB CENTRAL Home Page
URL: http://republicans.vt.com/gop.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The big question is: Do links count as content? To a degree, yes. It's something like 1/20th of a point for each link. So, Republicans Web Central has content because it has lots of links. The pastel background is kind of ugly, and the pictures of Republican candidates for President don't help the aesthetics much. The home page is particularly uninspired, featuring a title and four links. On the positive side, though, all the links seem to work.
Overall Rating: 15
The Conservative Corner
URL: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/~greenst/cc/
Category: Political
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is another political site that is limited to links, without any original content. Now, I know hard disk space isn't expensive, so what's wrong with including some onsite material? Even Yahoo! is carrying news articles. The home page here is, at least, interesting. All the links have picture icons to represent their sections. The picture of Reagan is a bit tasteless, considering his current mental condition, and the picture of Limbaugh is just plain ugly. "Conservative Corner" is a misnomer, though, because most of these links are representative of "neo-Conservatism," which became popular in the 1980s.
Overall Rating: 16
The UTAH LOG CABIN CLUB HOME PAGE SET
URL: http://www.eskimo.com/~chorus/ulcc/index.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
You've got to admire this group for its bravery. Not many people could stand the various degrees of ostracism an openly gay person would receive from conservative Republicans, and Utah is not really known for its tolerance. But these folks have a FAQ on the site that explains how they want to subvert the intolerant aspects of the Republican party from within. The pages all seem to have pretty nice backgrounds, and there's a form that allows you to join the club online.
Overall Rating: 16
Influx Magazine Issues
URL: http://enternet.com/skate/skate.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Influx is a skate zine. Skater this and skater that, but mostly, it's just photos. Perhaps I shouldn't say "just" photos. The pictures are RAD, but if you were looking for juicy gossip, tips, or reviews, it's pretty thin. It does have some video clips, though, and as image-intense as they are, the pages load fairly quickly. Some of the highlighted images are of skate icons --Tony Hawk, Mike Judd, and Tim Brauch.
Overall Rating: 16
Da Truth
URL: http://www.odyssee.net/~xsys/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Here you'll find extreme sports and extreme layout, with trendy graphics and angular construction. Lines and boxes, and it sure does look cool. Unfortunately, the content is a bit thin and some of the links dead end at error stops. Sure, the site warns that some areas are still under construction, but why make a link live if there's nowhere for it to go? Oh well, despite its annoyance factor, the site has some good stuff for inline skaters, skateboarders, and snow boarders -- especially nice are the global listings of parks and resorts.
Overall Rating: 15
Park Search
URL: http://www.llbean.com/parksearch/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
L.L. Bean sponsors this site, so it might be time to forgive it for trying to make the populace of this entire country look like it came from Maine. As a trip planner for you outdoorsy types, this is invaluable. The first page gives the option of searching by a park's name, which is good if you know where you want to go. Further in is a page to search by park activity, so if you need a place to go canoeing and horse riding, these can be your search criteria.
Overall Rating: 16
Scotland Travel Guide
URL: http://www.scotourist.org.uk/stb/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I think the term "guide" is pretty ambitious for this site. It's a fairly nice-looking site, and it was created by the Scottish Tourist Board, so it's got credentials, but it never get around to telling you what's there. No hotel, restaurant, or shopping listings. Nothing about the local cuisine, and I didn't even see anything about the Loch Ness Monster. There are neat, clickable maps that lead to poetic descriptions of the various regions of Scotland. The first improvement I would make would be to add a bagpipe soundtrack.
Overall Rating: 16
Morocco
URL: http://infoweb.magi.com/~morocco/morocco.html?15,9
Category: Travel
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A good site for the virtual traveler, or those interested in general information without practical details of how to survive there. The home page has a graphic of the flag, followed by a description of the geography. Then there are links to history, people, handicrafts, etc., which are all a little haphazard, somewhat like an elementary school report on a country. O.K., it's a little more detailed than that. I think I found the food section the most interesting.
Overall Rating: 15
Jeff's House of Illegal Bodily Functions
URL: http://www.wco.com/~jeffg/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Jeff Gerstmann shows he's a kid with attitude. The very beginning of his home page carries the phrase: "Anger is my business and business is good." Come on, Jeff, let go of the rage. Well, a young man living in Northern California will find a lot to rebel against, and Jeff chooses interesting ways to express himself. There is his page devoted to Jack, the spokes clown for Jack in the Box, the page describing his public access show, Doughnut Wednesday, and his CUD collection, with way too much rap in it.
Overall Rating: 14
Welcome to Witsend
URL: http://www.catt.ncsu.edu/~witsend
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
Scott Graham Parkerson is a 22-year-old computer science major -- no, really? -- at North Carolina State University. He likes anagrams and dislikes Bill Gates. By his photo, he appears to be an all-around fine fellow. Based on his page, if 20 or so years ago I'd gotten married and had a baby, and that baby was a girl who grew up and met Scott, and Scott asked her out for this Saturday night, and she wanted to go, I'd give my consent just as long as he promised to keep the anagrams clean, and get her home before midnight. Which I'm sure he would.
Overall Rating: 15
Monkey
URL: http://www.digitalrag.com/mirror/monkey/monkey.html
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is primarily a store for hats and shirts, with unique artwork by Ken Brown. Wait a minute. Did I say "artwork?" This is clothing with prints of things like coffee cups. Artwork may be a stretch, but it is unique. The prices seem reasonable, although to actually order anything, you will have to revert to voice communications. Seems like good gift material for people in their early 20s.
Overall Rating: 15
Classifieds 2000
URL: http://www.classifieds2000.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
Classifieds 2000 specializes in cars. Sellers list free; buyers can easily access offerings either by scanning entire listings or scanning desired criteria. My search string of "Japanese car, manual, under $1,700" came up with more than a few good leads. If the car of your dreams isn't currently listed, a "cool notify" feature will e-mail you when one arrives. Classifieds 2000 currently only serves the San Francisco Bay Area, but expansions to Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Boston are in the works. Real handy, and they took time to make it look good, too.
Overall Rating: 15
FreeAdz Classifieds
URL: http://www.freezads.com/classifieds/l_view.html
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
This electronic version of the Boulder County, CO paper lets individuals list free. Businesses, collectors, and breeders (which, I assume, refers to people who deal in animals, and not the slang expression for heterosexuals) pay for theirs. Also included is a "Soap Box" page, where you can rant about any issue you want, as long as you present solid arguments (which takes the fun out of it, if you ask me). Useful, but only if you live in the area, or have a desire to see what they're trying to unload out there.
Overall Rating: 16
Classified Flea Market
URL: http://ww.cfm.com/cfm
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Rahlman
All ads are in the 510 area code (which is the East Bay Area, that vast district across the water from San Francisco), unless otherwise noted. Again, real handy if you're in this part of the country; means bupkis if not. The site offers free listings, simple search by any of the 90 categories, etc. The novelty here is CFM's ad of the week, which, on this outing, was a beaded wedding dress.
Overall Rating: 15
The Neoist Path
URL: http://fub46.zedat.fu~berlin.de:8080/~catsin/Neoist_Text_Path.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
The Neoist way encourages plagiarism as it saves time and shows initiative. Had I known this sooner, I would have lifted whole segments for this review. Links are often confusing, as is a lot of the babble about the Seven by Nine Squares. Maybe basking in this disharmonious flux of gibberish is the point. If so, we all need to ask ourselves whether we have better things to do with our time than frequenting this site. If we *don't* have more pressing pursuits, we should hand over the planet to the dolphins right now.
Overall Rating: 15
PavePage
URL: http://www.solon.com/~gutt/pave.the.earth/pave.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
A site devoted to the advancement of the Holy Cause of Paving the Earth. The Holy Order of Asphalt wishes to flatten mountains, fill oceans, and eliminate all animals except Blind White Cave Cows, which will be used for hamburger in the Beer and Burger communion. The Plan purportedly teaches knowledge of the twin pleasures, speed and convenience. Help this cause, and you will be rewarded; defy it and risk the wrath. This example of tongue-in-cheek ranting is a cut above most.
Overall Rating: 15
Babel
URL: http://WWW.BABELNY.COM/
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Artists link the past to the future through oil paintings, sketches, sculptures, and now the Web. Babel encourages visitors to follow artists such as Melissa Marks into the Garden area, where her online exhibit, "Volitia --The Abstract Vagina," resides. And the Babylon Lottery section explores issues of the female body and features art by Karen Yasinsky and Laura Watts. This art site may wow you with its creative design -- forms, and nice graphics and layout, but it's still rather thin and slightly confusing.
Overall Rating: 17
Chrysler Technology
URL: http://www.chryslercorp.com/ctc.html
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Chrysler is evidently very proud of its testing facilities. Here you can learn all about them. Unfortunately, the site's editors chose boring pictures of wind tunnels instead of photographs of cars smashing into walls at high speeds. I enjoyed looking at Chrysler's concept cars, which always seem to be the ones I wished were in production. Of course, no corporate site could be complete without news releases, ad campaign info, and a section espousing the company's great environmental track record. Like the rest of the site, these sections are conservative and offer few surprises, but are presented well.
Overall Rating: 15
AcademicNet
URL: http://www.academic.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Instructors should welcome this site, which fosters a marketplace of ideas specific to education. Now educators can collaborate on projects that focus on using technology to enhance student achievement. Teachers can congregate here, and bypass the aging administrative hierarchies that don't employ computers. Call it the "education underground," if you will. The site requires registration to obtain the full resources available.
Overall Rating: 15
Internet College Exchange
URL: http://www.usmall.com/college/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is a resource primarily geared toward high school seniors and juniors who are trying to find a good college -- although it would also be helpful for parents who are trying to nudge aging progeny out of the house. The concept behind the site is solid, although content is sparse. It's certainly a page that's aching to grow. A snazzy search utility provides names of colleges based on entered criteria. The best content on the site can be found in The Dunce's Cap, an informative and irreverently written newsletter about college admissions.
Overall Rating: 16
Nellie Mae Loan Link Resource for Student Loan Info
URL: http://www.nelliemae.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Nellie Mae runs a tight ship with no loose ends, and no extraneous information or pages. It's a very streamlined site -- and this is not my ironic way of saying there's little content. You'll find a number of pages filled with very practical information about student loans, focusing on the student loans Nellie Mae specifically offers. There is also a page on when to start applying for loans, and some brief explanations of the different kinds of loans. This site *could* be more in-depth.
Overall Rating: 14
Invention Dimension
URL: http://web.mit.edu/invent/
Category: Education
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Besides finding some crucial information I needed about the inventor of Bakelite (Leo Baekeland, known affectionately as the "Father of Plastics") this site offered little of interest. I expected to find profiles of wacky inventors and their crazy projects -- you know, the inventions we laugh at today, but can't live without tomorrow. But no, the site just offers information on a few famous inventors, and links to invention information, plus winners of the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Prize.
Overall Rating: 15
The Wacky Hexen Page
URL: http://www.zensoft.com/Raven/Hexen.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Hexen, like Doom, has garnered great popularity among the net set, and Web sites filled with helpful Hexen information abound. The Wacky Hexen Page is indeed wacky, but also provides a very nicely formatted set of cheat codes that helps you overcome any obstacles you may encounter in the game. There's also a set of recipes that were somehow extracted from the game, and a very fast search utility for help on specific topics.
Overall Rating: 17
21st Century Magazine
URL: http://www.webspace.com/~century/index.htm
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This bimonthly online magazine focuses on the question, What will be happening in the 21st century? While the site's treatment sounds kind of new agey, the few, short articles posted here were all about how genetic engineering is going to improve our lives in the future. The graphics were ugly, and I found myself longing for the simplicity of unenhanced gray tones.
Overall Rating: 13
Depth Probe
URL: http://www.atdesign.com:80/~ake/cgi/reel/base/Studios/Eyzaguirre/
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Ah, the personal computer revolution and its ability to put the power of the press on anyone's desk. Now the ramblings of any idiot can be distributed to the masses. Depth Probe bills itself as "a collection of thoughts, ideas, comments, and reviews on modern American culture." But it seemed more like the online diary of a single individual. The tone is semi-new age, with roller-blading and snowboarding content thrown in here and there. While you'll find a lot of material, a depth probe can only go so deep in shallow waters.
Overall Rating: 15
indy
URL: http://grove.ufl.edu/~jrm/indy.html
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is the Web presence for a magazine that covers independent and alternative comics. Primarily consisting of comics-oriented reviews and interviews, the site's content is repositioned material from the print version, and is very good. The site also features a lot of scanned cover art. One page offers subscription information, but, unfortunately, you can't subscribe online. You should love the links interspersed throughout text that shoot you to other comic book resources on the Web.
Overall Rating: 15
Lady in the Radiator
URL: http://www.etext.org/Zines/TLITR/
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I particularly like the mission statement, which states the site is "produced by a bunch of kids to counteract the soul-draining boredom of suburban life." While it isn't the slickest thing you'll find on the Web, it's got a lot of heart and sophistication, especially considering the contributors' young ages. Issue 2.5 consisted of one long page full of art and poetry ravings. I hope the editors triumph in their creative fight against "suboredom" life.
Overall Rating: 13
The Virtual Baguette
URL: http://www.mmania.com/
Category: Publications
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Attendez! Attendez, Francophiles! The Virtual Baguette is a French online magazine that graciously provides an English language version. The gimmick is to attack all our senses by offering sections for sound, taste, sight, touch, and speech. (And smell? I guess smell isn't a sense in France.) The Sound area covers material like French rock bands, while Taste offers recipes. Graphics and content are great, a little Java game is fun, and the English translations are downright quaint.
Overall Rating: 17
Servant Life
URL: http://www.goshen.net/sl/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Servant Life isn't a newsletter for domestics, but rather an advice publication for Christians. The name comes from the premise that Christians are "serving God." This Web site is just a front end for an Adobe Acrobat-formatted publication that can be downloaded in whole or in portions. The tone of Servant Life is very enlightened, encouraging qualities like acceptance and tolerance.
Overall Rating: 16
Religion of the Humanities
URL: http://www.roth-church.org/roth0101.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is the official site and archive of a "new religion of humanity, Nature and the future of our existence." The content describes a doctrine of typical humanitarian ideals. Unfortunately, the fact that this group is committed to being an Internet-based church has left it faceless; the founders seem so devoted to the Zen ideals of ego transcendence that they haven't even put their names on the site. Membership in the church costs $24 a year.
Overall Rating: 13
Technosophy
URL: http://www.technosophy.com/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Technosophy is a pseudo-religion that relies on the premise that the human body is a piece of technology. Oh, the intricacies of semantics. Terry Alden, an individual with a savior-complex, has posted these five or six text-filled pages to spout his views on life and the world.
Overall Rating: 13
America's Choice Mall
URL: http://choicemall.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
When you enter this E-Mall, you'll find a small variety of products; mostly strange mail order niche things. Most of the storefronts are on-site, and online ordering is available through a secure form. The graphics won't win any awards, and the organization is a little odd, allowing the user to select a mall by state, which doesn't make too much sense in the extra-geographical realm of the Internet.
Overall Rating: 15
Bargain Finder Agent Prototype
URL: http://bf.cstar.ac.com/bf/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This brilliant little utility from Andersen Consulting does your music shopping for you. Just enter the artist and album title you want to find, and Bargain Finder goes to nine online music stores, and comes back with prices. Or it would if CDNow, NetMarket, and CDLand weren't blocking it -- Bargain Finder seems to have problems integrating with other stores' search forms. The only store it consistently returned prices from was CDworld.
Overall Rating: 16
Tom's Virtual Vacation
URL: http://tjwww.stanford.edu/vacation/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is the singular account of two dudes' collective odyssey across these great United States -- complete with an image map that allows you to easily track their 10-day trip. "Odyssey" may be too strong of a word to use, considering that the duo's obstacles were problems like trying to find a motel room for the night. I'm afraid the writing is dull and witless-- umm, I mean technically oriented. You'll find a lot of thrilling information on interstate highways.
Overall Rating: 15
Turtle Expedition
URL: http://www.4x44u.com/pub/k2/am4x44u/whats_new/turtle.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This is the fairly interesting ongoing reportage of a couple's road trip across Russia. Our protagonists have, for the last 20 years, driven beefy trucks through the world's most remote regions. Reports of their trips have regularly appeared in *4x4 Magazine*, and now the Russia trip is accessible online. As of this writing, the last update to their trip was from October. Did Russia conquer this intrepid couple?
Overall Rating: 14
The Russian Chronicles
URL: http://www.f8.com/FP/Russia/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A photojournalistic account of a trip across Russia by train, truck, and car, this site is filled with great pictures of Russian people and cities. The text describes the individual stories of the people the two reporters came across, and the reporters' own adventures. Unfortunately, a lot of the stories seem to be missing. There will be a description of an experience, but the link will only lead to a picture. The site is a little slow, also.
Overall Rating: 16
Low Res Film Festival
URL: http://www.hyperreal.com/lowres/
Category: Film
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lydia Schwartz
The table of contents and menu bars all flaunt superior graphics, and the page layout and site organization are easy on the eyes and a pleasure to navigate. Follow upcoming film festivals with clips and mini -- very mini -- summaries of what's playing. A Tools section advertises cameras, editing equipment and similar hardware of the film-related ilk. Still, portions of the site remain thin in content, and lack the depth of coverage a diehard independent film fanatic might require. A good site nonetheless.
Overall Rating: 17
Deconstruction 23
URL: http://www.igc.net/~lab23/enzo23/index~1.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Small. Insightful. Philosophical. Intellectual. Creative. Insightful. Small. Philosophical. Creative. Intellectual. Insightful. Small. Links and Strong Graphics. But Small and Insightful. Outstanding Layout and Organization. Deconstruction 23 is a movement of creativity and philosophical merit brought to the Web with essays, stories, links and a nice layout. Insightful. But Small. I want more. More. MORE!
Overall Rating: 17
Existential Home Page
URL: http://home.navisoft.com/darkstar/exist/index.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
I've searched high and low for an existential home page. I'm therefore discouraged that I must settle for gray backgrounds, and rather mediocre jaunts through my favorite philosophical movement and collection of personalities because there is little else available online. This site is a classic example of a big fish in a very small pond. It's a nice introduction to the movement, but will most likely be repetitious for anyone who has taken an introductory philosophy class.
Overall Rating: 14
Humanities External Degree Catalog Index
URL: http://dolphin.csudh.edu/~hux/huxindex.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Earn a humanities Masters degree from California State University, Dominguez Hill, entirely online. At $120 per unit, students can make use of the Internet to study philosophy, art, literature, history and music. You'll communicate with professors via e-mail, and use the Web, if you please, to receive assignments and participate in online courses. From the surface, this looks like an interesting program. Register and get started from this Web site.
Overall Rating: 17
The Consummate Hitchhiker's Guide
URL: http://conan.ids.net/~nedry/42.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Here you'll find extensive information on Douglas Adams and the ever-growing Hitchhikers Guide To The Universe cybercult. This is quite a database of related resources. But be warned, young travelers, the collection is merely a stockpile of hyperlinks, most of which flash the yellow "new" starburst logo; no original content here. Links are poorly organized, and the layout is distasteful. But it's still a comprehensive list for those who want to skip the likes of Yahoo and Lycos.
Overall Rating: 15
The Beat Generation
URL: http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/topics/BeatGen.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
As a documentary site, it's fine -- other than a few presumptuous declarations like "Walt Whitman, The Original Beat," or, in reference to Columbia University, "This grand old Ivy League university may not even want to be the birthplace of the Beat Generation." (Come on, Columbia is as liberal as Ivy gets). This aside, the pages offer biographies and pictures of Beat heroes, presenting an informed and sensible historical perspective. It's slightly dry, which is unfortunate, as it unravels such creative writers.
Overall Rating: 17
The Democracy Page
URL: http://student.ecok.edu/~polsci/faculty/julrich/courses/democrcy.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This site is a list of links to other sites related to the political process in America. The author starts with the links to important political documents, government agencies, and political science pages. Next you'll get links broken down by which amendment of the constitution they discuss. And finally more links, though this time on specific issues. The list is comprehensive, broad ranging, and well selected, but too bad there's no original content and the graphics are poor at best.
Overall Rating: 13
Brian's Progressive Pages
URL: http://paul.spu.edu/~sinnfein/progressive.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
A site for left-barking watchdogs. This page offers articles and links on "patriots," militias, and the all-around Far Right. There are a good number of links to other sites, and a good sampling of reports from respectable sources. While the site could use more links on a broader range of issues, those wishing to monitor the right side of the Web may find it an interesting starting point.
Overall Rating: 15
Blockbuster
URL: http://pwr.com/blockbuster/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"The purpose of our Internet Web site is to give you the inside story of what's new and exciting at Blockbuster(R) -- but in an all-new way." So begins the Blockbuster(R) Web experience. This is the electronic equivalent of an airline magazine, with less content and fewer pictures of far-away lands. The curious and morbid will find monthly lists of top video rentals, profiles of soon-to-be released films, and the results of the World Video Game Championship. To its credit, Blockbuster(R) does make this fluff available online in Spanish, too.
Overall Rating: 15
Antiques
URL: http://www.ic.mankato.mn.us/antiques/Antiques.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Reed Kirk Rahlman
Enjoy this course in Antiques 101 with nary a sales pitch in sight. This good-looking site offers basic information with pictures on various categories of antiques and collectibles: advertising items, toys, etc. A page of guidelines for choosing and negotiating with a dealer provides great advice even for experienced collectors such as your's truly. The site is sponsored by Antiques Oronoco, but it doesn't trumpet its presence.
Overall Rating: 15
Little League Baseball
URL: http://www.littleleague.org/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
The prospect of reviewing this site excited me -- I can't help but twinkle at the notion of a Little League Baseball Web page. But upon inspection, I realized the news was old, and the graphics and creativity component was severely lacking. But the site does offer summer camp information, links to external resources, and an informative FAQ. Maybe as the season picks up, the site will too.
Overall Rating: 16
You're touching The G Spot
URL: http://the_g_spot.bevc.blacksburg.va.us/welcome.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
I came. I saw. I left. I should have been clued in by the link to the "Friends" Mailing list. The Beavis and Butthead "Under Deconstruction" page should have been an obvious warning. I should have backed down at the "What's in the Keg" link. But I had to click, and guess what: more Beavis and Butthead. Most of the site is not working yet, but I'll give them credit. Their pictures are super big, and they load super fast. If you're of the sophomoric beer guzzling college variety, you might have fun here. If not, don't bother.
Overall Rating: 17
The Political NewsTalk Network
URL: http://net.fcref.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
An online presence for a cable TV network, this site archives excerpts from interviews and rants that occur on the network's shows. Not exactly original content, but interesting. The site claims to be anti-establishment, and implies that it is just as critical of Republicans as it is of Democrats. A little closer reading of the material on the site, though, reveals an ugly conservative bias, with essays equating the Dred Scott decision, whicih affirmied slavery in the nineteenth century, with Roe vs. Wade. Plenty of outlandish illogic worthy of Rush Limbaugh.
Overall Rating: 15
Democratic National Committee
URL: http://www.democrats.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This Web organ of the Democratic Party is pretty good, covering a lot of different areas of Democratic activity. Democratic political victories, an event that has become kind of rare, are featured on the home page. Areas of content include organizations, what's new, and contact info for all Democratic legislators. Hot topics, such as this year's budget battle, are covered with an obviously pro-Demo slant, and a form is provided to join online (all major credit cards accepted).
Overall Rating: 15
The New STOA
URL: http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~doug/generic/generic.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
"When Computer Scientists Discover Philosophy:" on the next Geraldo. The proposition of this site, a modern version of Stoic philosophy, is pretty intriguing. The site's author claims Aristotle and Plato forced a division between philosophy and science, while his revived Stoicism brings them back together. The pages make it seem like an actual movement, but a look at the "Core Papers" section shows only one author, who also happens to run the site.
Overall Rating: 15
Washington Gifted School of Communication
URL: http://www.misha.net/~desktop/washschl.htm
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Can we talk adorable for a moment? This site is absolutely fun fun fun by way of enchanting graphics. Unfortunately, there isn't really much of interest otherwise, unless you're already involved with the school. The schedule of events, mission statement, and student bios are well done and seem helpful enough, but it's missing the original content that makes a site interesting and worth repeated visits. I say, post the student artwork and stories, and up the ante a bit! After all, it's a site for a school of communication whose students are gifted.
Overall Rating: 17
Distance Learning Laboratory (DLL)
URL: http://stargate.con-ed.howard.edu/WebPages/dll/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
This site is part of a project to get historically black high schools and universities online with distance learning programs. The DLL wants to teach educators how to get online, set up Web servers, archive curriculum and so on. Good idea! Unfortunately, you have to call DLL or register online for the seminars and workshops in order to actually learn something. The site is merely an informational pamphlet. Perhaps DLL staff might consider practicing what they preach, and offer the seminars online.
Overall Rating: 17
Encounters
URL: http://www.westworld.com/~ah.ha/extra.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Here we have a man who has been visited by Zoonch, a propheteering space alien shedding light on the path to peace and joy. It sounds a little too Haight Ashbury 1968, but nonetheless, it's an interesting read. But guess what, kids? That's all you get. It's one *long* page of text excerpts from a book about this experience with Zoonch that the site creator no doubt wants us to buy -- 1-800 number included. So, yes, it's bizarre, and unless you are super interested in hippie space creatures, it's also useless.
Overall Rating: 14
Left-Wing Films
URL: http://ccme-mac4.bsd.uchicago.edu/DSADocs/Films.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
Despite some borderline poor judgment selections (I'd hardly call "A League of Their Own," with Madonna, a "left-wing" film), this is a decent list of films (with hyperlinks when available). The main purpose is to provide collectives and student organizations with a list of titles to present at campus theaters and events. The site is broken down with internal anchors (it's one long page, with periodic jump points to avoid the nap-on-the-scroll bar scenario), which divide sections -- environment, feminism, sexual freedom, and so on.
Overall Rating: 16
Screen Shots
URL: http://www.screenshots.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Blue Grrrl
With slick design and smooth graphics, Screen Shots is a quick eye catcher. It has the look and feel of professional quality and corporate backing, but to my surprise, I found no advertising banners or distracting sales pitches. Catch up with your favorite actors and directors with RealAudio interviews, goof around with a Hollywood trivia quiz, or peruse new release film reviews. The site is fairly new, so some areas are still rather small, but to our advantage, what they've got so far is very good.
Overall Rating: 17
Worcester Polytechnic
URL: http://ee.wpi.edu:8080/EE535/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Most online education fails because it tries to transplant subjects to the screen that are best-suited for the classroom. But Professor Cyganski's class at Worcester Polytechnic Institute has an edge of relevance here, as it's all about telecommunications transmission technologies. Since I'm not an electrical engineer, most of the highly-technical content of this site eluded me, but its basic "learning is as learning does" mission comes through loud and clear: Engineers should not be afraid of their tools. Or, as the prof says, "This course is not for WIMPs (Whining Internet/Multi-media Phobes)." Some of the meatier areas of the site are available only to WPI accounts, alas.
Overall Rating: 15
Career Explorers
URL: http://www.futurescan.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
This site, launched by United Multimedia, a CD-ROM publisher, is designed to let (presumably young) visitors with an eye toward the future learn about various careers. Well... one career, anyway: right now, there's not much here. But the sole area, I Want to be a Veterinarian, covers quite a bit of territory: what training is needed, typical tasks, helpful skills, and so forth. The long blocks of small type may be daunting to young readers, though, and there are some minor HTML errors throughout. It will probably improve, though, soon enough, as more careers are added.
Overall Rating: 14
Thomas Edison State College
URL: http://www.tesc.edu/
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
What home-schooling does for the under-18 crowd, "distance learning" colleges like Thomas Edison State do for those seeking higher educational degrees. According to the college's Web site, "students in any state or nation can earn credit for college-level knowledge acquired outside the classroom." It's a pity the college hasn't done more with its Web pages: considering how far-flung the students must be, the potential for Internet-based instruction is tremendous. Indeed, the site isn't nearly as deep or interesting as many other colleges', and the occasional misdirected link mars the experience.
Overall Rating: 15
The Alternative Group
URL: http://www.mindspring.com/~tag/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
O.K. Listen up... Gen Xers don't just spend their time eating Oreos and watching Brady Bunch reruns! Some of us *are* political and ready to grab Washington by its ties to make a difference. TAG promises to become a non-partisan filter and clearinghouse supporting practical public policy and discourse between the young people who will feel the effects of today's government, tomorrow. Most of this new site is still under construction, but TAG hopefully will become a powerful political launching point offering news analysis, links to relevant sites, and suggestions for action. Choose or lose, baby.
Overall Rating: 15
New World Media Digital Alternative Media
URL: http://www.worldmedia.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The work of Noam Chomsky, dissident, semanticist, media analyst, and all-around smart guy, is the basis for this page. Abundant on the site are theories about using digital tools to generate and spread content while circumventing the big boy media playground. Also worth your time is an interactive version of Chomsky's classic "Manufacturing Consent" and a quick scan of the comprehensive Chomsky archives. The anarchists behind this digital curtain are ready to undermine mainstream agendas using their enemy's own methods of media manipulation. As William Gibson wrote in Neuromancer, "the street finds its own use for things."
Overall Rating: 16
Westinghouse Science & Technology Center
URL: http://www.stc.westinghouse.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Upon first look, this site only presents what appears to be a pithy overview of the deep research being conducted at Westinghouse. The Technology area lists confusing-to-the-layman codewords for the new high-tech developments. And each departmental link (Intelligent Systems, Microelectronics, etc.) leads to a happy photo of its respective manager summarizing (and hyping) his group's work in a brief paragraph. But link a little further into some of the areas -- cryoelectronics, for example -- and geek out with some intense scientific papers and reports from the men and women in the white lab coats. Bring your slide rule!
Overall Rating: 15
Bantam Doubleday Dell
URL: http://www.bdd.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Yet another electronic promotional vehicle for a company that's best suited for the medium of dead trees. While the catalog of Bantam Doubleday Dell's books in print is mildly entertaining to peruse before you head off to Waldenbooks, a daily puzzle and horoscope aren't enough of a draw to make this site a bookmark. Somewhat interesting are the profiles of the featured writers and their tour dates, but haven't we heard enough about John Grisham already?
Overall Rating: 15
Algor
URL: http://www.algor.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
What the hell is Algor, anyway? A quick glance at the home page doesn't reveal anything about the power behind the pages, but the links are appealing nonetheless. Several clicks in, it's finally possible to deduce that Algor makes software used for a variety of truly interesting scientific purposes like aerospace, chemical, and mechanical engineering projects. Probably most notable to non-PhD nerds surfing this site is the story of Dante II, the robot used to explore a volcano in Alaska in 1994. And guess what! Algor software was used in the design of the robot. Scientific self-promotion at its finest.
Overall Rating: 14
WWS World
URL: http://www.wwsworld.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Morphing to the needs of the new media, advertising agencies are rushing to create Web sites to lure in even the most technophobic clients. Weiss, Whitten, Stagliano's site does the job nicely. Fun in a marketing company sort of way, yet elegant in a "we mean business" professional appearance, this site is a no-apologies commercial for the abilities of this agency. With examples of its work for Giorgio Armani and Ferrari, this agency shows that it can walk the production walk just as well as it talks the Web talk. A worthy look at a good example from the industry that will help commercialize the net... whether we like it or not.
Overall Rating: 16
Digital Equipment Corporation
URL: http://www.digital.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Home to Alta Vista, easily the best search engine of the Web, DEC continues as a force to be reckoned with in the computer world. Here you'll find the usual material from a high-tech corp's Web site -- a letter from the big cheese, product info, and plenty of press releases for analysts and consultants. But if you're not a journalist hunting for background, a corporation with an equipment budget to blow, or a tech-head looking for work, go ahead and bookmark Alta Vista and leave the rest alone. The engine from heaven is hidden in the New Technology and Research section.
Overall Rating: 16
MOVIENET
URL: http://www.movienet.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
One can easily imagine the decisions that brought this site about. "Hey, we need a corporate Web site. Hey, we're a theater chain. Hey... Let's put our show times and schedules up on the Web!" Memos fly, ledgers are adjusted, and lo, it is done. Didn't anyone involved stop to question the usefulness of a show time listing, arranged by city, indexing only Goldwyn/Landmark theaters? Oh well; give them points for trying.
Overall Rating: 15
Joe Bob Briggs
URL: http://numedia.tddc.net/joebob/
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"Adapt or die." Like all other species, celebrities are constantly engaged in a struggle for survival. Just as the rise of the Talkie destroyed many silent movie stars, so too will the Internet eliminate those unwilling or unable to adapt. Joe Bob Briggs is one celeb who has gracefully made the transition to this Brave New Age. Visitors find both the insightful social commentary of the Joe Bob's America column and his more widely known Drive-In Movie Reviews. The Web proves itself a perfect medium for this endearing trailer park perspective.
Overall Rating: 15
Delta 9 Independent Film Resource
URL: http://www.eden.com/~delta-9/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
For several peculiar reasons, Austin has become an independent film hotbed. Something about the Texas heat and the too-close Communist threat in Cuba seems to inspire every slacker, rube, and yahoo to write a screenplay. This Web space is a resource guide for the Austin film-making scene, listing available equipment, local contacts, open grants, and such. Austinites may find these pages worthwhile; others should look for similar structures in their own community. Be warned that the page boasts a manifesto. Thankfully, it is more a statement of principle, but the rule still holds: Art and manifestos do not mix.
Overall Rating: 15
All-Movie Guide
URL: http://allmovie.com/amg/movie_Root.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Just how many searchable movie databases can the Web support? These sites are proliferating faster than shoe stores in a shopping mall, and the smart money says there's going to be a bloodbath soon. Browse by title, actor, mood, genre, country, or decade of release. Scan a plot review and check out the critical rating -- haven't I seen this before? Don't get me wrong, this site is better than most, but I have my doubts as to whether we actually need all of these database choices. Oh well, who am I to question the wisdom of the marketplace?
Overall Rating: 15
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
URL: http://www.lacma.org/
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
It's easy to discover the hidden secrets and lore behind the mystical artifacts of ancient Egypt when you take an online tour of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Gaze into the eyes of a sculpture from the reign of Queen Hatshepsut. Behold the grandeur of an elaborate coffin lid from a twenty-sixth dynasty official. On the bizarre side: The LACMA site features artist Annette Messager, famous for her exhibit of dead birds wearing knitted sweaters. Prepare to learn and expand your mind at LACMA, whether you plan to see a dead human surrounded in artifacts or a dead bird surrounded in cable knit.
Overall Rating: 15
fineArt forum online
URL: http://www.msstate.edu/Fineart_Online/home.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The mission of fineArt forum online is to provide useful information on art and technology to anyone who wants it, free of charge. This arts and technology news site pushes the boundaries between art and the Internet within a zine featuring multimedia reviews, computer art, and a calendar of events. The Directory of Online Art Resources is a crucial part of the site for students, since it creates a space to study all facets of art. The Gallery is home to some of the best in painting, sculpture, and photographs online, with no admission fee. Some of the best fine art really can be seen for free.
Overall Rating: 15
Scultura
URL: http://www.scultura.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Leave it up to a bunch of artists to try to form a renaissance on the Web. Scultura Arts Forum is creating a global network for artists to meet each other and transform the Web into a valuable tool for creativity. Read the classified ads or browse around in the many different galleries. Every medium, from wood sculptures to oil on a paper bag, is on the Scultura site. While some artists focus on brilliant, hand-painted silk paintings, others try to find physical expression of their souls through dance. This site attempts to represent all artists, whether they hold a paint brush or step into toe shoes.
Overall Rating: 16
Mark Harden's texas.net
URL: http://www.texas.net/~mharden/index.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
On Mark's texas.net Museum of Art home page, a visitor can travel to an FTP site to download pictures of great art or follow links to other museums. Look at the Impressionists from your computer monitor... does this mean you have to step back from your screen to fully appreciate the image? Or, Mark lets you read about the best art CD-ROM titles on the market. The initial cover page of the site is riddled with graphics, making navigation a bit turbulent, but at this site, even Mona Lisa would smile.
Overall Rating: 16
North Hagerstown High School
URL: http://www.fred.net/nhhs/nhhs.html
Category: Education
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Get acquainted with students and teachers at this central Maryland high school, population 1,000. A modest effort, the site promotes net education and communication. The ninth grade Prejudice Reduction Project, for example, invites classes and students to send essays, bios, and URLs "that will help gain a better understanding of the world around us." There's also an Environmental E-Mail Project the lets readers report on environmental concerns "faced by your region or state." This could be a good resource for other teachers to use.
Overall Rating: 15
All Natural Health and Long Life
URL: http://www.all-natural.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Call me skeptical, but I like to know where my information comes from -- who's publishing it, and why. The well-intentioned All Natural Health page has a number of thoughtful articles to read, like "The Hidden Dangers of Water" (aluminum, if you must know), "Why the Excitement Over Melatonin?" and "Secret of the World's Oldest Man!" The articles do link to references, which is helpful -- but there's no clue on the page about who is promoting what. On the other hand, the anono-site isn't pushing any products, and doesn't really link anywhere else, either. So I appreciate the effort, but I'm still left wondering why.
Overall Rating: 13
AllHealth
URL: http://www.allhealth.com/allhealth.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Here is a brochure for the Marino Center For Progressive Health in Cambridge, Mass. claims to be the largest, most fully developed holistic health center in the U.S. If you're planning to go there, or live in the area, you'll want to read about AllHealth's doctors and practitioners, services, and programs. If none of the above is true, at least you'll walk away with a wordy (but soothing) overview of natural and alternative health practices, and why the Marino folks feel so strongly about them. There's a small "health store" for ordering vitamins, herbs, books -- and the intriguing "hydrosonic music therapy bed." Like the sound of that!
Overall Rating: 14
Impropaganda Networks
URL: http://www.impropaganda.com/~street/detour/chapel.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
At first glance, the Impropaganda Network looks like a winner. It's got great graphics and a plethora of interesting-looking articles: an Illuminati outline of history, nuclear bloopers, "Spontaneous Human Combustion," and more. How can you fail with a lineup like that? The site doesn't necessarily fail, but the articles range from the fairly decent to the surprisingly poorly conceived, bordering on the boring. The one exception is an article on the nineteenth century Emperor of America, but it's just been republished from another magazine. Impropaganda has so much potential, but such little payoff.
Overall Rating: 16
Fig Bar Man For President
URL: http://www.epix.net/~wayne26/mrfigb/figbar.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Forget Dole, Clinton, and LaRouche. The real front runner in '96 is Fig Bar Man. If you visit the Fig Bar Man's Presidential Campaign HQ, you'll read parts of his platform, press conference transcripts, and the latest poll information on a guy who has presidential aspirations and dresses like a Fig Newton. The premise is good, but there isn't enough material to make the campaign seem convincing -- no "campaign" photos, charts, or weird political analysis. None of the trappings that would make this a truly great site. Now I do have a Devil Dog that would make a great vice president...
Overall Rating: 15
Foam Bath Fish Time
URL: http://redwood.northcoast.com/cgi-bin/fishtime
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
When you first enter this site, you'll see a collection of foam fish displaying the current time on the sides of their bodies. (I was hoping the fish would run around and spell out the time or something more grandiose.) While somewhat charming as it is, I have a little clock in the upper corner of my computer that can tell time too. The page also includes some clock and time links from around the world, and a collection of pun-infested fan mail. It's a solid piece of Web work and worth a look, but it didn't really float my boat, if you catch my drift.
Overall Rating: 16
Biologically Bizarre
URL: http://www.missouri.edu/~c487689/bio.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
From the pages of the Not Yet Web site come a collection of biological improbabilities having more to do with the mental ramblings of a bored college student than biology itself. The page is filled with cartoony graphics of these genetically manipulated monstrosities, each with a paragraph describing their proposed function. The Greasy Lips will clean out the filthy bottoms of fast food greasers. The Nail Snail will sit on your desk and bite your nails to a perfect shape. It's cute, without being too annoying. Now I have to feed my Review Writer so it won't be so cranky.
Overall Rating: 15
ElendorMush
URL: http://www.where.com/Elendor/Welcome.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Kathy Tafel
Ah, Tolkein! Elendor is one of the most active MUSHes in Middle Earth. It is obvious from looking at the graphics on the site, however, that the Web master spends most of his time in a black-and-white, text-only universe. When I Telnetted into the MUSH for the first time, I was almost immediately paged by a friendly person --well, it could have been an orc-- who offered assistance should I need it. There is plenty of online help, and new users are encouraged to read newbie news. The Elendor MUSH seems like a great place to hang out, although it could be detrimental to grades or marriages.
Overall Rating: 14
Maytag-Home of Dependability
URL: http://www.maytag.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
I never really liked the Maytag Man. Unfortunately, he's prominently featured in this site. Maytag provides a fair amount of information about its appliances -- prices, warranty info, and general features, and it has a handy remodeling guide that gives the dimensions of each appliance. My favorite area of the site, the tips section, offers general suggestions on how to remove laundry stains and keep vegetables fresh in your refrigerator. I can't imagine a lot a people go appliance shopping on the Web, but if you need or want to, this is a good place to start. And there are pretty pictures!
Overall Rating: 15
FenderWorld
URL: http://www.fender.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Guitar heroes will love this site. It contains a complete catalog of all things Fender, a FAQ, Tech Tips, and miscellaneous guitar trivia. It also has the handy 'Axe Dater': Enter the serial number of your Fender and it tells you when it was made. Cool. An online version of its magazine, Frontline, features current artists and their Fenders. If you're so inspired, you can also subscribe to the magazine (and get a free bonus Bon Jovi CD), join the Fender Club, or check out the guitar links. Perhaps most fulfilling of the cultural insights: "Jam Out" has apparently replaced "Rock Out" as the appropriate term of guitar jubilance.
Overall Rating: 16
Peachpit
URL: http://www.peachpit.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
This is a well-designed site; it's easy to find what you're looking for, it's not overburdened with needless graphics, and there's a good search engine. You can create an order while browsing the site, then send it in electronically, but the form isn't secure. Another downer: The descriptions of the computer books are too limited to be helpful. But reader forums and a good technical support section add to the quality of this site. If you already own Peachpit books, especially its Macintosh Bible series, you'll probably want to check the site out.
Overall Rating: 17
HarperCollins
URL: http://www.harpercollins.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0696
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Brian Bearden
Someone forgot to tell the good folks at Harper Collins that a site should be planned out before it's coded. You'll find lists of titles with decent descriptions, but the order of the books makes no sense. Some titles are separated from the main lists, in different "Subject Categories," on different parts of the site, and they're often broken down by subsidiary publisher -- which seems like a silly way to organize titles. There is little here besides these lists. Inexplicably cryptic icons appear on some of the pages deeper in the site. Click away, but there's no way to know in advance where you might end up.
Overall Rating: 14
The Spot
URL: http://www.thespot.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Seven strangers live in a house... This is their story of love, lust, and landlords. Haven't we heard this story before? The Spot tries to accomplish what MTV's "The Real World" doesn't have the guts to do -- take a bunch of whiny kids living together and make them gripe online. Ironically, The Spot isn't as "real" as MTV, and it has even more advertising attached. The introduction explains how dead celebs such as Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Jim Morrison hung out at the real Spot house. Egads. The design layout is mind-blowing, but the overly contrived characters all might as well be brain-dead.
Overall Rating: 17
Culture Zone
URL: http://www.culturezone.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
If you feel like a hick without hauteur, maybe a trip to the Culture Zone is what you need to feel hip again. The mass of image maps and eye candy promises to restore online excitement sucked out by other not-so-savvy sites. However, unless you have an ISDN line, prepare to wait a while for graphics to load. Speed along the Wailing Highway or hop the Groovy Train to download alternative music sound samples. Read casino poetry in the Celluloid Cafe. The Zone has so many twists and turns, a pro cybersurfer could drown in an entertainment tidal wave.
Overall Rating: 17
The East Village
URL: http://www.theeastvillage.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
The East Village is to New York City as Tales of the City is to San Francisco. This site is a diary of a party kid, Eve, who is destined to take a bite out of the Big Apple. Meet her friends and lovers as she explains her life from a bar stool. On the design front, The East Village accents text about bad weddings and bitter relationships with magnificent photos of New York at night. The site has a while to go before it makes much sense to the average online wanderer, but this is one apple Eve doesn't mind pushing on to another Internet Adam.
Overall Rating: 16
Ferndale
URL: http://www.ferndale.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
If you're already bored with talk show guests ripping out their hearts to entertain viewers, check out the Ferndale Webumentary site. This is a cross between a talk show and a soap opera, masking itself as an authentic Web experiment. Listen in on "real" therapy sessions via RealAudio, or snoop through staff and resident journals. Take online personality tests and chat with one of the residents. The staff at Ferndale wants to hear your deepest secrets. Many of the therapy sessions try to be humorous when they're just hooey, but the journal entries will make you wonder why some of the staff members weren't committed with the residents.
Overall Rating: 17
PC WORLD NEWS
URL: http://www.pcworld.com/cgi-bin/w3com/start?pcw+main
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
As the "Online Personal Computing Authority," PC World News magazine has good reason to toot its own horn. Get tips on selling old computers, find out which new PC is the best buy, or read hardware reviews on scanners, motherboards, and printers. PC World News requires readers to fill out a survey so they can access even more articles. Help bring the computer world a little closer to your desktop with this valuable, online resource.
Overall Rating: 17
The MESH
URL: http://www.albany.globalone.net/theMESH/
Category: Media
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Internet news and culture blend well in The MESH. This monthly newspaper features articles, reviews, columns, listings, and news. Read editorials on the growth of the Internet, follow advice on getting the most out of your e-mail, or learn about cyberfraud and how to prevent it. Sign up for MUG News Service for a free disk full of articles, reviews, tutorials, clip art, news, and other information. MESH is a magazine "written by cyberusers for cyberusers" and will enlighten even the most arrogant of Internet know-it-alls.
Overall Rating: 17
American Studies Web
URL: http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~davidp/archives.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Every Web page has it: the obligatory list of links to other (questionably) relevant sites. The American Studies Web, however, is *all* links, to sites on matters as diverse as the U.S. Constitution, the San Francisco Diggers, and the great Irish famine of the mid-19th century. It's a huge list, but rather disheveled: neither alphabetization nor subject organization seem to have sullied its pure anarchistic gestalt. Use the "Find" command on your browser if you're looking for specific information, and be sure to go up one level (to http://pantheon.cis.yale.edu/~davidp/amstud.html) for the whole experience.
Overall Rating: 15
Electronic Journal of Sociology
URL: http://gpu1.srv.ualberta.ca:8010/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Scholarly journals usually need to be spiced up, and the Web is a perfect way to do it. So why is the Web-only Electronic Journal of Sociology as dull as a two-pound brick of paper? It has all that you'd expect to find in a paper journal: abstracts (in tiny, unreadable type), articles, and references. But no pictures, no search engines, no indices. Well, there are some smart messaging features, which allow visitors to make comments, but at the moment, there's not much traffic there. The articles are good, but the presentation needs work.
Overall Rating: 14
Soviet Archives Exhibit
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/expo/soviet.exhibit/soviet.archive.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
This archive of Soviet documents is arranged around a museum analogy: Go directly to either of the two "floors" or follow the golden footsteps for a guided tour of Soviet history over the last 80 years. Unlike a museum, however, there aren't many pictures to look at, although the knowledgeable guide's talk is full of imagery. Be warned: It's a lot of reading. Missing are the songs, photos, and personal reminiscences that would humanize such a tour; also, the text is so biased toward cold war ideas as to threaten its credibility as a history text.
Overall Rating: 14
American Civil War
URL: http://cobweb.utcc.utk.edu/~hoemann/warweb.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Like Jacqueline Dana's Irish History pages (see separate listing), George H. Hoemann and Mary E. Meyers' Civil War pages are basically just a collection of well-organized links. Unlike the Irish page, however, these links go mostly to outside servers, meaning that the material is less cohesive, and you'll occasionally not be able to get at the information you want. When you can get it, though, most of these links are well-researched: Civil War buffs are notoriously fetishistic. And Hoemann and Meyers are qualified guides to this world of six score and 16 years ago.
Overall Rating: 15
Viking Navy
URL: http://www.digalog.com/viking/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
It's a pity when passion gets subverted by incompetence. That's the situation with the Viking Navy Web page, a sorry advertising vehicle for a fascinating project. In brief, Californian Peter Sjolander is engaged in building Viking-style boats to "perform as well today as they did 1,000 years ago." The site includes some photos, drawings, and descriptions of his experiments, but his appalling writing and HTML coding make the juicy fruit of his experiences inaccessible. Serious nautical history buffs and scholars may find this site interesting, but the casual Web browser would do best to skip it.
Overall Rating: 13
Mind and Body
URL: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/Table.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Mind and Body is the catalog from a 1992 exhibit of the same name at the National Library of Medicine on Rene Descartes, the origins of mind/body dualism, and the development of the field of psychology in America. In a very scholarly style, the largely-text site describes how Descartes came upon his findings and how the scholarship of philosophy then changed. If you know nothing about the subject, you might want to do some basic reading in philosophy first. If the subject interests you, you'll probably find some new info within the site, which includes illustrations and portraits from the exhibit. Not for the non-reader.
Overall Rating: 14
Teen Home Page
URL: http://www.cloud9.net/~thorpy/TEEN.HTML
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Clearly well-intended, this page is a big loser for its target audience of teenagers, who must be cool at all costs and could easily hoot this site off the Web en masse. Our anonymous HTML beginner doesn't spend enough time finding links (there's way too much plain text here) or hanging with the gang who embody the ideal teen. If you feel clueless, you might want to check off "the top five colognes guys like to wear" (there are six listed). But if you have a semblance of a clue, you'll be at a fun music or entertainment site, and not here.
Overall Rating: 13
Electronic Beowulf Project
URL: http://portico.bl.uk/access/beowulf/electronic-beowulf.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The original manuscript for Beowulf, the English masterpiece starring Grendel the monster, was badly damaged in a fire 200 years ago. Taking the remains out of its display case in the British Library for scholarly study is obviously not the best idea. But in a hint at the future of the library, we are given the Electronic Beowulf Project, focused on scanning and analyzing the parchment to create a complete digital version of the document for study. With tons of related research and articles being added constantly, the Electronic Beowulf Project is an example of electronic media's power to archive artifacts from the pre-digital era of the written word.
Overall Rating: 16
Todd's Great Big Stupendous Poetry Page
URL: http://bigdog.engr.arizona.edu/~harrist/poetry.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Forget coffeehouses people, the Web is the new home for good (but too often really bad) poets: This page overflows with what Todd the poet calls his "Random Poetry" and he deserves kudos for taking the DIY approach to publishing his verbiage. For a hint of what's in store, check out "The," a Todd masterwork that really touched me. Todd better be careful though. Some of his contributors may edge him out in the absurd poetry arena. Take "Tablet Junker" from Amanda Parks for example: "Michael Jacko / Is a wacko / He went smacko / In a cracko / Now he's backo / He gets slacko / I think his new album is okay." Yeah... dig it.
Overall Rating: 15
The Scott Gallery
URL: http://haven.uniserve.com/~mscott/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Michael Scott has finally brought his unique melding of photography and poetry to the Web. (Never heard of him? Neither had I.) Anyway, Michael has graciously organized his textual and visual artworks under a half dozen themes, including love, war, philosophy and others. The photos -- birds, flowers, raindrops on a branch, etc.-- are quite serene and well shot in a New Age postcard kind of way -- the accompanying poetry is extremely melodramatic. Michael says he's offering his work as "an oasis of positive thought on the Internet." With that in mind, his page deserves a look just for the karma alone.
Overall Rating: 14
H P Lovecraft
URL: http://www.primenet.com/~dloucks/hplpage.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Cult horror novelist HP Lovecraft has found a worthy hidden home in this well designed and clear site. Of course a complete list of Lovecraft's tales is presented, but the most interesting elements of this site are the "readings" of Lovecraft's work. With the author's numerous references to numerous medieval texts containing secrets that "man was not meant to know," it can be difficult to discern between the actual dark manuscripts of our past and those that only have a history in Lovecraft's mind. Put simply, the Necronomicon is fiction. (We think. heh, heh, heh...)
Overall Rating: 15
Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now
URL: http://www.georgetown.edu/irvinemj/english016/conrad/conrad.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Heart of Darkness is one of the most dense and murky short stories ever written, and Coppola's Apocalypse Now is a marvelous film adaptation of the work. A trip down a river becomes a metaphor for a journey to the darkest places in the human soul, an exploration of those fragile structures upon which civilization is constructed. This site offers the entire text of Heart of Darkness, searchable by keyword. In addition, there is a link to one of the most complete Apocalypse Now fan sites. All Conrad fans should visit this site at least once, if only to grab the e-text of the story.
Overall Rating: 15
The Papa Page
URL: http://www.ee.mcgill.ca/~nverever/hem/cover.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Hemingway was a one-trick pony who drank away what little talent he did possess, but that isn't reason enough to dislike this page. No, the client-pull embedded in the opening page inspired my ire. It annoys me when my client requests a document without my permission; call me a control freak, but I prefer to make these decisions. A short biography, a bibliography, a variety of related links including one to Real Audio files of the Old Man himself, this is a typical fan page. This site is a solid, if unexciting, source of information on the bearded suicide.
Overall Rating: 15
Virtual Urth
URL: http://www.users.interport.net/~cezanneh/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Someone spent a great deal of time building this site. More specifically, someone spent a great deal of time determining which background and text color combinations are most indecipherable, and then gleefully constructed a site based on that information. This is a poetry/literary 'zine, and I do wish I could have explored more of it. Unfortunately, poor HTML coding practices made for a mess while once again proving my first Law of the Web: frames are almost always a force for evil. The situation grew horrible enough to bring my Netscape 2.0 crashing down, carrying with it several telnet sessions and my mood.
Overall Rating: 14
Steinbeck
URL: http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/steinbec/srchome.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Steinbeck's popularity among high school English teachers is only to his misfortune. There are too few instructors capable of placing Steinbeck's work within an historical context, and unfortunately, this site will do little to assist the individual trying to decipher Steinbeck and his catalog. Visitors find a bibliography, a timeline of his life, photos of the houses Steinbeck stayed in, and a few images of the landscapes in which the stories were set. Those researching Steinbeck's taste in dwelling places will enjoy this site; others should do a net search.
Overall Rating: 15
The Infinite Goof
URL: http://www.rain.org/~da5e/tom_robbins.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
It is a curious phenomena: nearly every existentially-aware, self-reflective female I know adores Tom Robbins. And few, if any, of the similarly-enlightened males I know can stand him. This is a Tom Robbins fan site, but is in no way a typical fan page. Of course there is a bibliography, critical essays, interviews, and related links -- but that's just the beginning. This is a fan site with JAVA objects, and a VRML version too! At last, an adoring fan space that is entertaining AND fawning. Bonus points for not using frames! I hope my exclamatory prose conveys my delight with this site!
Overall Rating: 17
Romantic Notions
URL: http://wwide.com/rnotions.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"Who among us has not wondered...what if?" And so begins the online version of the Romantic Notions newsletter, a review of the latest in Angel, Ghost, Time Travel and Vampire romance stories. Numerous book reviews and a brief interview with an author did nothing to inspire my curiosity, but those with an interest in tales of eternal love overcoming the shackles of time itself may find this site rewarding. I am compelled to point out the background color in use here, one of the most tasteful--and subject appropriate--which I have encountered on the Web.
Overall Rating: 15
Horror In Literature
URL: http://131.252.12.160/~caseyh/horror/book.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Clive Barker? Stephen King? Young punks, both of them. When it comes to horror only one name matters: H.P. Lovecraft. To my delight, I did find Lovecraft on this site, as well as many other personal favorites. Billing itself as a horror archive, this space offers a list of someone-or-another's Top 100 horror books, a large collection of links to author-related home pages, and a few excerpts from recent novels. Of greatest interest are the visitor submissions, offering a chance to peruse the bad and worse in surfer-submitted horror. You should never pass up a chance to read another's horror fiction.
Overall Rating: 15
Neveryona
URL: http://www.organic.com/Staff/ogd/neveryona/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
I am sick and tired of pretentious book-snobs maligning the integrity of the science-fiction and fantasy genre. I hate loud-mouthed know-it-alls who consider Proust the standard by which all text should be judged. This is a Samuel Delany fan page, featuring the requisite bibliography and critical pieces. Though there is nothing particularly striking about the layout or content of the site, the page creator seems articulate, a rare quality among fan site maintainers. Maybe there is cause to hope the Web may someday improve in quality.
Overall Rating: 15
William Gibson's yard show
URL: http://www.vkool.com/gibson/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Cyberpunk is nothing but a rehashed 1930's futurism coupled with a fetishizing of Intel's latest products. Espousing this creed, I approach with trepidation anything vaguely connected to William Gibson. As I wandered the site my unease turned to confusion, then curiosity, and finally bemusement. I'm not certain what any of this has to do with Gibson, but I like it. Peculiar images of keyboard playing sociopaths and detailed critiques of 50's era Atomic Disintegrator toys vie for the visitor's attention. Admittedly there are more than a few empty links, but the oddity factor is more than enough to excuse the mess.
Overall Rating: 15
The GRAMMY Awards
URL: http://www.grammy.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
By the time you read this, the Grammy Awards will be a glint in the eye of a fickle public. A visit to the Grammy page will yield a big list of who's been nominated in every category, from Rock to Classical. There's also a mysterious link to a Rock Artist Showcase, which never works. A few days from when I am writing this, the site promises to have daily updates and live feeds leading up to the awards. Of course, by the time you read this, it'll all be moot. My bold prediction for 1996: The Monkees sweep this year's awards... again!
Overall Rating: 14
Be Happy Or Die
URL: http://www.emba.uvm.edu/~jross/aonhome.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Be Happy or Die is dedicated to the 80s techno-pop band, Art of Noise, which is no longer with us. How sad. The discography features album cover art and track listings to most of their stuff. The "text" section separately features the liner notes to all the albums. The "images" area is simply a standard directory listing of all the images on the site. Not very helpful. Maybe a class on the Art of Web Design would be more in order.
Overall Rating: 15
Beyond Infinite Connections
URL: http://www.eelab.newpaltz.edu/~harple31/pm.dawn/index.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Infinite Connection celebrates the magical music of pop stars PM Dawn... and Beyond! The Web site includes a text-heavy discography, lyrics, and liner notes to some of the songs, a few pictures, and some information on how to get in contact with the record company. The one unique resource on this page is a set of links to various music charts, like Billboard's Top 40 and the Gavin Report, which track PM Dawn's success (or lack thereof). Also check out the site's news bulletin center to follow the latest news on their DJ, who was arrested for having sex with his 14-year-old cousin.
Overall Rating: 15
Labyrinth Oz Music Site
URL: http://jeack.apana.org.au/~rexx/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Personally, I think we have enough unsigned bands in this country, but If you're into local bands from Sydney and Melbourne, you'll like this site. There are links to information on independent bands including any e-mail addresses or Web pages they might have. The best link they feature is the Rick James Prison Web site which has been keeping him busy. Unfortunately, all this information comes with a price: being so far away, it's incredibly slow. Save time, turn the graphics off, and read about the band SILVERTHRONE, a SILVERCHAIR knock-off... only these guys are 15!
Overall Rating: 15
NoMeansNo
URL: http://www.musicwest.com/wrong/nomeansno/
Category: Music
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
NoMeansNo claims to have toured the world over since 1981, selling out stadiums and everything, but so does David Haselhoff. There are the usual lyrics, list of tour dates, and a nice set of publicity stills to prop up this otherwise anemic site. I'm not familiar with this band's music and might have liked some sound files or some other content to give me a sense of what they do. I guess if you're a fan (and I'm sure you are) you'd like this O.K. I just Say No.
Overall Rating: 15
Paper Airplane of the Month
URL: http://pchelp.inc.net/paper_ac.htm
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Long after the last cootie catcher of your grade school years has been recycled, paper airplanes are still guaranteed to amaze. Especially if you live on the third story. This cute site offers a new plane template every month to print, fold and let fly. But given the infinite possibilities of a sheet of paper (and maybe a paperclip or two), the maintainers of this page could certainly do better than monthly updates. You can always take the matter into your own hands though -- hacking your own dead tree dirigible is always more fun than recreating that same old flying wing.
Overall Rating: 15
Blender Web Popspeak Slang Dictionary
URL: http://www.blender.com/blender1.1/digest/popspeak/popspeak2.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Is her scarf too ABBA? Do you have a Barbie-Dream Boyfriend? Is the temp worker a bit more Nutrasweet than you expected? Visit the Blender Web Popspeak Slang Dictionary for a crash course in slang and hipster lingo. Each letter in the alphabet has a slang term, definition, corresponding graphic, an example of the word used in conversation and even a audio file to hear proper pronunciation. Many of the terms derive from television shows ("He's such an Urkel!"), movies, and music. Update your vocab or you could be considered to be a regular John-Boy.
Overall Rating: 17
Telephone Directories On The Web
URL: http://homepages.enterprise.net/rh/tel/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Reach out and touch someone online. Telephone Directories On The Web is a bookmark list of links to online telephone, fax and business directories from around the world. Every link from the Australia Yellow Pages to UK phone information is on this site. Look up a lost friend in Slovenia or call a pizza delivery place in Italy. Not much on the graphics side, the site can be a bit boring to visit unless you happen to be a fanatical phone phreak.
Overall Rating: 15
Atheist Express
URL: http://www.hti.net/www/atheism/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
There are too few kick-butt atheists in this world. Some think organized religions deserve to be ridiculed and abused, and who better than a committed non-believer to deliver the punch line? Visitors to this page find news of religion-related court cases, calendars of upcoming atheist conventions, related links, and such -- exactly the kind of information one would expect. But something is missing: am I wrong to expect more joy in all of this? Afterall, one would think an atheist page might convey more glee found in announcing, "Hey! We're alone down here!"
Overall Rating: 15
Ogmios
URL: http://www.ogmios.com/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Ogmios is the organization dedicated to opposing the coming reign of the antichrist. Ogmios also refers to the European who will lead this opposition. The Ogmios organization is recruiting individuals of all backgrounds to join the struggle: astrologists, numerologists, writers, scientists, and others. Each has a role to play as the End-Times draw near. Related links provide information on Nostradamus, channeling, ufology, and " the photon belt phenomenon increasingly referred to in the channeled literature." As the twentieth-century draws to a close, it is reassuring to know that the fourteenth century is still very much with us.
Overall Rating: 15
Alpha Net
URL: http://www.azstarnet.com/~fbarnes/alphanet.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
Surely everyone will agree that the King James Bible can be a confusing hodgepodge at times. It is obvious that editors were in short supply when the Scripture was initially being put to paper; how else can one explain the organization and presentation of the Good Book? Thankfully the good people at Alpha Net have provided a solution. The essential Biblical tales--Adam and Eve, Noah, and such--are presented in a concise and easily digested format, with verse annotations for those who care. Related links can carry the interested to a range of Bible sites.
Overall Rating: 15
The Wyrd Page: Germanic Nordic Heathen Religion
URL: http://www.nmia.com/~seaxnet/Test1.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
"Oh no, " I thought, "more of those annoying pagan types, the ones that dress up in capes and armor and spend their weekends bashing each other with wooden poles." Admittedly one will find a bit of that here: mention is made of a group which meets to celebrate the major days of yet another pagan sect. But in addition, a great deal of information is available. Book lists, contact groups, and an extensive collection of related links would be of use to anyone researching those Teutonic/Nordic/Northern European faiths.
Overall Rating: 15
The Towers of Avalon
URL: http://www.neca.com/~ice/avalon/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve Szyszko
This site is a collection of links related to the usual suspects: Pagans, Wiccans, shamans and witches. It is as broad as any I have found on these matters, and should be of use to anyone who cares about such things. I find it interesting how quickly fringe religions -- and fringe types in general -- latched on to the Internet and WWW. For all the crap out there in cyberspace, it is still the most efficient means by which people can contact each other and add their voice to the noisy din of modern life.
Overall Rating: 15
Mark Richardson World
URL: http://www.mountain.net/hp/bluetic/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This site *looks* busy, busy, busy. But basically, like most Vanity sites, it's filled with a whole lot of nothing. But at least ol' Mark's been keeping up with the Web wizardry tricks of the day. MIDI sound, ticker tape at the bottom of the page, tables and other nifty gimmicks demonstrate the latest in home page painting, even if the content is questionable. But why shouldn't it be? This is Mark's world, not your domain. For example, Mark has graciously installed links to Tia, Jim, Paul and his other pals' home pages. And I'm sure they appreciate it.
Overall Rating: 16
Karl Tiedemann
URL: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~tiedeman/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This is easily one of the best designed and technically superb vanity home pages to emerge from the bowels of the Web. Shockwave, Tables, VRML -- Karl experiments with all of it. But then again, it's his biz. This guy runs an interactive video and graphic design company that bleeds professionalism, unlike the current crop of money-grubbing "Web Designers" that are advertising up a storm in your town. Karl also has included a bonus rant on his site about the Ann Arbor, MI chapter of the Anti-Squirrel Coalition. I don't get it either. But you still better watch out for this guy. Or hire him.
Overall Rating: 17
John's house of Weirdness
URL: http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/1033/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Zzzzzzzzzz.... John's House of Weirdness is yet another Vanity page that offers nothing but an insignificantly shallow insight into the creator's life. The usual: links to his friends, significant moments in his Web-wandering life, and the annoyingly ubiquitous Douglas Adams funny face character (whatever the hell it's called.) And, of course, the pointless use of Frames. In fact, John's "Thought of the Day" is that "Frames are most cool!!!" They sure are, but check somebody else's site for proof of this. Well, maybe I'm being too harsh. Kudos to John for at least experimenting with HTML. After all, who am I to talk. I don't even *have* a home page.
Overall Rating: 15
Jon & Francis Berndt
URL: http://www.hal-pc.org/~jsb/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Wow! In August, Jon and Francis visited Jon's parents in Minnesota. The weather was nice, and ooooh, the pictures! Lake Superior sure looks mighty purty with the boats floating on it. These kind of anecdotes and snapshots give me that same warm fuzzy feeling I get when I read about Jon and Francis' family history, also presented on this site. Once you've learned all about the Clan from Derbyshire, check out this pair's links of choice. My favorite has to be the "Presentation of Purported Flaws in Evolution Theory." Well, maybe the "Romance Writers' Resources" is even a little bit cooler than that. A page only Jon's mother could love. Or maybe members of his church.
Overall Rating: 15
A Tale of Two Kitties
URL: http://www.twokitties.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you like to display or even flaunt your love of cats, and you can tolerate intense cuteness, A Tale of Two Kitties could be for you. It's a well-organized, easy-to-view catalog of stuff for feline fans -- tote bags, T shirts, caps, and of course, computer accessories (you need a cat mouse pad, don't you?). Heavy on the pastels and cutesy copy, the products are clearly described and priced, and ordering is easy (fax, e-mail, mail, and phone). Not only can you outfit your entire house and body in cat-related goods, there are even a couple of products for your own tabby (more to come, no doubt).
Overall Rating: 15
EMusic
URL: http://www.emusic.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Here's a music site that offers some reasonably smart searching (by song, title, year, artist, genre, label) for a 100,000-item catalog. As with a number of other music sites, though, EMusic has only a thin veneer atop an ugly text database, and within moments you'll be peering at small type to decipher your finds. There are some nice features including links to new titles and concert dates (under construction at this writing), top 40 charts, top sellers by year, and a way to review both your current and previous orders. Eventually, with some of its links smoothed out and a more readable storehouse of titles, EMusic could be a good stop for music lovers, instead of just an adequate one.
Overall Rating: 15
Sound Spectrum
URL: http://www.soundspectrum.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If you don't need instant gratification, music is an easy shopping goal on the Net. You can often search your chosen site by title or artist, sometimes by genre, and order up a storm. Sound Spectrum claims 120,000 titles (30,000 of them classical), orders filled within 24 hours, online or fax ordering, and US orders to you within 3-7 days. These are good things. What's not so good is the less-than-smart search mechanism that doesn't tell you it needs last-name-first to deliver the titles you seek, and the plain-text database that doesn't provide release dates, labels, or genre clues. It's ok, but there's better.
Overall Rating: 13
The Great Fax Cover Sheet Co.
URL: http://www.iwsc.com/greatfax/index.html
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Hankering for a remote control holder? How about fax cover sheet cartoons or funny fax post-its for your outgoing communiques? Or can we interest you in a pair of rolling scissors for ease of cutting? If you want any of these things, stop on by and order them here. You can e-mail your order, call the office, or send your request to a BBS. (Naturally, you can also fax.) The items are adequately described, but this would be a more useful site if it offered more products. As it is, it's not bookmark quality - nor is there a compelling reason to visit.
Overall Rating: 14
Fat Tire Wire
URL: http://www.Fat-Tire-Wire.com/ftw/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Dedicated to the sport of mountain biking, Fat Tire Wire would be a great place if it's most interesting features weren't "Under Construction." The Bike Swap free classified section would be cool if it worked. The Discussion area doesn't work either. Their racing database, matching you to a race, is incomplete. However, there is a complete list of races by region and a working list of links to some bike companies, but besides some photos and stuff, that's it. If you're going to put up a Web site, make sure at least half of it is running. And don't use cheesy graphics while you're at it.
Overall Rating: 14
NFL PLAYERS Inc
URL: http://www.nflplayers.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The NFL Players Inc.'s site might be worth a look if you have a hankering for some player stats or have a player trivia bug. Type a name, team or whatever into the massive NFL player database, press the button and voila! An Instant Electronic Football card appears, only without the picture (which would be a good idea). The Fan Club contains a Profile of the Week and in the Trivia Quiz area you're given $500 to gamble on your NFL player knowledge. Too bad it's just pretend money, since I just kept backing up the browser until I got all the questions right. All in all, a fair visit.
Overall Rating: 16
Scottie Pippens Home Court
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/cardman/pippen/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
If you're a Scottie Pippen fan, you'll want to check out this electronic homage to a basketball star. This site has got photos of Scottie, up-to-the minute statistics on Scottie, highlights from Scottie's last four games, a section detailing all the MVP awards he's won, and some Bulls' games highlights. My favorite part is the collection of Scottie's thought-provoking quotes which bare his naked, tortured soul to the world. The site looks good, works pretty well, and makes me wish I was seven feet tall.
Overall Rating: 16
Tennis Country
URL: http://www.tenniscountry.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
Tennis Country is setup like a country club that you can't play tennis in. Go and gossip about tennis in the chat area, check out the latest news , follow tournament coverage, and discover playing and fitness tips to keep you competitive. A section for the kids has it's own chat area and some college court coverage, and a partner matching service helps you find a tennis date. I personally expect to meet a delicious tennis babe because I said I was a 7.0 rated pro. The only problem is that the look and feel of the place made it resemble the town courts more than an exclusive club, but that shouldn't deter you.
Overall Rating: 14
Tour DuPont
URL: http://www.lubricants.dupont.com/Tour95/Tour95.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Matt Patterson
The Tour DuPont is a big bike race sponsored by the manufacturers of a lubricant. Access schedules, course maps, details of the teams and riders, and more info about lubricants than you can ever hope to use. The coolest feature is the Predict the Winner option. First they explain a bunch of physical stats like lactate threshold (which has nothing to do with milk), and then you compare the stats of the competitors to choose a winner. Only it doesn't work. Probably this is because I reviewed the '95 page (the '96 one wasn't up yet) and it wouldn't be very challenging to predict something that happened a year ago.
Overall Rating: 15
PawSafe
URL: http://www2.pcix.com/users/pawsafe/public_html/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
"Making a difference, one pet at a time." Hmmm. Hope my pet is first in line! Actually though, this site is about pets that need to be rescued -- dogs and cats to adopt (with pictures as a super bonus). PawSafe also lists ways you can help --a wish list and volunteer opportunities. Check out the organizations mission (yawn) or trot over to the store for pet purchases. Woof. The layout is ok, with some nifty Table construction, but overall it's pretty dry.
Overall Rating: 15
Annals of Saudi Medicine
URL: http://www.kfshrc.edu.sa/annals/annals.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
The Annals of Saudi Medicine is a good resource for health care professionals interested in geographically focused medical studies. Original articles, case reports, letters to the editor, editorials, and review articles deal with all aspects of clinical, academic, and investigative medicine and research. Papers are written in English, and include studies with appropriately convoluted titles and obscure subject-matter, like the one detailing a 10-year retrospective review of patients with scorpion stings at the Emergency Department of the King Fahad National Guard Hospital in Riyadh.
Overall Rating: 15
Preview Vacations
URL: http://www.vacations.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Boy, this site is pretty: pretty like a stuffed peacock. There are over 500 colorful pages here, including destination information, photos, multimedia stuff, and "real-time transaction capabilities." But when you get down to the meat of things -- booking vacations -- you're stuck with the usual, boring, pedestrian vacation standbys. ("Would you like the $100-per-night room in Paris or London?") There are lots of clever forms and games to noodle with as well. Fill out the survey: doing so enters you in a monthly drawing for $1,000 worth of credit toward a Preview vacation.
Overall Rating: 17
Mirage Resorts
URL: http://www.themirage.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Las Vegas is a singularly American place: In a terrain where there's nothing of interest, attractions are invented and packaged. The Mirage Hotel is a perfect epitome of this, in that (fake) European food is served by a (fake) volcano while watching (real) tigers in their (fake) environment. And it's all available for downloading! Get the Mirage experience through pictures, sound bites, and QuickTime video clips -- or buy t-shirts and plush tigers via their Web site! You'll never have to leave the house. And isn't that what you want in a vacation?
Overall Rating: 16
Healthy Flying
URL: http://www.maui.net/diana/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Flight discomfort is caused by more than just a fear of the plane crashing into the mountains and leaving your remains a charred, indistinguishable heap. Former flight attendant Diana Fairechild has documented why flying is uncomfortable in her book, Jet Smart, much of which is available in "quick tip" form via her Web page. There's a neat bit of animation on the first page, but the focus here is on the content -- be sure to read about the "Full utilization of air," and how pilots can change the amount of air passengers breathe. Scaaaary.
Overall Rating: 15
Boat To Bolivia
URL: http://www.londonmall.co.uk/conway/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
With a title like "Boat to Bolivia," I expected swashbuckling adventure -- or, at least., adventurous writing. Sad to say, Tracy Morris is no adventurer, and her writing is about as thrilling as your cousin's slide show. ("This is me in front of the house... this is me in back of the house..."). She relates the story of two middle-class Brits making their way around the Americas, eventually to (you guessed it!) Bolivia. Expect a slow server and scanned postcards for graphics. The spelling and grammar are good, though.
Overall Rating: 15
Museum of Science and Industry Chicago
URL: http://www.msichicago.org/
Category: Science
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This museum has some really cool things in it, the kind of things that you don't expect to see in a museum. There is a German U-Boat and a Boeing 727 inside that you can walk around in. I believe in the 727, because I saw pictures of it, but the U-Boat will have to remain unconfirmed. My point is that the Web site has a very small slice of the over 2,000 exhibits that are in the physical museum. What is shown on the site makes it pretty enticing to come and see the museum, which may be the master plan, but with all the material it possesses, the museum could be a great contributor to the richness of Web content.
Overall Rating: 16
Lift Up Your Hearts
URL: http://www.golden.net/worship/
Category: Religion
Issue: 0596
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Seeking a little guidance on your Lutheran path? Lift Up Your Hearts is a nice resource to check out. It offers imformation about the Lutheran Evangelical church, links to resources, and interesting essays on prayers and living the Lutheran life. It's not exactly a dazzler of a site, but it performs the task well enough, and has a few techno-gadgets like Tables.
Overall Rating: 15
Chaos Network
URL: http://www.prairienet.org/business/ptech/
Category: Science
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I'm a big fan of Chaos Theory, an examination of the complex order in seemingly-random systems. I also find fractals, the visual representation of chaos math, quite beautiful. So, needless to say, I was jazzed to join the Chaos Network with its cyberdelic name and fractal-adorned home page. But alas, each click of my mouse was met with the dreaded 404 Not Found message. Perhaps the real message here is that we don't need to join the Chaos Network because, after all, we're already members. But probably not. Get busy, Webmaster.
Overall Rating: 13
Global Change Data Center
URL: http://ame.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcdc/gcdc.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This site provides background on the Global Change Data Center, an ongoing NASA project to develop archival and distribution systems for all the fancy figures gleaned from high-tech Earth observation systems both on the ground and in orbit. Gigabytes of information fly in daily about global environmental changes, and the ultimate product of the GCDC will be "access to (this) data." Without proper organization or access systems, this important information about the planet's health remains a bunch of ones and zeros, all downloaded with nowhere to go. Pretty soon, we could be in the same boat.
Overall Rating: 15
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
URL: http://www.fnal.gov/fermilab_home.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Fermilab is home to the Tevatron, the most hardcore particle accelerator in the world. In fact, Fermilab is where the Top Quark was discovered last year. (Score one for Big Science!) No need to worry if you missed that news in high-energy physics. Click here for a clear and interesting explanation of what the hell atom smashing is all about, why you should care, and what's next on the particle physics horizon. A graphically bland but scientifically profound site.
Overall Rating: 16
American Demographics
URL: http://www.marketingtools.com/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Some magazines transition to the Web well, enhancing their print product with online exclusives, clever presentations, and useful cross-references. Then there are those like American Demographics. It's not all bad: certainly, it's a useful site for those in the Marketing field, the text of the entire print edition appearing alongside Dow Jones' companion magazines. Otherwise, the data file "exclusives" are meager, and the link list includes a mere eight sources. The articles, however, are well-written and will have you singing AD's praises.
Overall Rating: 15
PAL Map Collection
URL: http://rowan.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
There are 230,000 maps in the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection, but don't count on finding your hometown here. Housed by the University of Texas at Austin, it's among the most extensive such archives in the world; unfortunately, its Web site has only a fraction of the Library's total content and the map images are often too hazy to read place names even with files running to 500K. It's a valuable resource, nonetheless, with approximately 1,000 maps to its credit.
Overall Rating: 14
Elements of Style
URL: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/strunk/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Similar in aim to Project Gutenberg (http://jug.coo.uiuc.edu/PUG/welcome.html), in which classic texts are digitized, Columbia University's Project Bartleby has HTML tags worked into the text, making it easier to read with a Web browser. William Stunk Jr.'s popular handbook for writers, The Elements of Style, is a perfect example of what the project does. Clear grammar and punctuation make the text engaging; tables, hyperlinks, and a simple design enhance it further.
Overall Rating: 15
Office of Population Research
URL: http://opr.princeton.edu/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Tom Geller
Every three seconds, somewhere in the world, a woman gives birth. We must find this woman and STOP HER! All right, that's an old joke... but it's a good one to introduce the study of worldwide birth and death statistics. Princeton University claims to have the oldest population research department in the world, and now they've claimed primacy online as well. And while I don't doubt that their site is comprehensive, its content is far too academic for most.
Overall Rating: 14
Designers Direct
URL: http://www.designersdirect.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Shopping becomes a chore at this site, which sends you through page after page just to see what's available (casual clothing), get descriptions of specific items (there're only eight), go to additional photos of said items (the top-level illustrations are truly thumbnail-sized). Hoo, boy. If you want to go to all this trouble for a Calvin Klein T-shirt or a $98 bomber jacket, be my guest. The site does offer multiple ways of paying, including an 800 number, so you might find an actual human to answer your questions. In terms of browsing, though, Designers Direct makes you work hard for a questionable reward.
Overall Rating: 15
ElectroWeb
URL: http://ElectroWeb.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If anyone tries to tell you that shopping on the Web is fun, easy, intuitive, and beats facing the mallgoers, don't believe `em -- this site's proof. To shop here, you gotta plow your way through numbing market-speak lists of the various electronic, PC, and peripheral products ElectroWeb pushes, most of it in shorthand (64kb/s Data, 64kb/s Digital Voice, Max-X Bass), and sportin' fuzzy product shots. It pays to know exactly which model or title you want before browsing, and woe to the shopper whose taste ranges beyond the meager inventory offered here. If this were all there was to the Web, we would have moved on to the next fad by now.
Overall Rating: 14
RIGHTEOUS RAGS
URL: http://www.onto.com/righteousrags/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
"Dead fish swim with the stream." "A big head is a big load." "Get a grip." These are slogans you too can buy and wear, courtesy of Righteous Rags. The site offers a simple product line (T-shirts, mock turtlenecks, sweatshirts and caps) which promote "virtuous attitudes" such as integrity, honesty and hard work in larger-than-life display type. It's easy to find what you're looking for, the product sketches are appealing, and you can send email with your comments and questions. When I visited, there was only one problem: the order page was under construction. Delayed gratification, anyone?
Overall Rating: 16
The Rough Guide
URL: http://www.hotwired.com/rough/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Here's an excellent , very cool start for independent travel and adventure info: Rough Guides, a well-known travel publisher, has joined forces with Hotwired to offer a friendly Web umbrella over a host of their titles. You can browse their catalog, of course; you can also read selections of interest from numerous titles. These selections have links to RG's recommended hotels, restaurants, clubs, and so on. You can also link from here to RG phrasebooks, other travel sites of note, their women's page or a disabled travel anthology. The tone is low-key, the design is handsome, and the site is just plain good. BLUE LIGHT
Overall Rating: 15
Fodor's Travel
URL: http://www.ypn.com/travel/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Get in travel mode by browsing Fodor's, which offers a good metapage of online resources that mirror the Net.Travel book published by Fodor's Michael Wolff. All the links and listings cover much of the same material: newsgroups, web sites, email newsletters covering most of the globe. (Not surprisingly, this US-centric guide lists the fewest resources for Africa, and the most for Western Europe.) There is a theme travel section that includes info on "bizarre tours" as well as golf, skiing, fishing, gay, and gambling vacation packages.
Overall Rating: 15
Archery
URL: http://www.stud.his.no/~morten-b/archery.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
If it's good enough for Robin Hood, it's good enough to have a Web page. Archery has become a modern sport with the latest in high-tech bows and custom-made arrows, but it's been around since prehistory. This site might as well have been designed back then too. The only saving grace of this page is the content , including a brief history of archery and a detailed section on equipment. Otherwise, it should put an apple on its head and hope for a miss.
Overall Rating: 13
Running Room
URL: http://www.runningroom.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Run, Forrest, Run! Running Room is a store that sells running shoes and clothes, but online it acts more like a sporting resource. Look up races in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, London and other regions. Access information on national races such as The Boston Marathon and the Olympic Day Run. Check out the clinic programs for workshops, sponsored by the store, on learning how to run without getting an injury, running faster and a special women-only program. Unfortunately, the site needs more informative articles and a personality before it's worth running to.
Overall Rating: 15
King of the Mountain Cycling Road Climbs
URL: http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~wlculp/king.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Remember playing King of the Mountain where kids raced up a hill and whoever could push as many kids off while staying on top won? Add bikes and make that hill into a mountain and you've got this sport. Search for a difficult mountain bike climbing route in Tennessee or look up Mt. Evans in Colorado, the highest paved road climb in North America. Each of the mountain bike climbs has ratings, locations, ride and race information; however, there are more "working on it" gifs than actual goods.
Overall Rating: 15
Weightlifting
URL: http://www.waf.com/weights/index.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Step up to the platform and lift a ton of techniques for weightlifting. Read the rules for various styles including the snatch, the clean and jerk and more. Follow the hefty hypertext links to sites about Master Lifters, nutrition and training locations. Use the Weight Lifters Calculator to estimate lifting formulas or to balance your checkbook. The Coach's Office section has articles and tips by actual weight trainers about coaching, competition, grips and basic training routines.
Overall Rating: 15
SWIMnews Online
URL: http://www.swimnews.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Sites either sink or swim on the Web, but this one manages to stay afloat. SWIMnews Online features news and swimmer profiles in its magazine. Look up rankings and records as well as meet results of your favorite human fish. Search the photo gallery for specific professional swimmers or sports photographers. This Canadian swim site has a purpose even if it does lack a personality.
Overall Rating: 15
Internet Squash Federation
URL: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/~npb/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
While some of us would rather eat it, others have reclaimed the word and made it into a sport. The Internet Squash Federation has all the links a squasher could want on clubs, training, companies, history, newsgroups, newsletters, player profiles, rules, tournaments, TV coverage and much more. Confusion rules the humor section while the spending urge marks the mail order page. Who knows if Squash will be the next big sport of the future, but with a site like this, it's off to a good start.
Overall Rating: 15
Rick's Polyamory Page
URL: http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/1496/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Shel Kimen
Seems Rick wants to sleep with everyone. Fine by me, though I do wonder why he has to chronicle this. No matter, he's chosen to enlighten us. Rick thinks we should all have multiple lovers, and explains why on two pages of mediocre construction quality with some less-than-tasteful layout. No, it's not the pictures of the scantily clad women that offend me so much (in fact they're pretty cute!), but the horrid green background on page two and illogical text . It's worth visiting for a chuckle, but don't take it too seriously. I would be more impressed if Rick would offer us a nude photo of himself...seeing as how he's so free and all.
Overall Rating: 15
91 Argyle Street
URL: http://plato.digiweb.com/stuka/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The residents of 91 Argyle Street invite one and all to crash beneath the snowy-roofed shelter of their pad in Rochester, NY. Each roomie generously provides for their guests: Todd's animation-laden "Duck Soup" warms the belly in exchange for advice with his current 'Headache' scenario. Brandon, although admitting he started his page due to live-in peer pressure, breaks out his collection of drawings from napkins and school notebooks. Jason chronicles his own travels, sporting a US map with clickable green dots to call up his photos by region. Well done, and beats the K.O.A.
Overall Rating: 17
Andoman's Home Page
URL: http://www.ssimicro.com/~xandoman/firstpg.htm
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Ando, a high-school senior, selects a series of cool quotes to precede his list of 100 things to do with only100 days left to live. The sure highlight of the site, however, is The ANDO Cam. Every 60 seconds the camera sends a picture from his work at SSI Micro to the page. I never could find him in his work habitat though, nor do I remember work listed in his100-day itinerary!
Overall Rating: 15
Enter my World
URL: http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/egswanso/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
A powerful image of sunlight breaking through clouds above Stonehenge leads the visitor into the world of a Chicago college student. The site's creator adds the descriptive detail by documenting everything he comes into contact with: Chicago weather, a few dozen local restaurants, and a mug lineup of all his friends at the Shorey house. With unlimited access to a scanner the boundaries to his world may be unreachable. He, however, always will be, and includes a hypertext version of his class schedule.
Overall Rating: 15
Missy's Poetry
URL: http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~g-jaros/missy.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Missy's site has a simple design; certain hyperlinks take the reader to her poetry, divided into "new stuff" and "old stuff", but effectively it's composed of a single, long page. A tour through Missy's collection of poetic endeavors leads deep into her mind...meanwhile an entourage of scattered, pink happy-faces links to Jim Morrison's song lyrics and other cool stuff.
Overall Rating: 15
Ron Turner's Home Page
URL: http://www.connect.net/ron/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
A tripped-out yellow alien welcomes site visitors, waving from within a brown seventies-style layout. From there it's a run-down of Ron's personality and pursuits: Scorpio, Zen Buddhist, X-Files fan, Director of Info Systems. Ron is heavily into Gino Vannelli, busy creating a fanzine for the jazz musician with a complete discography and summary of Gino's works. That's some fan dedication, especially from someone with nearly a dozen interests of his own to pursue!
Overall Rating: 15
Ronald's Home Page
URL: http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~att2u/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
An ornate doorway is the entrance to the impressive realm of Ronald, where'll you find one of the cleanest, slickest personal pages around. Don't let the formal introduction and library theme give you the wrong impression; Ronald, an avid fan of "The Tick", definitely appreciates the humorous side of things, too. His well-developed "Funnies" section links to Dilbert, FarSide, and Calvin and Hobbes strips, plus collections of 'Random' and 'Technical' jokes.
Overall Rating: 17
Russ Emerson's Home Page
URL: http://members.aol.com/dutch/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
Russ Emerson's life-simulation Web site starts off a bit drab, then expands into an indulgent and elaborate autobiography, from birth to school to a career in military intelligence. A keeper of an "I Love Me" page with links to the "Bald is Beautiful" Hall of Fame, Russ gets away with shameless narcissism by maintaining thorough links to outside sources from his life: cities he lived in, alma maters, organizations, his favorite things and even the general language sites of all the languages he speaks.
Overall Rating: 15
Thomepage
URL: http://tcw2.ppsw.rug.nl/~thomas/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The opening screen is alarming...like driving alone late at night and coming across a section of road with night crews and flashing red lights. Who maintains this roadside beacon? A bright young kid from the Netherlands, sporting a toothy smile. How bright? His site employs a little double entendre, offering a"Wet Look" and providing a photo of him that looks like it washed up on a beach. Under Construction with Java Apps, and written in English, Thomas is definitely a clever young lad!
Overall Rating: 15
Trillium's World
URL: http://www.nebula.net/~trillium/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jason Sneed
The serene blue sky in the background contrasts with Trillium's lead announcement: This page is "the FUTURE site of the 'Unofficial Shades of Evil Home Page." There's already a direct link to a BBS by that name! Trillium, active in the online-community since 1993 is a devotee of Wicca (some kind of witchy thing) and provides links to her favorite Pagan resources. Most resources were unavailable at review time, probably due to construction woes from the Shades of Evil crew.
Overall Rating: 15
Anicom
URL: http://www.3dchor.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
Here we have a sugar-coated press release functioning as the Web presence for AniCom, a developer of 3D animation software for Windows. The site works like this; a barrage of press-related quotes and product information greets you along with a spicy dash of peppy superlatives. But beware! if you stumble off the splash page you are immediately transported into the aesthetically challenged zone. This site is lackluster and shoddily constructed. If you're looking for anything more than a price list , you'll be disappointed.
Overall Rating: 14
Surf Communications, Inc.
URL: http://www.expressway.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
What? You're not getting lightning fast Internet access from that 14.4 modem. Are you ready to trade sloth for stealth? Well the Surf communication site can help you do just that. According the the site, Surf is able to deliver the complete ISDN solution. This straightforward site walks you through Surf's services, Internet kits, FAQs, and features. The page is easy to read and navigate, void of any flash or sizzle. But then again, when you are thinking ISDN, you are thinking reliability, not sass. So when the time comes for you to make bookends out of those 14.4 and 28.8 modems, Surf Communications is worth a peek.
Overall Rating: 15
Egypt has it all
URL: http://163.121.10.41/tourism/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Got an itch? Egypt can scratch it. Spiffy and a little tacky at the same time, this site is really just a fancified travel brochure with lots to look at but none of the nitty-gritty travel info that would make it truly useful. Instead, the whole thing smacks of a sales pitch. Netscape users can get an autopiloted tour of the site, but be warned: it takes a while. With a slight adjustment in tone and more hard data, however, this page could win a blue ribbon. Or a blue light.
Overall Rating: 17
Slowwwenia
URL: http://www.ijs.si/slo/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Part of the former Yugoslavia, Zagreb lies just off its Eastern border. Despite the ominous proximity of its war-torn neighbors, this Slovenian home page projects a sunny disposition, with a whimsical cartoon chicken and egg motif. The site is not so much a travel bureau site as it is a site for all things Slovenian. As such, much of the site is in the Slovenian language only, including the "top secret" section devoted to erotica. To get your bearings go to the interactive map of the country, but don't expect to be floored by the links. Things are still a little rudimentary here.
Overall Rating: 14
Mountain Travel - Sobek
URL: http://www.mtsobek.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0796
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Thrill-seekers with money to spend will be interested in this site, online home to a company almost synonymous with adventure travel. It's quite a site (business must be good), with an interactive world map, a full catalog of excursions, reservation information, and electronic postcards. From here you can connect to Sobek joint projects, Virtual Antarctica and Virtual Galapagos. Or go to a Palace chat room where you can dress up your surrogate self to look like a penguin or zebra (or whatever) and talk to like-minded predator and prey. Seems a little bizarre, that, but okay.
Overall Rating: 17
Sidney Lanier Middle School
URL: http://www.rice.edu/armadillo/Schools/Lanier
Category: Education
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Pat
The kids at Sidney Lanier are a lucky bunch, if this site is anything to go on. The ubiquitous puppy icon aside (come on kids, let's mix it up a little bit), the activities featured in the Houston school's home page made me a little wistful for the days of field trips and science fairs. Some of the sub-pages need work: the Hyper-history of seventy year old Lanier left me wanting more links, and the images, by and large, were of poor quality. Time to hit up the old PTA, maybe throw a bake-sale for scanners or put the principal in the dunk tank at a buck a shot.
Overall Rating: 13
A Video Games Homepage
URL: http://pages.prodigy.com/cobain/homepage.htm
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This video games "homepage" is as generic as the name sounds. The idea behind it is to feature one new game every month, but when I looked at it the feature consisted of a one-page walk-through of the Beavis and Butthead game. Not only do you waste time downloading the page, you also lose the oppurtunity to explore the game on your own.
Overall Rating: 14
Lifetime Online
URL: http://www.lifetimetv.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The cable TV channel, *Lifetime*, is about one step up from soap operas and talk shows. They used to show *Eight Is Enough* and *Family* reruns, which I think is rad! But then I read that their Web site is "for women and the people in their lives" and I have to wonder if the channel has lost its unintended irony in the Web translation. After all, what kind of women (and people in their lives!) are we talking about here? I guess the type who dig "Romance Horoscopes," articles on nutrition, entertainment gossip (Jackson Five to reform!?!?), and too-sweet parenting info. *HotWired* for the *Reader's Digest* and tabloid set.
Overall Rating: 15
Smartwired
URL: http://www.smartwired.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Judging from its confusing content, I'd speculate that Smartwired is some sort of alcohol-enthusiast information resource -- these people really, really like to drink. Avoid this site if you're one of the so-called "neo-prohibitionists" referred to in the site's "Healthy Drinking" magazine. If you're not, you too can read articles with titles like "Telling Children All Alcohol Is Bad Simply Is Not True," "It's Official: Beer's Good For You" and other gems. After tasting that material, browse Smart Wine magazine or a page of alcohol-related links. I think I need a drink. Of water.
Overall Rating: 15
WebCastro
URL: http://www.webcastro.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
San Francisco's Castro district has been called the Gay Mecca, and this virtual community does a fine job representing the eclectic and exciting real community that is Castro. WebCastro is filled with calendars, a history of the neighborhood, profiles of unusual and interesting Castro characters, guides to area businesses and community-service organizations. Yet the site still barely scratches the surface of the neighborhood. Basically, you gotta live there. But if you don't, at least check out the scene virtually. Slightly cluttered, but easily navigable and educational.
Overall Rating: 16
Lucy the Jack Russell Terrier
URL: http://www.lucy-the-dog.com
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Lucy is, you guessed it, a dog. And this is her home page. But don't stop reading yet--you won't be subjected to a million cute pictures of some family dog and narratives about how she bit the mailman. Lucy is a real mascot for an interesting Jack Russell Terrier site overflowing with information about this particular breed of dogs. And darned if they aren't the cutest things. Delve into the Jack FAQs, find out how to check into pet-friendly hotels when vacationing with your pooch, and, to make your hosts happy, browse through some of the real-life adventures of Lucy in words and pictures. Lucy in a blizzard is a laff-riot.
Overall Rating: 15
The Tobacconist
URL: http://www.law.vill.edu/~kmortens/humidor/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I knew this site would make leave me jonesing for a cigar. I haven't smoked a stogy in months, and, indeed, I wish I had my hands on a fine Cuban and a sterling cutter right now. If you're not a tobacco enthusiast already, this site is not the best introduction to the smoky vice, nor is it supposed to be. Aficionados should come here for a comprehensive list of smoke-related links, including company sites, Web 'zines, and FAQs with lots of material. Hopefully, more original content will make this more than a glorified index for puffers. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Overall Rating: 15
Cyberspace Hospital
URL: http://CH.nus.sg/CH/ch.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
This Frames-happy page, based at the National University of Singapore, offers a twist on the usual links site. A four-level "building" housing various hospital departments leads you to lists of links for specific medical subjects (pharmacy, oncology, surgery). Click on Pediatrics, for instance, and you'll find a list of links to children's health-related newsgroups, journals, and appropriate Web sites. Also helpful is the Latest Medical News page, with info on breaking health news stories. The site's creator, Dr. K.C. Lun, is clearly excited about sharing medical knowledge on the net, and his enthusiasm is infectious.
Overall Rating: 15
CyberNutrition Online
URL: http://chd.syr.edu/chd/CyberNutrition2.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
Students at the Syracuse University College for Human Development have created this resource of nutrition information, answering such nagging questions as what's in beer and pizza that's good for you and how a thiamin is different from riboflavin. There's a form for submitting nagging nutrition questions, and archive of answers to previous questions. While this isn't a monster resource list (there were less than 20 Q&As in the archives when I visited), the site's polite tone and earnest desire to enlighten others marks it as a good place to start learning about nutrition.
Overall Rating: 15
Intersolv
URL: http://www.intersolv.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
What Nutrasweet does for coffee, Intersolv aims to do for Java. The world's 35th largest software company, Intersolv's Web site has a nice design, but ironically enough, no Java bells and whistles -- not even a single GIF animation. For a company that prides itself on working with JavaSoft, it's a mystery why the site doesn't show off some snazzier elements.
Overall Rating: 14
Connectix
URL: http://www.connectix.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
No telling how much fun a computer geek can have the eyeball-like QuickCam from Connectix. This site mirrors the creative dream behind that product, featuring shots from the color QuickCam and a fish cam, updated once a minute, as many times as you care to hit the reload button. You can also download software to turn the eye into a high-tech video phone.
Overall Rating: 16
Prudential Insurance
URL: http://www.prudential.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Come to terms with your own mortality yet? Prudential has a Web site to remind you of the grave in the days of your youth. Learn which policy is best for you when the Grim Reaper comes knocking on your door. Find the closest Prudential Representative in your area with the Geo-Locator or discover the possible career options as a life insurance salesman. Take a tour of the fictitious Ourtown, USA where the Prudential employees help build housing for the poor. And remember, your time is short.
Overall Rating: 15
Alfred Hitchcock
URL: http://nextdch.mty.itesm.mx/~plopezg/Kaplan/Hitchcock.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
This suspense-seeker's site serves up a balanced buffet of Hitchcockiana (biography, filmography, quotes, pics, essays, links and more), all accessible from a straightforward top-level menu. Once you're up to speed on the jowly cinematic genius, check the "Hitchcock on TV" listings (updated monthly) to find out when you can actually watch one of his movies. I doubt most of the data is unique to this site, and it's not super flashy, but creator Patricio Lopez-Guzman (an 18-year-old high school student from Monterrey, Mexico, no less) provides all the basics on the bald guy in a clean, quick package. That's more than a lot of fully-staffed companies can say.
Overall Rating: 15
Francois Truffaut
URL: http://www.inxpress.net/~avatar/truffaut.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
If the comprehensive Truffaut chronology is any indication, this page promises to be a regular stop for all surfin' fans of the French director/writer/critic. Unfortunately, as of our copy deadline, the other sections of the site (Biography, The Films, The French New Wave) were incomplete. Disappointing, but at least the "Under Construction" placards offered this honest and endearing apology for reneging on the main menu's promise: "There will be something here in the near future. (Sorry for lying before)." We'll be back to hang with Francois later.
Overall Rating: 15
Jim Pollack Vietnam Art
URL: http://members.aol.com/jimm844224/vietart1.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
There's art in war, but don't expect to find the stunning flora and fauna of Vietnamese jungles here. Jim Pollack's art -- pen-and-ink and dullish watercolors -- are of soldiers on the front line. Pollack's works are among several Vietnam veteran paintings that are part of the U.S. Army Military History War Collection in Washington, D.C. The site contains links to army documents on the arts, news articles, war art and some of Pollack's non-war art. Like war itself, however, the artwork and site are bleak.
Overall Rating: 13
YellowDog
URL: http://www.discordia.org/~keeper/YellowDog.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
The manager of this site seeks to add artistic flair to Macs and PCs with a customized or Elfquest comic desktop and icon designs. YellowDog also does fliers, brochures, menus, etc. for cash or barter. The site is also a meeting place for Elfquest fans.
Overall Rating: 15
Twinz Unlimited
URL: http://www.fishnet.net/~twinz/twinz.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Frank and Fritz Liess explain it all to you: definitions of the varying types of twins (fraternal, identical, Siamese); misconceptions (never ask which one is older; the correct query is "Who was born first?"); famous twins, twins in film, and, thanks to Photoshop, wanna-be twins (current picks are Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt). There's a list of organizations for twins, including one for moms of twins and one for twinless twins (those who've lost their twin sibs). Thanks, Fritz and Frank, for an amusing and useful site. Just one objection: it's cheating to include the Del Rubio Triplets under the category of "Supertwins."
Overall Rating: 15
The Bones
URL: http://www.TheBones.com/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
What final words do you want on your tombstone? Here's your chance to test-drive some pithy send-offs before you really need them, courtesy of a good-humored, skeleton-laden site called The Bones. Lots of RealAudio clips and cheerful down-home skeletal comics are here; so are fake epitaphs for the rich and famous (among them, George Burns, Minnie Pearl, Minnesota Fats, and Mickey Mantle). You can join The Bones by submitting your own farewell and, of course, buy the T-shirt, which is quite charming. Be the first one on your block to hang with the Grim Reaper. (On the Web, I mean.)
Overall Rating: 16
Baked Lays: The Chip that Roared
URL: http://www.worldvillage.com/wv/feature/bakedlay.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The Decline of Western Civilization, continued: Someone with the unlikely name of Joel "I Can Never Eat Just One" Comm has done an excellent job of marketing Frito Lays' latest entrant in the snack food category, a low-fat creation called Baked Lays. His story, told in loving detail, follows the purchase and consumption of a bag of these goodies, complete with photos of couch potato on couch (Joel himself, perhaps?) devouring them. Scores of testimonials by fans/addicts follow, including the compelling remark by a trio of supermodels: "You can eat like one of the guys and still look like one of the girls." If Frito-Lay didn't invent Joel, they should have.
Overall Rating: 15
WWWench
URL: http://www.publicshelter.com/wench
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Filmmaker (*Atomic Cafe*) and writer, Jayne Loader, is our WWWench, who provides a weekly (more or less) diary of her exploits and thoughts. The best part of her quirky tales is the links. From a paragraph describing an Italian dish made of pig lard, for example, you jump to a Miss Piggy page. Because she stopped in Turin, Italy, you jump to a Biblical scholar's discussion of the Shroud of Turin. As she attended a film fest marking ten years since Chernobyl, so you go to a nuclear accident protest site. And so on. Full of good black humor, the Wench has managed to turn out an engaging tale of her life and times.
Overall Rating: 15
How to Toilet-Train Your Cat
URL: http://www.greyware.com/authors/karawynn/toiletcat.htp
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Talk about public service and the end of kitty litter. Karawynn Long has detailed for cat-lovers the world over how to train your own little Felix to use the toilet just like humans do. Complete with pictures, the site's engaging tone and practical advice will definitely put some cats (and their owners) through some serious changes. You can also link to Karawynn's cat training FAQ and - just to show she's not biased - her Puppy Pages.
Overall Rating: 15
Crave Media
URL: http://www.crave.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Wouldn't you know it? Crave leaves you craving for more of their stuff. Crave is a Web/multimedia design shop in Toronto, and they've created terrific sites for some cool clients including the influential Toronto International Film Festival and the innovative CityTV/MuchMusic/Bravo TV site, among others. Though you can admire their work, Crave's site is really meant as a way to show off for their new business prospects. Clean and well-designed as it is, there are not enough samples of their work, and not enough other interesting links to warrant a lengthy visit.
Overall Rating: 16
PhotoNet
URL: http://www.photonet.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
A good idea poorly executed, the PhotoNet site touts a new service by which film is digitally processed so that your photos can be used on the Web, for personal pages or classified ads. You have to comb through several links to find out even this much, though, let alone where to find dealers to process your film, how to view proof sheets, and so on. Unfortunately, PhotoNet is not quite ready for prime time: the only dealers listed are in Maine, Georgia and Israel; the promised software to store, edit or morph photos isn't really up yet; the classifieds displaying photos are skimpy at best. Better to wait till there are more dealers and more applications before taking the PhotoNet plunge.
Overall Rating: 15
Haworth
URL: http://www.haworth-furn.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Haworth designs and sells office furniture, from the lowliest cubicles to top executive power desks. Here you'll find artful images of attractive office setups (these are big files, so be patient), displays of the company's various product lines, and info on Haworth services including customized configuration, planning, and design. If you really like the looks of what you see here, hey, go to the Haworth job listings, or to their page of other links for furniture and design professionals. There's also a page of links to furniture trade shows for the cognoscenti.
Overall Rating: 14
Vivid Studios
URL: http://www.vivid.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Five years ago, Vivid published books on computer topics. Then the Web hit, and the firm turned into a Web (and CD) studio. Their corporate site takes you to a good selection of client work (3Com, Windows 95, J. Walter Thompson, Bell Atlantic) and some pro bono projects like the Names Project AIDS Quilt. A friendly tone keeps you on site, as does the monthly calendar of Internet/multimedia/interactive trade shows (there are a million of them these days) with links and an annotated bibliography of seminal books that Vivid recommends. You can even study a map of their "grimy" hood, San Francisco's "South of Market," the epicenter for multimedia development. A good place to study Web design in action.
Overall Rating: 16
Market Visibility, Inc.
URL: http://www.mvisibility.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Lauren Guzak
Companies for Sale! Get 'em while they're hot. Or not. This is a site for those itching to trade, and the goods here are business concerns. Though it has other features, (many of them not quite in place, but "coming soon") like gratuitous sports links and weather updates, the real thrust here, if I read it right, is buying and selling companies. You remember, the big sport of the `80's? In fact, that's what this one feels like: A sports page. Interesting in an odd way, but not for everyone.
Overall Rating: 15
Artists Online
URL: http://www.onlineart.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
While Artists OnLine offers works from an established pool of 100 artists, I would have to equate my experience here with buying fine art at a strip mall. No flash, no sass, no flavor. I cringed as I came face-to-face with the default hyperlink blue surrounding a lush acrylic painting. One redeeming factor here is the super snazzy search engine, which allows you to look for art by mood: macabre, say, or chaotic. Slick. The site has potential, but it needs a bigger pool of artists, navigational redesign, and a more complimentary way to display mode.
Overall Rating: 15
The Electric Playground
URL: http://www.elecplay.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
This online magazine features news and reviews on console games (like the PlayStation and Saturn) as well as PC info. The site is well laid out, but not updated as frequently as some others, like Happy Puppy, Next Generation Online, or Game Spot, to name a few. Still, for an enthusiastic view of the industry, as well as the occasional hot preview (they jump on some things that a lot of people miss), this is a worthy addition to your bookmark list.
Overall Rating: 15
This is X Band!
URL: http://www.xband.com
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Interested in the X Band dedicated gaming service, for PC games, or the X Band multiplayer gaming service for 16-bit console games like the Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo? This site gives you the skinny. X Band PC isn't up and running yet, but it should be by the time you read this, at least in Beta. Plus, they have a spiffy graphic design sense. Worth a quick visit on that basis alone.
Overall Rating: 15
The Gamer's Ledge
URL: http://www.gamepen.com/ledge/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Although there is some info here on cheats for games, and a little bit of news, and some nice links, the real emphasis here is on reviews, and, more importantly, demos. There is almost a CD-full (over 500 MB) of PC downloads available at this site, and that alone makes it a good one-stop shopping spot for gamers with a fast connection and a desire to play the latest games.
Overall Rating: 15
FDR Cartoon Collection
URL: http://www.wizvax.net/nisk_hs/departments/social/fdr_html/FDRmap.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
This worthy high-school project puts some 30,000 cartoons dealing with Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration online. A work in progress, it suffers from some design inconsistencies and explanatory text is supplied in some sections but not in others. The cartoons themselves vary in quality and range in theme from perennial political issues to war chestnuts like the one of Mr. Average American standing on Hitler's chest, tightening a belt around the Fuhrer's neck until his tongue and eyes pop out.
Overall Rating: 15
Nunamuit
URL: http://www.nsbsd.k12.ak.us/villages/akp/nuna1.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Documenting the Nunamiut people of Anaktuvak Pass, this slice of indigenous Alaskan culture stands out for its gorgeous, artfully presented images. The photographic Journey Through Time shows how Nunamuit shelter, clothing, and transportation have evolved using a thoughtful arrangement of thumbnails, so you can view the whole exhibit at once, then click on individual images to enlarge them. Select the museum icon to view exhibits on local history and ethnography, or *Nunamuit Today* for a portrait of contemporary culture. The text can be a tad superficial, but the beauty of the site makes up for it.
Overall Rating: 17
The PIXPage
URL: http://www.kpix.com/index.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The PIXPage is the online extension of San Francisco's KPIX Television and Radio stations. Its remote control image-map points to the latest Bay Area news, traffic and weather reports. There's also a searchable index of the Eyewitness News archives and a page that loads continuously updated photos from a studio camera that pans the skyline from the Golden Gate to the Bay Bridge. For those interested in Bay Area jobs, PIXPage also sponsors JobSmart, an online employment service for Northern California. All said, this site is a multi-linked, well-designed gateway to mainstream San Francisco news and then some.
Overall Rating: 15
BBC Multimedia Centre
URL: http://www.bbcnc.org.uk/the_centre/animenu.html
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
At this site, you'll find yourself staring at a wordless graphical interface that impels you to click on one of its several weird icons spun into motion by the progressive gif format. Clicking leads to Macromedia animations that reflect the Centre's mission "to explore the possibilities of interactive media, to better understand our role as broadcasters in the future." In the "loonoids" animation, a cluster of thriftstore instruments scatter across your screen to the arhythmic drone of an industrial soundtrack. Ever more daft animations abound. Since it's partly devoted to training BBC employees in the application of multimedia technology, the levity of the site would seem to foreshadow a strange new generation of British broadcasters.
Overall Rating: 16
WDTN Channel 2
URL: http://wdtn.com/wdtn
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Despite the fact that the Web is a globally distributed network transmitting vivid design ideas everywhere, Dayton's WDTN retains the drizzly aesthetic of the newsroom itself. Perhaps the designers should be applauded for their devotion to the old style. It's hard to say. In any event, this site is another competent, if unremarkable, shoveling of daily news and weather reports into hyperspace. The few perks include an expression of WDTN's take on computer culture: "Making Money on the Web." Also, locals can now send e-mail to the weatherman, whose satellite photos are the best thing about this site.
Overall Rating: 14
Comics Zone
URL: http://www.darknet.com/Motion/
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Comic Zone is the collaborative effort of Conception and Motion Comics, a pair of indie publishers emerging from the nascent Kansas City scene. Their site features bios and a gallery of samples from the various artists who have teamed up since the early nineties to produce company flagships *Captain Crafty*, and *Walt, the Wildcat*! The drawings on view are more than serviceable, but the marbleized purple backgrounds might be worth reconsidering. The colorless vertical frame that runs throughout these pages is also a bit of an eyesore. Nevertheless, there's a palpable sense of honest work in these pages, and I anticipate gradual but significant enhancements.
Overall Rating: 15
SingleFile
URL: http://www.singlefile.com
Category: Professional
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
SingleFile is a fee-based Web site for interior designers, decorators, buyers, and architects. There's a cap on what individuals pay ($30/hour, with $100/week max, and/or a $300/mo. maximum charge). For that, you get access to a searchable database of "thousands" of pieces of furniture, lighting and so on, presumably from a variety of manufacturers. The free sample data isn't much to go on, and the images (unless you're content with thumbnails) require precious download time. Still, if you want to find designer showroom listings, an industry calendar of events, info on accredited programs or showroom samples, this is a good stop, with a clean design and easy navigation.
Overall Rating: 15
Occupational Therapy Talk Back
URL: http://www.well.com/user/jwhitson/ot/talkback.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Hats off to one Tami Whitson, who wins today's "Spirit of the Web" award. You won't find advertising or any pitches here; Ms. Whitson is an occupational therapist who has made a site useful to occupational therapists, those in OT programs, or considering OT as a career. There's a lot of Q&A here, info on schools offering the degree; relevant links to sites and newsgroups; news on professional and technical developments (dated, thank you); and archives of articles and past correspondence with readers.
Overall Rating: 15
American Brewers Guild
URL: http://www.mother.com/abg/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Longing to open a microbrewery? Better check out the ABG page, where Dr. Michael Lewis, a professor emeritus of brewing sciences at U. Cal (Davis) offers a wide variety of diploma and certificate programs for hobbyists and professionals. Course descriptions, student comments, and a very thoroughgoing FAQ on ABG training programs are all here. There's also a list of breweries around the US that participate in the apprenticeship program. The only thing missing here is a page of links to other brewski sites, which would have rounded out the useful reading.
Overall Rating: 15
Professional Photographers of Houston
URL: http://www.ppgh.org/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
You won't learn much about photography or Houston at this site. It's apparently an abridged version of the group's (paper) newsletter, with one photo and technical legend per issue, along with, oh, the president's remarks at the last meeting, a membership form, a roster of members, and -- coming soon -- a sampler page of members' work. To their credit, the group links to a different photographer's association, the ASMP, as well as to the Professional Photographers' Association (national). I have to wonder, though, why they took the trouble to put up the page in the first place.
Overall Rating: 15
Unlock The Cypher
URL: http://www.2launch.com/cypher/CYPHER.HTML
Category: Literature
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
In the introduction, The Cypher is described as an "Interactive Cybernovel," Readers follow three separate story lines (which take place in 999, 1900 and 1999) to uncover all the twisted, supernatural mysteries of Castle Ravenshim, piecing together the stories from a collection of graphics, sound files and text (they can even trade e-mail with the main characters). Slick, sleek and attractive, The Cypher is a state-of-the-art of online multimedia experience. Unfortunately, the prose is pretty darn pulpy and the characters are as deep as flattened 8-bit GIFs. In other words, this Cybernovel contains more cyber than novel-either a positive or a negative quality, depending on your priorities.
Overall Rating: 17
Ever the Twain Shall Meet
URL: http://www.lm.com/~joseph/mtwain.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
This home-brewed site gives you the full text of *The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn*, *The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson* and *What is Man and Other Essays*, with each chapter on its own HTML page for easy browsing. It also provides links to other Twain-centered sites and downloadable zip files of a number of Twain's works. There's no analysis, biography or discussion, but if you have a sudden urge to hang with Huck and Jim, you can do so immediately right here.
Overall Rating: 14
Henry Rollins Stuff
URL: http://www.st.nepean.uws.edu.au/~alf/rollins/
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Looks like ol' Hank Rollins has a fan down under -- the University of Western Sidney, to be exact. There's plenty for this student to tell about the thick-necked, Renaissance man of punk. Rollins is not only a singer and writer, but a spoken word comedian for the black leather and combat boot set. Here, you can read reviews of Rollins' performances, check out his own sensitive-guy poetry, and groove to audio samples. There're also plenty of Rollins photos.
Overall Rating: 15
Genitorturers
URL: http://www.cris.com/~linenoiz/gen.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
A mainstay of the S/M-tinged industrial music scene, Genitorturers are bringing their nipple clamps to the Web. And, it's a slow and painful process (no pun intended!). While the design of their site is clean, the only things that aren't "coming soon" are song lyrics, a few images of Gen herself (nipple clamps intact) and, surprise, surprise, information for ordering merchandise. Seems like the promised song samples and press clips should have been a higher priority than the Genitorturers animated GIF logo, and, for the time being, I'd say fans are better off staring at a Genitorturers album cover while wearing a corset.
Overall Rating: 15
Grand Royal
URL: http://www.southern.com/grandroyal/
Category: Music
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
As any hipster in baggy jeans will tell you, Grand Royal is the umbrella tag for the Beastie Boys' record label and merchandising company. Here, you can check out hip hop vixens, Luscious Jackson, on SNL, sample cuts from the mad DJ Hurricane, and fill your calendar with Grand Royal artist tour dates. With plenty of PR and a lot of annoyingly inane attitude, this site is a sad example of the Beasties selling back the youth culture that spawned them. All that's missing is an official Grand Royal glossary of b-boy speak. You heard the record! You read the "'zine!" You bought the t-shirt! Now, see the Web site!
Overall Rating: 15
Drudge Report
URL: http://www.lainet.com/~drudge/
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Updated about every two days, the Drudge Report delivers basic news coverage from the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and others, while also offering information from primary sources on anything from recent earthquake readings in San Francisco to overnight ratings for NBC. The Drudge Report digs deep inside the mass of media choices and returns with popular columns such as Daily Variety's Army Archerd, Washington Post's Paul Gigot, and Chicago Tribune's Jim Warren. The Drudge Report also supplies off-the-hall tidbits, such as statistics on how many twentysomethings actually watch the evening news and articles as to why tongue piercing is popular in Los Angeles.
Overall Rating: 14
National Review
URL: http://www.townhall.com/nationalreview/
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
William F. Buckley has a home online and it's the Web edition of National Review. Fans of the conservative political magazine can read a small sampling of sections such as Dear Rusty and Crossroads from the latest newsstand issue. The site also offers daily updates and original commentary on issues surrounding the Clinton scandal, the 1996 elections, and income tax relief. Even with the famous columnists and well-written commentary, the site designers should take a look at Townhall, the site the magazine is hosted by for some notion of how stylish a Web magazine can be and see that conservativism does not have to be ugly.
Overall Rating: 13
The Unofficial Rush Page
URL: http://www.rtis.com/nat/pol/rush/
Category: Political
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Whether you love him or loathe the fat fellow, he's ubiquitous. A page created by the folks at radio station WTAW (who apparently weren't satisfied with just putting him on the airwaves), the Unofficial Rush site invites you to listen to sound files of the intro from Rush's radio show or follow an outside link to his tie company. There's all the predictable ranting and frothing here. Witness Rush's 35 Undeniable Truths: number eight is, "The most beautiful thing about a tree is what you do with it after you cut it down." Me, I guess I'd fashion a real pretty bat to hit Mr. Limbaugh over the head with.
Overall Rating: 13
Monk
URL: http://www.monk.com/Monk/
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Monk is where journalism meets the nitty gritty cities of America. For the most part, it is the travelogue of the monks, Jim and Mike, who wander from city to city detailing the latest in street lingo, regional drug use, drag queen escapades, and underground sites and sounds. The monks' tales feature titles like Freakin' In Frisco and Portland Kicks Butt. Not all of the articles are written by the monks, but all explain the goings-on in the cities the monks have visited. Unfortunately, the Web site does not contain anything in the way of video clips or sound.
Overall Rating: 15
Omni Online
URL: http://www.omnimag.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Artistically, Omni's home page is beautiful. The artwork leads the eye to a few top stories and a bulleted list of the Web site's sections. On the downside, the sections and content do not differ much from the newsstand version. Hyperlinks to several of its sections yield in-depth science articles and science fiction, with pictures that take much too long to load. Printed out, an Omni interview of astronomer Alan Stern was 17 pages. Who has time to read this online?
Overall Rating: 15
Illini Juggling and Unicycle Club
URL: http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/juggling
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
The Illini Juggling and Unicycle Club favors Sun Microsystem's HotJava Web Browser. So, be advised: if you don't have it, you won't be able to see any of the juggling animation. Illini offers step-by-step instructions for beginning jugglers, both able-bodied and disabled, of all ages. The group meets in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, on a weekly basis to practice everything from basic juggling skills, with three balls, to advanced skills, with 5 flaming, poisoned chainsaws. Just kidding. The site also provides links to other juggling sites and festivals.
Overall Rating: 15
The Museum of Television and Radio
URL: http://www.mtr.org/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
I suspect that what will intrigue archaeologists of the future most, digging through time-encapsulated layers of our garbage, are the mounds of discarded televisions in the trash heap. In fact, maybe my generation should swap that "X" nonsense for two new letters: Call us "Generation TV." Most of us, after all, were weaned straight from the bottle to the boob tube. So, while it may be the most maligned medium of our day, the television -- and the radio before it -- are important cultural foundations, like it or not. And the Museum of Radio and Television -- in New York and Beverly Hills, (where else?) -- will save those archaeologists a lot of trouble, archiving, as it does, broadcast history from its earliest inception to last night's Movie of the Week. The Web site functions as a publicity page for the museum, introducing the two physical locations, previewing exhibits online, and giving up-to-date information on the weekly schedule of events. Obviously, this is more valuable to New Yorkers and Los Angelenos than the rest of us, but if you're planning a visit, this will at least get you started. Concise descriptions are given for each of the museums featured exhibits, which currently include one on stand-up comics on TV and another on radio and televisions' role in chronicling recent history. The Listening Series features radio programming, with a tribute to the late George Burns, for example, and another devoted to baseball on the radio. If you can't make a show in time, don't fret, they'll always be available for viewing or listening at one of the museum's private consoles. The museum not only houses exhibits, but also offers research programs and artistic seminars, including one entitled "Individual Visions," with award-winning documentary film maker, Ken Burns. There's also a plea for help in finding certain "lost programs." Anyone have a copy of the NBC radio broadcast of the 1933 All-Star game? I should note that there's plenty of room for improvement here; at the moment there are no sound or video files available for download, nor can you perform an online search of the museum's archives. Still, it's an attractive, easily navigable site and makes for an interesting visit. TV and radio are the Digital Age's predecessors, remember, and we could learn a lot from the old "new media." The first lesson is this: the landfills of the twenty-first century will be filled with computers.
Overall Rating: 15
El Mundo Maya
URL: http://www.wotw.com/mundomaya/start.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
From the Maya morphing into a mask on the home page to the individually scrollable inset windows on its destination pages, this technologically savvy tour brochure is a masterful pitch for your vacation dollars. As such, it's also a sanitized view of the Maya and the world they inhabit--you wont' find any guerrillas in Chiapas. If you're intrigued by Mayan culture but don't know much about it, El Mundo Maya may whet your appetite for travel or study. If you're looking for substantive information about Mayan history and contemporary culture, you'll be looking in vain here.
Overall Rating: 17
Soundscape Gallery of Unique Audio + Video
URL: http://www.sonic.net:80/soundscape/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Unclear on their own concept, the folks at Soundscape Gallery in Santa Rosa, CA, have created a page of brochures about audio and video products they sell. Technophiles can read the specs (it helps to know model numbers) on stereo speakers, video cams, video projectors, stands and racks. No comparisons or consumer info here, unfortunately. If you're in the mood to buy, you can send email (unsecured) or call (M-F hours, some Saturday), and Soundscape will ship. For those in the know, this could be a useful place to collect hard data, but that's all.
Overall Rating: 13
AutoLink
URL: http://www.allcars.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Here's a good idea: list your used car for sale for the one-time cost of $24.95. You supply specs using long pop-up menus; a photo is optional. Prospective buyers can search by make, model, year, or price, and retrieve all the listings that match. The well-organized site was created by a group of sales and leasing outfits. As with most of the Web, the site will improve with a greater variety of listings and more locations (at present, it reflects Long Island, NY and not much else).
Overall Rating: 16
Good Stuff Cheap
URL: http://www.onramp.net/goodstuf/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If buying close-out bargains is your idea of heaven, get on over to Good Stuff Cheap, a well-designed site offering leftovers and finals of everything from stuffed animals to karaoke systems, "fun watches" to tackle boxes. Searchable menus let you create a "personal shopper" that will notify you when there are new products available in categories you pick. Order using email, fax, or an 800 number. For the undemanding and inveterate shopper, GSC could be fun.
Overall Rating: 15
Inns & Outs: The Bed & Breakfast Source
URL: http://www.innsandouts.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Whether you're a corporate executive seeking a secluded nook away from the conference or a budding entrepreneur with dreams of being a hotelier, Inns & Outs has information on about 15,000 bed and breakfasts and inns in North America. By plugging state or province names into a search engine, travelers can retrieve phone numbers and addresses for b & b's in that region. Inn owners can benefit from help areas, advertisements selling property or equipment, cookbooks, and a chat forum. Inns & Outs does not include information on hotel/motel chains. The site also includes "Win A Trip!" contests and bed & breakfast book reviews.
Overall Rating: 16
Madeleine's Homepage
URL: http://www.wineasy.se/bjornt/madde.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
Madeleine's Homepage is not without its problems. Admittedly, Madeleine Endre keeps her visitors posted on what doesn't work at her site, such as the counter and some of her pictures. However, what does work is her Lipstick Page. Categorizing cosmetic companies by country, providing names and styles of lip wear that models and actresses use, and providing on-line color swatches of everything from Clinque's "Applesauce" to Urban Decay's "Roach" lipsticks, Endre's Web site has lots of information on pucker colors and care. Hers is a great site to visit if you want to change lipsticks without being at the cosmetics counter.
Overall Rating: 15
SyddWare
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/jrsouza/realhome.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Diedra Ramsey
His name is Jeff, but call him Sydd. Jeffrey Souza is the Web designer for SyddWare, a home page that provides links to C Code Unix scripts and free application programs. (Yeah, technical stuff.) Sydd also has this thing for rubber duckies, pigs, cows and bugs. So, once you're done retrieving scripting tools, hop over to Sydd's Internet Zoo, which promises to have some fun attractions. SyddWare is easy to follow, but, aside from a few rubber duckies and bugs, it lacks graphics.
Overall Rating: 15
Bry'
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/BKPack/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Bry' s artful site displays his work -- cartoons, sketches, and paintings -- for anyone who cares to have a look. While these images and the overall design are nicely done, the end product is a bit of a pig, in terms of bandwidth, and I doubt very many Web surfers will invest the time necessary to appreciate it. In fact, some of the slow-loading, more pointless graphics -- like the cartoon series called, Contemplating the Sphere -- would try a monk's patience. It's a good effort, but like so much else out there, lacks vision.
Overall Rating: 16
Internet University
URL: http://www.internetuniv.com/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
Despite the academic-sounding title, enrollees at Internet University can enjoy a pleasing array of thoroughly meaningless diversions (sending surrealistic e-mail pizzas to friends, writing punchlines for goofy cartoons, and more). There are no actual courses at IU, and the 12 "departments" (Knowledge for College, Arts and Entertainment, Travel, Outlet Stores, etc.) are, in essence, a substantial, well-organized index of links, useful to all cravers of knowledge, especially college students. Basically, IU is an information clearinghouse, made more exciting by the possibility of superficial social activity and general silliness. In other words, it's an excellent representation of the modern college experience.
Overall Rating: 15
Planet Earth
URL: http://www.nosc.mil/planet_earth/info.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: MCM
Planet Earth, a self-described World Wide Web Virtual Library, is a straightforward, streamlined alternative to flashier commercial Web guide services. Its interface is graphically simple - a floor plan metaphor - and provides easy entry into the basic subject "rooms" ( the Reference Room, Multimedia Room, and Government Room, to name a few). Whether you're looking for a good search engine, a weather report or the address of a university, this overview of web-based resources will help you locate the information you need, without the distraction and delay of commercial sites' bells and whistles (and ads).
Overall Rating: 15
Travel in Washington
URL: http://www.travel-in-wa.com/HOME/WALT_HOME.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Chamber of Commerce type stuff here and a near miss for useful info. There are some ambitious features, like the interactive shockwave map of the state, the opening slide show, and the link to the Washington place names database, but none of it goes very deep and the navigational doesn't always make sense. Predictably, there's a thick gloss on subjects like unemployment of environmental degradation. This bit is from a section entitled Native American Heritage and Casinos: "Despite any injustices experienced by Northwest natives over time, the cultural identities of their tribes have managed to persevere. Today, to our benefit, the people continue to carry on their unique ancestral traditions and rituals." Bingo anyone?
Overall Rating: 16
Zen Koans
URL: http://lpd.uchicago.edu/users/johnlee/zen/zen.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Koans, (as best I can explain), are conundrums, anecdotes designed to clear the mind by forcing one to contemplate the inscrutable. I'll try to illustrate with a homespun example: A teacher of young children asks his students to form a line, to which they all respond in near-unison, "I want to be first! I want to be first! I want to be first!" "Very well," said the teacher, hardly pausing to think, "You be first, and you be first, and you be first." The children were thus satisfied and fell into line. A bystander asked the teacher if that was Zen. "Ask them," said the teacher. Well, for the real thing go to this dirt-simple page; it's a wonderful diversion from the mundane.
Overall Rating: 13
Jews for Jesus
URL: http://www.jews-for-jesus.org/index.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This site is like Henny Youngman preaching the gospels. The scrolling messages are hilarious: "Being born in a Christian home doesn't make you a Christian any more than being born in a bakery makes you a bagel." "If being born didn't give you much satisfaction, try being born again." The page design is hilarious: "Shalom from Jews for Jesus," reads the opening banner, the Star of David serving as the "o" in "for". The story of one Jew's conversion from Buddhism to Christianity is hilarious (Jesus, he says, "seemed to be an enlightened guy like myself.") In fact, the whole damned thing is hilarious. Only,...I think it's meant to be serious.
Overall Rating: 13
The Jesus Home Page
URL: http://members.aol.com/jesus316/index.htm
Category: Religion
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A clue for the sanctimonious, anything that starts with, "I'm Jesus Christ. I'm a messiah. This is my story" is a joke! Pagans, and perhaps those believers with a sense of humor, will find it all enormously amusing. Others will be wishing the creator of the page a long stint in Hell. In fact, you can read various responses to the page in the mailbag section -- to my mind, the funniest part of the site. "By the way," writes one perturbed soul, "the real JESUS CHRIST sits at the right hand of the FATHER, NOT surfing the net."
Overall Rating: 15
The Polar Regions
URL: http://www.stud.unit.no/~sveinw/arctic/
Category: Science
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Is there really a sign that lets you know when you're at the North Pole? Before packing your warm clothes, check out The Polar Regions site for plenty of information on both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Hint: Both are chilly. This site is a launch point for virtual explorers of the far north and far south. Links to maps, scientific resources, expedition reports are included in this cleanly-designed - if somewhat sparse - resource. And if you feel compelled to learn more, delve into the tourist information. Just make sure you're wearing long johns.
Overall Rating: 15
The Bionomics Institute
URL: http://www.bionomics.org/
Category: Science
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Forget that old "the economy is a machine" rap. The Bionomics folks liken the economy to an "evolving ecosystem" where each specialized company "works to survive in its market niche just as each individual organism works to survive in its ecological niche." Interesting right? With the book Bionomics by Michael Rothschild as its bible, the Institute hosts conferences, archives related material, and, basically, spreads the word. Here you can check out the preface of Bionomics, read articles about the concepts, and drop some cash for informational tapes. (Using Cybercash!) Bionomics is a meme to watch.
Overall Rating: 16
Game Theory
URL: http://www.pitt.edu/~alroth/alroth.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
In the simplest terms, Game Theory is a mathematical method to predict the outcome of any contests that result in winners and losers, such as war or business. But of course that's only the tip of the iceberg. If you want the real scoop on Game Theory as part of empirical economics, Professor Al Roth at the University of Pittsburgh is the numbers nrrrd to visit. Roth has posted dozens of his esoteric papers in this field, and combed the Web for other worthy resources. From the technical to the introductory, learn the science of the bargaining game on Roth's home page.
Overall Rating: 15
Rich Signell's Professional Page
URL: http://crusty.er.usgs.gov/rsignell.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Dr. Richard Signell is an oceanographer with the US Geological Survey, and even if you're not a scientist, his work seems pretty darned exciting. Some of the data can only be accessed by USGS machines, but then again, I wouldn't know what to make of that stuff anyway. Signell's beautifully animated simulations of the push and pull of the ocean is enough for me. (The clips are in Autodesk FLC format, rather than MPEG, allowing for much faster playback.) Especially trippy is the simulation of the upwelling in Massachusetts Bay during June of 1990. Much more interesting than watching my toilet flush.
Overall Rating: 16
SkyWings
URL: http://test.ebrd.com/SkyWings/Home.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
This abridged version of a monthly print magazine put out by the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association will definitely appeal to European fliers. There's a list of U.K. schools and clubs; back issues of the magazine are available and contain a wealth of information, like in-flight relief tips, pilot profiles, descriptions of memorable flights, news from Europe, and more. The down side is that the site is updated only every two months and there aren't any snazzy touches, like clips of actual flight.
Overall Rating: 15
Footbag Worldwide
URL: http://www.footbag.org/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
There are at least three ways to play footbag (also known as Hackey Sack), and this site provides photos, audio, and video clips to illustrate the techniques involved. The top of the home page features a handy navigation tool that takes you to listings of clubs, equipment, events, and players, plus a FAQ and a link to a listserv discussion group. The great use of multimedia here really brings the sport to life while capturing the enthusiasm of footbag enthusiasts. Still to come is an audio slide show, but as the site notes, the best way to learn this sport is from other people in real-time, real life.
Overall Rating: 16
Windsurfing Resources
URL: http://www.dsg.cs.tcd.ie/dsg_people/afcondon/windsurf/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
If you're a windsurfer, try this collection of resources created by a fellow boardhead. You'll be whisked to sites that provide guides to windsurfing in various spots (Corpus Christi, Maui, Israel, New Zealand). Also find archived discussions from the rec.windsurfing newsgroup, plus oodles of still pictures and a handful of MPEG movies. There are even instructions for creating a home-brewed anemometer. It's a simple page with minimal design, but it will get you you shreddin'.
Overall Rating: 14
Go Climb a Rock
URL: http://ic.net/~pokloehn/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
Go Climb a Rock is striving to fulfill the lofty ideal of becoming the Web's "most complete rock climbing resource." Climbers may find the Tips and Tricks section the most useful, with its lengthy pieces on everything from getting a rest and crosshooking to jamming and rappelling. The rest of the site is divided into a links area and a miscellaneous "everything else" section, which includes pictures, a dictionary, a shoe guide, and rankings of the top U.S. climbers. Perhaps as the site expands, so will the categorization of information.
Overall Rating: 14
iTools
URL: http://www.iTools.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Here you have a host of Internet tools in one convenient site. The research tools range from online dictionaries to stock quoters to a world atlas collated by the C.I.A. Some of these, like the uncanny anagram finder, are indispensable to all good citizens. There's also a page of search engines (the usual suspects) all lined up and ready to load. For recent web-authors, there's also a page of links that point to simple ways of promoting your website for free. With its elegant interface and interesting cross-section of tools, I'd say this merits a bookmark.
Overall Rating: 17
The Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci
URL: http://banzai.msi.umn.edu/~reudi/leonardo.html
Category: Art
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
An elegantly simple page with just 15 drawings by the Master, you won't find the Mona Lisa or The Last Supper here, but there's a list of other da Vinci sources which you can link to later. Many of the images on this page, at under 20K, are quick to download and the quality is uniformly excellent. As yet, there doesn't appear to be one all-inclusive site on the Web devoted to da Vinci's work, but this one, compiled by a researcher at the University of Minnesota, is at least a good start.
Overall Rating: 14
StarChild
URL: http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/starchild/
Category: Art
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Decidedly New Age, the StarChild site is adorned with all the usual iconography, complete with ankh, unicorn and solar eclipse. StarChild is a "multimedia opera" it seems, "...a vision of eternal love." Sort of like The Three Tenors in Xanadu, I guess. Not my kind of thing, but if you got a kick out of the harmonic convergence and like your opera with lots of high-tech sound and fury, then maybe this is the production for you. The site is an impressive piece of work, and will give you a taste of what your in for. Click on the ziggurat for ticket info.
Overall Rating: 17
Guinness Brewing
URL: http://www.guinness.ie/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Guinness site, in minimalist black-and-white, will have particular appeal for Guinness lovers, amateur brewers, and Shockwave enthusiasts. Upon entering, you can either "Visit the Local," or "Visit the Brewery." Skip the local, and go straight to the brewery (choose the Shocked version or come back when you have Shockwave). There you can learn everything there is to know about brewing, packaging, and the history of Guinness. While non-Guinness drinkers may enjoy the site for its technological flair, or even idle curiosity, I suspect only true stout aficionados will bookmark it.
Overall Rating: 17
W3-design
URL: http://w3-design.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
W3-design's home page illustrates the idea that "less is more." A Web site design firm, its own entry is understated, subtle, and serious. Rendered in muted greens, the site gives a refreshingly brief introduction to the firm and links to client home pages. A quick tour of their work shows it to be content-driven, boasting fewer bells and whistles than many other corporate sites. Not terribly exciting visually, it nonetheless possesses an elegant simplicity that allows content to outshine visuals.
Overall Rating: 16
The Power Line
URL: http://www.minuteman-ups.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
This site is about uninterrupted power supplies, plain and simple. If that's not of interest to you, don't go. But, if you're looking for information on Minuteman products, or have always wanted to understand the concepts of squarewave and pulse-width modulation, this is the place to be. Products are described in glorious technical detail, complete with photos and specs. The Power Quiz and Quote Request will help you determine your UPS product needs, and give you a price quote to boot. Promotions and gimmicks are kept to a bare minimum, and the graphics are clean, bold and straightforward.
Overall Rating: 17
Porn Flakes
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/stayfree/10/graham.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
Ideally, you should visit Porn Flakes in the morning, after enjoying a big bowl of corn flakes. Only then will you be primed to absorb the history of this baked breakfast staple. And oh what a twisted tale it is. That bowl you just consumed can be traced back to the cockeyed theories of an enema-loving 18th-century health spa baron and his opportunistic sibling. The Kellogg brothers (along with Battle Creek, Michigan neighbor C.W. Post) are the patriarchs of modern cereal culture, and Carrie McLaren pours out an informative, entertaining history on this page. She even provides a bibliography for further breakfast-time reading.
Overall Rating: 13
Flake World
URL: http://www.flake.com
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Flake World, the self-proclaimed "best cereal site on the web," is a stockpile of snap, crackle and pop-art from the past six decades. Flakemaster Scott Bruce serves up heaping helpings of cereal lore,. box shots, collector info and actual cereal items for sale. Grassroots grainiacs might have a hard time digesting, however, when they realize Bruce's previous identity was Mr. Lunchbox, the man whose lunchbox tribute book helped turn those rusting childhood icons into high-priced collectible commodities. Perhaps this site will cause a similar overvaluation of cereal boxes, but at least you can enjoy some whole-grain goodness in the process.
Overall Rating: 16
Beard Research
URL: http://mudhead.uottawa.ca/~pete/beard.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Is the Beard Research Site the online epitome of interdisciplinary science, merging the studies of meteorology, physics, biology, anatomy, psychology and dermatology in one awesome all-encompassing experiment? Or is it perhaps an insidious piece of commercial subterfuge, cleverly engineered by Schick's corps of clean-cut HTML masterminds under the guise of a "homebrewed" web page? Or did your pal Pete Hickey just get bored one day, shave off half his beard, then dedicate a photo and some server space to tell the tale? Lather up, scrape the site, and let us know what you think.
Overall Rating: 14
Cement Geese Clothes Museum
URL: http://www.sims.net/organizations/ksme/cement-clothes/gooseidx.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
The main problem with this site is that its potential market is already oversaturated. Let's face it, cement goose clothes are like those ubiquitous AOL disks -- everyone already has more of them than they know what to do with. However, if you're one of those maladjusted backwoods cave-dwellers who still doesn't own a single cement goose, or if any member of your flinty flock is underdressed (or indecently exposed), peck this page immediately. Rifle through the jpegs of stylish goosewear for all moods and seasons, then make your online purchase in an instant.
Overall Rating: 15
Bodies, INC
URL: http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/concrete/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
The Bodies INC project is part of a larger artistic endeavor that ponders the blurry lines between the physical world and the silicon-based pseudo-real dimension created by computers. Most of the 25,000-plus people who've hit this site, however, are probably just interested in the chance to create a customized, stylized cyber-body that they can receive electronically within a couple of weeks. The body construction variables are impressive (age, weight, sex, sexual preference, shape, texture, extremity manipulation, and much more) but as of print time the site was too new to have any of the finished products on display. We'll be back soon.
Overall Rating: 16
Jackovac's Peoples Gallery
URL: http://www.netm.com/art/
Category: Art
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
We don't know who Jackovac is, but we do know the Jackovac People's Gallery encourages any artist to display photos, prints and paintings here. There's a small selection of works within a nicely-designed site, but not enough information. You choose the artist whose four or five selections are listed by name only, so it's strictly luck of the draw as to what you'll see. There are no artist bios, or info on finding their works off the Web. Even so, Jackovac's space is pleasant enough if you just want a text-free visual art break.
Overall Rating: 15
The International Gallery of Art
URL: http://london-net.com/art/highhome.htm
Category: Art
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Anticipating a downpour of business, the IGA has built a large umbrella site where you can bid on auction art, browse (and buy) in galleries, get creative tips or take a lesson in art appreciation. Only trouble is, there's not a lot of substance under the umbrella yet. The searcher for viewing art by styles or media yields few to no choices. The published Q&A section is skimpy, the links are mostly to Internet directories (not other galleries), and there's only one affiliate gallery link. IGA does thoughtfully present thumbnail images, so downloading what is there is at least tolerable.
Overall Rating: 16
Burton Snowboards
URL: http://www.burton.com/mainmenu.htm
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Geared to the already-hip-on-the-concept, Burton Snowboards touts its product line, of course, but offers a few tidbits more. The company has been in the powder-riding biz a long time; check out the first board made in 1978. Read interviews with champion boarders, learn the lingo, and link to rec.skiing.snowboard (and more web sites). There's a page of news from various tourneys and snowboard triumphs, but the news is old, and there are no people pictures apparent, which would add to the fun.
Overall Rating: 16
Chiquita Online
URL: http://www.chiquita.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Do you crave info on the ubiquitous banana? Chiquita Online is an excellent resource: you'll find trivia and factoids, history, geography ("Banana Producers of the World" is one page), even info about licensing the Chiquita brand name. Then there's the Chiquita jingle, which in its heyday became a pop hit, and banana nutrition tips. What's missing? Recipes. (There are just two on the whole site, and no links to others.) Aside from that, it's good fun visiting with our potassium-rich friend.
Overall Rating: 15
Arthritis Foundation
URL: http://www.arthritis.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
For those people dealing with arthritis, every bit of good information helps, and the Foundation is a fine place to begin. Learn about research progress, helpful organizations worldwide, and sample articles from Arthritis Today magazine. An effective search feature helps you look for information on exactly what ails you. The disclaimer at the bottom of the page reads "the information provided by the Arthritis Foundation should not take the place of advice and guidance from your own health-care providers." Maybe so, but it sure can't hurt.
Overall Rating: 15
Doctorline
URL: http://doctorline.com
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Looking for a new doctor? How about some health insurance? Doctorline is a medical services directory that will guide you to a physician in your state and health maintenance organizations, with a little helpful background on how they operate. Learn what common medical terms like nephrology and thoracic mean, or call a toll free health line for quick advice. Doctorline is well designed and maintained, but I tell you what: if I need to get my hemorrhoids removed I'm going with a personal reference.
Overall Rating: 15
National Stroke Association
URL: http://www.stroke.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
If you have a loved one who has suffered a stroke, or just want to know what "stroke" really means, the NSA is a good resource to begin your online education. Take the stroke factors quiz and find out what you're chances are of having a so-called "brain attack." You can also contact one of the many support groups, volunteer for NSA, or look into the myriad resources the organization offers. A stroke in the family is extremely difficult to deal with, but as this site makes clear, you are not alone.
Overall Rating: 15
The Alternative Medicine Home Page
URL: http://www.pitt.edu/~cbw/altm.html
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
From the Falk Library of Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh comes this huge collection of links to alternative medicine resources. According to the page, that means unconventional, unorthodox, unproven, complementary, innovative, or integrative therapies. Via this well-organized collection of sites, you can find out how to join the arometherapy mailing list, see if Acupuncture is right for you, or find help in deciding whether kombucha tea is worth brewing. These subjects are considered to be total pseudo-science in some circles, the safest and most effective forms of medicine in others. Decide for yourself.
Overall Rating: 15
Professor Skurray's Food and Nutrition
URL: http://hotel.hawkesbury.uws.edu.au/~geoffs/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
From Australia's University of Sidney comes Professor Skurray and the Centre for Advanced Food Research. In this meager site, you can find information on reccomended daily allowances of nutrients, dietary guidelines for Australians, and a paper about the chemistry of sports drinks. And, of course, a few links. That's about it. The funky formatting of the text makes some of the papers nearly unreadable, which is only good if you're on a low-information diet.
Overall Rating: 14
The Queue
URL: http://www.thequeue.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Queue has a lot to offer in the way of enthusiasm and garish Web page design. Queue has even taken the time to implement a Java applet that puts an LED marquee display on the home page. Really,...whoever initially programmed that applet should be shot for aesthetic crimes. For content, Queue has reviews of computer role-play games, but judging by the plethora of stars in the ratings, Queue is too easily impressed. Still, if you want to get some idea of what games are available, this is an informed source. And on the flip side of the game site is some very interesting information on multi-user VR worlds.
Overall Rating: 14
The Independent Film Channel
URL: http://www.ifctv.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I've been calling my cable provider almost weekly requesting the Independent Film Channel. Until they come through for me though, I'm stuck drooling over the listings. Unfortunately, the IFC Web site doesn't offer much more than an annotated TV Guide--plenty of hype about the channel and (yippee!) more program information. Besides, too many Frame dividers make the Independent Film Channel page look like a TV dinner. Unless you're lucky enough to find something interesting in the "Craft Services" classifieds area, or a link that you haven't seen before, your time would be better spent calling your cable company and demanding the channel itself.
Overall Rating: 15
Business Monitor Online
URL: http://www.businessmonitor.co.uk/
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
For Business Monitor's intended audience -- people involved in international trade and investment -- this site may be a boon: Where else can you find intellectual property rights specialists in countries around the world, along with reports on offshore financing and detailed analyses of business-related legislation in foreign nations? Browsers, however, are likely to be repelled by the unappealing presentation (fuzzy graphics, extreme yellowness) and daunting lists. If you're visiting this site, you probably know what you want; you'll get it a lot faster if you go directly to the Data Search option, which lets you select by country and topic.
Overall Rating: 15
PR Newswire
URL: http://www.prnewswire.com
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
If the company line is what you want, here's where to get it. This site lets anyone who cares to wade through the flood of press releases PR Newswire distributes to the general media, trade publications, and the financial community. Click on the Company News icon to search PR Newswire's member list and read your chosen company's latest pronouncements, or just browse any of five Industry News categories. You won't find anything critical here, but the site can help you keep up with product introductions, alliances, shareholder meetings, and the like. For a little perspective check out the columns by various financial writers in the Money Talks section.
Overall Rating: 15
Small Business Administration
URL: http://www.sbaonline.sba.gov
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
This is a huge storehouse of resources, but variations in quality and relevance along with weak organization and design, make slogging through it a chore. The Quick Access Toolbar, presumably intended to make access easier, is a laugh: The icons are blurred to indecipherability. To get information about your local SBA office, take advantage of the option to search by state rather than clicking through the numerous levels. And if you're seeking advice, head straight for the SBA gopher, which contains a long list of substantive articles ranging from How to Start a Small Business to Cash-Flow Analysis and Marketing Strategies for the Growing Business.
Overall Rating: 14
The Small Business Journal
URL: http://www.tsbj.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Articles in The Small Business Journal are written by professionals in fields related to the topic at hand, an arrangement that, according to the journal's producers, means you get the benefit of a far deeper knowledge base than "straight reporting" can provide. Usually this approach also means that a publication is getting the articles free in exchange for their promotional value, and therein lies the rub -- sometimes you get useful, expert advice, sometimes you get self-serving dross. True to form, Small Business Journal has a little of both, but with a bit of patience, you can find some solid information here.
Overall Rating: 15
Small & Home-Based Business Links
URL: http://www.ro.com/small_business/homebased.html
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Riffle through the virtual filing cabinets here and you'll come up with lists of links to online resources in six categories. Some sections are more meaty than others: The Reference and Marketing lists are strong, while the Services links seem too disparate and limited in number to be of much use. I had to wonder about the screening process when an Opportunity link described as an "excellent business opportunity!" took me to a cheesy come-on reminiscent of late-night TV: "WARNING: This Page Could Change Your Life!!!!!" Still, this is a good place to begin exploring online resources for small businesses.
Overall Rating: 15
StreetNet
URL: http://www.streetnet.com
Category: Finance
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Pop into StreetNet for a quick stroll through the stock market. The market summary gives you closing figures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange, and various composite indexes; the free stock-quote feature delivers speedily; and links connect you to major exchanges and several financial newsletters. Although the content is broad, it's not necessarily deep -- the "comprehensive" Public Companies Index lists only two companies under R. The Industry Profiles Library, however, gives you access to past and current articles on trends in 24 business categories, considerately warning you when the article you've selected is long.
Overall Rating: 15
Fruit Stickers
URL: http://pharmdec.wustl.edu/juju/Fruit/fruit.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Your average fruit consumer doesn't pay much mind to the bite-sized bit of graphic art right before his/her eyes. Now, thanks to this site, you can appreciate those stickers (on melons, apples, persimmons, bananas, etc.) for what they are: petite, pleasing posters with bold logos, vivid colors and mascots galore. From the extensive Chiquita archives to the seasonal collections, fruit sticker stalkers take their pursuit seriously without trying to turn it into the next collector's fad. The bytes needed for such a fruity display makes for a slow download, but you can always enjoy a banana or two during the lag time.
Overall Rating: 15
The Cable Guy
URL: http://thecableguy.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Personally, I'd rather run my knuckles down a cheese grater than spend time watching Jim Carrey -- all that hyperkinesis gets on my nerves. Aside from a few AVI's, however, this site is relatively (and mercifully) free of Jimbo's hysteria. A Sony Online production, the Cable Guy page is predictably clean and packed with stuff -- soundtrack samples, still shots, production notes, etc. There's even a VRML chat room, provided you can run the software. Skip the Java option on the opening page, though, unless you're one of those people who just can't bear to miss out on anything. Trust me, you won't.
Overall Rating: 15
Mr. Cranky Rates the Movies
URL: http://internet-plaza.net/zone/mrcranky/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Mr. Cranky hates everything. Or so it would seem. Read a few reviews though, and it's pretty apparent that the whole *surly critic* thing is a pose, a ploy to get a lot people's passions stoked. Judging from the e-mail response, it works. You are invited, even encouraged, to flame Mr. Cranky whenever the spirit moves you. I found him pretty funny, but then I'm easily amused by wicked insults and irreverent slurs. There's no telling just who Mr. Surly is; for now the critic/provocateur hides behind the nome de guerre.
Overall Rating: 15
Cinema Muerto
URL: http://users.aol.com/Cinemam/muerto.htm
Category: Film
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Devoted to bad films, this is a cinematic hall of shame. As such I was expecting more yucks and snorts than I got. The criticism was actually kind of flat if not *muerto* itself. After all, everyone knows that Cliffhanger was a bad film and that Sylvester Stallone is a dork (even Stallone knows it). But what can you say beyond that? The "How to Watch Bad Films," bit is mildly amusing, though still nothing special. "Endurance is the key," the editor assures you, to gleaning "the pearls of wisdom which make all bad movies so much fun." For more (better) ideas on that, see *Couch Potatoes*.
Overall Rating: 13
International Food Information Council
URL: http://ificinfo.health.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
IFIC alleges to be a non-profit group devoted to providing sound, scientific information on food and nutrition. I read through some of the information and, I don't know, but it all seemed pretty sanguine to me, as if the real charter of the organization were to allay any fears you might have concerning genetic engineering, food colorings, dioxins, and the rest. "The FDA and the EPA have it all under control," they seem to be saying. "Now, you just enjoy those deep red tomatoes there, or try a slice of that seedless watermelon? And, say, have you tried the soylent green?" I tell you what: I wasn't paranoid about the food before, but now I'm not so sure.
Overall Rating: 13
Gamer's Zone
URL: http://www.worldvillage.com/wv/gamezone/html/gamezone.htm
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
Part of the World Village, "a virtual community focused on the home computing experience," it has game reviews, features, a site-of-the-day page, live chat and downloads. You can also play non-Java games, including a 3-D maze game and the old "dots" game we used to waste time on in high school. Although the site of the day is up-to-date, not much else is. That's unfortunate, as the infrastructure here looks solid. Most of the reviews are old, with only a few features. Similarly, the downloads are not the hottest commercial demos, but straight shareware. In a sense, you know, that's kind of refreshing. Ultimately, however, while the games are nice technology demos, even on a T1 connection they're too slow to be playable.
Overall Rating: 15
The Cheater's Guild
URL: http://www.inetport.com/~kenb/cg.htm
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
A nifty little fan-page, it gives you a list of hundreds of PC titles, with detailed codes for each one. One purpose, simple layout, well-executed. There are also some postings from readers, a game-of-the-month, book-of-the-month, cheat-of-the-month and dirty trick-of-the-month, as well as a couple of downloadable PC utilities of the naughty fun variety. The layout leaves a little to be desired, but hey, the editor just got married, so I guess we can cut him some slack.
Overall Rating: 14
Casino Card Games
URL: http://ns.marble.net:8081/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This is a weird one. It's called Casinos of the South Pacific, and on it you can play 5 games -- 5 dice slots, "J" slots, 3 x 3 slots, Poker and BlackJack. It's just for fun, of course -- no real cash or anything -- and the page stores the high scores. The games are pretty fun. Some require JAVA, some don't. For me, the question is why? Why are these games here at all? There's no answer or explanation given on the site. So never mind, I guess. Just check `em out. They're fun.
Overall Rating: 15
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
URL: http://pharos.bu.edu/Egypt/Wonders/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Everyone knows about them, sure, but how many could name them from memory? Maybe that ignorance is due to the fact that six of them no longer exist - one may even have been a figment of excitable literary imaginations. That would be the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, number two on what this site calls the "canonical" list of seven wonders, compiled during the Middle Ages. Artist renderings show you what the vanished structures might have looked like, and a photo of the lone survivor, the Great Pyramid of Giza, testifies to its remarkable endurance. Accompanying descriptions fill you in on the history and vital statistics.
Overall Rating: 16
Hill Monastic Manuscript Library
URL: http://www.csbsju.edu:80/hmml/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Listen to Gregorian chants and examine the fancifully illustrated pages of handwritten books at the electronic branch of this archive and research library devoted to medieval manuscripts. Hill has microfilmed more than 25 million pages in an effort to ensure that they survive should the originals be lost to fire, flood, theft, or war. You can sample the library's holdings in the Sights and Sounds section, which offers generously sized images as well as various audio files. On the downside, you'll need the erudition of a monk to understand these images - there's little commentary to help you make sense of them.
Overall Rating: 15
Gutter Tribe
URL: http://www.auschron.com/gallery/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Sponsored by the alternative newsweekly, The Austin Chronicle, Gutter Tribe is the result of photojournalist Jana Birnbaum's six weeks of hanging out with homeless youths on the streets of Texas's capital city. The site's two galleries offer a poor choice: one-bit black-and-white images, or large, eight-bit, grayscale images recommended only for those with fast network connections. The one-bit images that most viewers will see are so flat and toneless that they lack power; the photographer's statement and the story that accompanied the piece provide a better sense of the kids' living conditions than the photographs do, as well as their conviction that they've found the ultimate freedom.
Overall Rating: 14
Whitehouse for Kids
URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/kids/html/home.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Hey there kids, go knock on the big front door at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Socks, the Clinton family cat, will be glad to give you a tour and the rundown on all the former four-legged residents. Let's see, there was Amy Carter's cat, Misty Malarkey Ying Yang, Lyndon Johnson's vociferous beagles, Him and Her, and Caroline Kennedy's pony, Macaroni. There were even two goats: a billygoat that belonged to Benjamin Harrison's son, and a scapegoat that belonged to the Reagans. Their spaniel, Rex, it seems, would often pull the President away from reporters before he could answer their questions. Bad dog, Rex.
Overall Rating: 16
Madlibs!
URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/madlib
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
You know, madlibs. You submit a verb, a number, a few modifiers and come up with something profound and/or insane, like: Writing a review is a very bloated task. You stay up for 203 hours and then you sleep for eleven hours. You obfuscate, you tabulate, and then you rectify. If your hedonistic copyeditor is a coconut, then you will have to tarnish your review, or at least pray to the blue cigarettes of Review. With any luck, after 1001 years, you will have a minty review. Either that, or you will be kicked out to live in the jam tart where you will be forced to work as a pamphleteer.
Overall Rating: 13
Hands On Children's Museum
URL: http://www.wln.com/~deltapac/hocm.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
This homey Web site can be divided into three main subjects: the Hands On Children's Museum; the city of Olympia, Washington; and Ocean Odyssey, their current featured exhibit. The Ocean Odyssey section has a comprehensive listing of links related to all things aquatic, including: underwater photos; environmental groups; the Titanic home page; and *Moby Dick* and *Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea* online (which might not appeal to parents who pay for Internet access by the hour). If you are planning a visit to Olympia, and/or the museum, check out this site for all the pertinent information.
Overall Rating: 15
6th Grade Brain Bank
URL: http://www.zygomedia.com/61wc/
Category: Kids
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
As his Science Fair project, Patrick White has created this "homework home page," containing links to homework-help sites all over the world. Patrick has found some interesting sites, but their overall effectiveness is diluted by links that are either too esoteric (do sixth graders really have use for the Rosicrucian Fellowship Archive?), or not really applicable (the Cyber Math Help Room sounds impressive, but is actually the Michigan State University Math Department's home page). Of the six links I tried, three were no longer functioning. While it's a nice idea, there are lots of other kids' sites containing more relevant information.
Overall Rating: 15
Screenwriters and Playwrights
URL: http://www.teleport.com/~cdeemer/scrwriter.html
Category: Professional
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
A site made up entirely of links to other sites, it does a pretty good job as a resource for screenwriters, playwrights, and other writers as well. While not plentiful, the links are meaty (I detest wading through dozens of links searching for substance, anyway). You'll find pointers to writing samples, tips from the pros, personal stories and experiences, reviews, and Strunk and White's *The Elements of Style.* One particularly interesting link is "Writers on the Net," an organization offering online writing classes. C-2 A-2 T-2
Overall Rating: 15
Web Promote
URL: http://online-biz.com/promote/
Category: Professional
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Web Promote provides assistance with registering your site with some of the major search engines on the Internet. Services offered consist of: links to ten popular search engines, and "Promote Assist," which ostensibly submits your URL to some of the more popular indices, catalogs, and "what's new" lists on the net. Unfortunately, when I attempted to use "Promote Assist" (on two separate days), the server was not functioning. While the design is visually pleasing, and the service is free, I suspect there are a number of sites providing a similar service more effectively. C-2 A-2 T-2
Overall Rating: 15
Intentional Communities
URL: http://www.well.com/user/cmty/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Intentional Communities is a clearinghouse for information on collective living options, including ecovillages, communes, residential land trusts, urban housing cooperatives, and other group living situations. Check here for a calendar of conferences, and even read Communities: The Journal of Cooperative Living. Plain of design, but well-organized and comprehensive, this site is a fine resource for those choosing collective living. This was how we lived in the past. Is it time to return to those roots? After all, home is where the hearth is!
Overall Rating: 15
Duckman
URL: http://www.duckman.com
Category: Media
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
This Shockwave-enhanced online home to the webbed creature who lives in TV land has just enough "multimedia" to satisfy Duckman addicts until the next episode. Click from page to Shocked page for a Duckman fix as you explore this virtual cartoon with dozens of different scenes. Well-designed and a fine demonstration of Shockwave, but content only a Duckfan would love.
Overall Rating: 16
San Francisco Aquarium Society
URL: http://members.aol.com/sfas/index.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The San Francisco Aquarium Society is a group of hardcore aquarists that hosts meetings, shows, and publishes a monthly newsletter. If you can barely keep one goldfish alive, it probably would be a good idea to check out one of their meetings before you empty your wallet on a 50 gallon salt water outfit. Meeting schedules and membership information is available on the site, but there is a definite lack of informational resources for the aquarist here. And that's pretty fishy. (I couldn't resist.) If you're not into aquariums already, this site won't pique your interest.
Overall Rating: 14
Bob's Rock Shop
URL: http://www.rtd.com/~bkeller/rockshop/rockshop.html
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Lapidary hobbyists take note: Bob's Rock Shop claims to be the first online magazines for rockhounds. Browse through a collecting site catalog for the US, mineralogical articles and essays, and upcoming show dates--if you're really lucky, you might find someone willing to part with that Cubic Galena Crystal you need for your collection. But Bob's real draw is the more than 150 beautiful mineral specimens displayed in the online gallery. From now on, I'm keeping an eye on the ground.
Overall Rating: 15
Wine Country Gourmet
URL: http://www.winegourmet.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Looking for some garlic stuffed Sevillanas Olives? How about hot pepper jellies? If you can't make it to the California Wine Country, this online shop will deliver those and other fine (and unusual) products to your door. At a loss as to what to do with distinctively California cuisine ingredients like fruit chutneys? Don't be too embarrassed. After all, recipes are provided on the site just for that purpose. Chutney Spiced Gingerbread sounds especially tasty. Order online or call the 800 number. And don't forget the vino, sold separately.
Overall Rating: 15
Illuminations
URL: http://marlowe.wimsey.com/~rshand/illumine.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The author is a professional Web page designer and a Canadian Vietnam vet with decided leanings toward the mystical and mysterious. His site dabbles in everything from combat memoirs to a speculative piece on the historical Jesus, complete with animations. His portfiolio is also part of the site. Visitors are surveyed as to what they'd most like to see integrated into the page called *Underground Streams*. Choices include Freemasonry, UFO's, and other such topics. Fans of Leonard Nimoy's *In Search Of* will probably find this one riveting. Realists may be bemused.
Overall Rating: 16
Sex in America
URL: http://pathfinder.com/@@DkHarQUAtNmNNESV/twep/Little_Brown/Sex/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A book by the same title was published by Little, Brown and Co. and this page is designed as a promotion of it. Surprisingly bland in design (plain text on default grey), the site samples passages of the book, highlighted and hotlinked to graphics and charts. The statistics are boring, even grim -- anything but sexy. And you have to wonder how accurate the information really is. After all, how many people lie in such surveys? (Multiple orgasms? Sure, twice a day.) Still, if you want some quick facts on baseline sexuality, stop here and bone up.
Overall Rating: 13
The Open Center
URL: http://www.panix.com/~openctr/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A holistic learning center in the Big Apple?? Hmm...okay now, on the one hand, if you live in New York City, Lord knows you probably need to restore some balance to your life. On the other hand, if you are concerned about your wellness, being centered and like that, why the hell are you living in New York in the first place? Anyway, from Celtic Fairy studies (!?!) to Shiatsu massage, it's all here. The Web site is little more than a serviceable brochure of the center's classes and activities, but if you live in the cosmopolis and the grind has ground you down, maybe this is a good escape hatch.
Overall Rating: 15
Roald Dahl Page
URL: http://www.nd.edu/~khoward1/Roald.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Did you know that the author of *Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* served in the Royal Air Force? (Dahl was shot down over Libya at the age of 24.) Or that his books have been among the most frequently banned in American schools in the nineties? Biographical trivia of this sort, and photos, along with key primary texts (The Unofficial Oompa-Loompa Songbook), combine to make Kristine Howard's affectionate web devotional a rewarding site for young readers. One of the pages showcases reviews of Dahl's books written by children themselves, who are encouraged to contribute to this developing site. Aesthetics: 2 Content: 2 Smarts: 1
Overall Rating: 14
The Moor's Last Sigh
URL: http://www.randomhouse.com/site/rushdie/
Category: Literature
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Random House has built a glossy and somewhat shallow site to promote Salman Rushdie's latest novel. Dainty image-maps have been splashed all over and many of these pages are off-limits to people using text-based browsers, which seems ironic considering the force of Rushdie's words alone. If this doesn't affect you and you'd like to read some excerpts or look at the author's bio, these pages are worth a visit. Links will also lead you to a bulletin board, a RealAudio interview and a reader's guide for *The Moor's Last Sigh*.
Overall Rating: 14
The Universe
URL: http://www.lm.com/~kalin/author.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This labor of love is dedicated primarily to the French Surrealists. The splash page features a frantic shuffling of images of personalities from Michel Leiris and Robert Desnos to the ubiquitous Andre Breton. They and many others are briefly profiled next to an excerpt of their respective work. The anonymous web author behind these pages is revealed only in his or her admiration for Paul Valery, whose *Island of Xiphos* is rendered as a full-fledged interactive poem which they apparently find interesting enough to explore in depth.
Overall Rating: 16
AudioNet Talk Radio Guide
URL: http://www.audionet.com
Category: Media
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
AudioNet is a nifty site that takes you to schedules and audio clips from talk radio around the US: sports, news, politics, interviews, astrology, business, and more. AudioNet licenses its audio programming from hundreds of AM, FM and broadcast radio sources, and is available to listeners on demand using RealAudio (download it here). For college sports buffs, AudioNet even offers live broadcasts from some 50 schools. The service would be vastly improved by offering descriptions of the hosts and programs with each link, as most Web-listeners won't know a local station's call letters nor the names of the hosts.
Overall Rating: 16
Flyfishing.com
URL: http://flyfishing.com/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Flyfishing.com claims to be "*the* place to be when you're not on the water!" Portions of the site really are helpful to any fly-fisher. There are several message boards to browse, query and respond to; listings for lodges, guides, equipment manufacturers and retailers, conservation groups, books, and more. Some of these (e.g. lodges and guides) sport only a few listings. But there is a huge database of articles from 13 different flyfishing magazines dating from 1959, and scores of classifieds listing gear and services with respect to virtually every aspect of saltwater and freshwater flyfishing.
Overall Rating: 15
Austin Music
URL: http://www.quadralay.com/www/Austin/AustinMusic/AustinMusic.html
Category: Music
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
The main focus of this Southern-Fried site is to connect you with the home pages of as many Austin-based bands as possible. Austin has long been known as a hotbed of musical activity, and judging by the number of live links, Austinian rockers are pretty computer-savvy as well. Listings are divided into genre categories for your searching convenience, with a master alphabetical list to boot. If you live in or plan to visit the Austin area, the club listings and musician's resources might come in handy as well.
Overall Rating: 14
Addicted To Noise
URL: http://www.addict.com/issues/2.06/html/hifi/
Category: Music
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Addicted To Noise sports all the trappings of a successful rock and roll e-zine: in-depth features, up-to-date music biz news, record reviews, columns, chat, sound files and photos, all held together by a vivid, eye-catching graphical interface (rock poster madman Frank Kozik helped with the latest redesign). Unfortunately, ATN comes up short in the personality department. The articles tend to be a bit bland, low on attitude and incisiveness, and occasionally emit recycled-press-release fumes. It's a worthwhile stop for surfers seeking the sonic scoop, but don't expect to become addicted to Addicted to Noise.
Overall Rating: 16
WWW Massive!
URL: http://www.boomshaka.com
Category: Music
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Jah mon, I and I survive online too! Fans of the Los Angeles-based reggae outfit, Boom Shaka, might already be stoked by the band's online presence, but no craver of Afro-Caribbean grooves should pass up this site. It features a full compliment of band info (tour dates, member profiles, sound files, etc.), plus a Haile Selassie archive and a collection of poetry by Marcus Garvey. Don't miss the links list, which reaches out to a bounty of reggae sites and a plethora of related pages (everything from the Black Panther Coloring Book to Ethiopia Web).
Overall Rating: 15
Chalkhead Records
URL: http://www.chalkhead.com/
Category: Music
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Chalkhead is the sort of innovative enterprise you would expect on the Information Superhighway. They let you hear singles from bands that you would otherwise have no access to, then they let YOU choose the songs you want on your very own customized compact disc. The page itself is really cool. They go through a lot of trouble to explain their mission, and the sincerity shows right through. Chalkhead also solicits demos, DAT's, etc. from bands for possible sale on the Net. Drawbacks: 1) the page is useless without the technology to hear the music 2) Chalkhead deals exclusively with gothic/industrial music. If that's your thing, welcome to the cutting edge.
Overall Rating: 15
The Right Side of the Web
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/jeffd/index.html
Category: Political
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
For those who would exhume a pre-senile Ronald Reagan, restore his minions, and resurrect Morning in America, The Right Side of the Web beckons. Here's a haven for Gingrich admirers and Limbaugh dittoheads, complete with a sound clip of Rush's famous "caller abortion." Laugh along at dunderheaded liberals , choke on hilarious O.J.jokes, fly into a rage at hate mail from leftist detractors. Not much here to convince the undecided vote, this club is for right-eous only. A few overlapping graphics and a mixture of sound formats hamper the browse a tad.
Overall Rating: 14
Fidel `96
URL: http://www.iuma.com/imagesmith/fidel/
Category: Political
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: Yes
Author: Patrick Joseph
Funnier than an exploding cigar (except in large segments of South Florida, where the humor tends to get lost in translation), the Fidel `96 site hinges its running political satire on one simple platform: Elect Fidel Castro President of the United States. The last commie holdout in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba has been a thorn in our sides since our man, Batista, got the heave-ho. Even today, Cuba plays a major part in the national debate. Jesse Helms, for one, has made a career of loathing *el presidente*, and even before JFK played the chilling game of brinkmanship with Kruschev, Cuba was an American obsession, calling up romantic images of nights on the *malecon*, Hemingway, and cigars. Damn, if we could only smoke those cigars! Maybe that's it: maybe we just hate that bastard Castro for taunting us with those damned *puro finos*, immune not only to counterinsurgencies, but to something as fundamental as lung cancer. He's been laughing at us and our *yanqui* preoccupations with every drag. But while Washington fixates on our island neighbor, the populace at home has turned increasingly ugly. Talk of revolution seems to be on the lips of Americans everywhere, from disaffected suburban kids, to armed-to-the-teeth militias, to the volatile urban underclass. At Fidel `96, they suggest you vent those frustrations at the voting booth and elect the old enemy as Commander-in-Chief. It's an idea that makes Oswald's *Fair Play for Cuba* look downright diplomatic in comparison, and yet...well, it doesn't sound so bad when you think about it. Consider the site's run-down of Castro on the issues: He's tough on crime, pro-literacy, and he's no wimp like Bush and Clinton. And on as hot a topic special interests? "A lifelong foe of special interests," the site reminds us, "he nationalized every major industry." To see what kind of response this seditious line of humor engenders, check out the stringed BBS. You can even put in your own two cents worth (be warned, though: it gets ugly). And while Castro hasn't announced his candidacy yet, you can join the campaign or even support the cause with your dollars: check out campaign merchandise, especially the colorful Fidel `96 bubble gum cigars. A popular item in Miami, I'm sure.
Overall Rating: 15
Grand Sumo Sports
URL: http://www.fujiint.co.uk/Sumo/
Category: Sports
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
A traditional form of Japanese wrestling, Sumo also has fans in Europe and the U.K., where this site originates. You'll find some sketchy reports on past matches (fall '95), summaries of Sumo history and rules, background on Sumo ceremonies, contestants' rankings and updates on who's wrestling who at several European matches. When I looked, the server was mighty slow, but, if you're interested, there's a link to Quicktime clips of two really big guys working it out.
Overall Rating: 14
ESPN's X Games
URL: http://espnet.sportszone.com/editors/xgames/index.html
Category: Sports
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
The latest sports fad is "Extreme," as in daredevil sports like bungee jumping barefoot water-ski jumping and inline skating. ESPN's X-Games has news about upcoming competitions, athletes' rankings, scheduled TV coverage and Extreme promotional products. There are also audio and video clips of winning maneuvers and the history of such esoteric events as "street luge" and "wakeboarding." Naturally, you can link to the rest of the vast ESPN site, as well.
Overall Rating: 16
Taoism Information Page
URL: http://www.cnu.edu/~patrick/taoism.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
A yin-yang logo banner hovers over a mere list of links to English translations of the *Tao Teh Ching*, Sun Tzu's *The Art of War,* the *I Ching* and a folder full of unsorted files on various areas of Taoist practice. Our host invites adepts and scholars to send relevant information for inclusion in these pages. For the time being, however, there's more "value" at my fingertips when I do an Alta Vista search on Taoism.
Overall Rating: 13
Cao Daiism
URL: http://www.centcon.com/~jnguyen/daiism.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The Cao Dai faith of South Vietnam was inaugurated in 1926. Universal and synthetic in character, its tenets derive from Asian and western religious and philosophical movements. Duc Cao Dai, or God the Father, is worshipped as the all-knowing eye behind the lords and prophets of all other faiths. Learn more in this asborbing essay by Merdeka Thien-Ly Huong Do. Removing the garish background will enhance the reading experience. At the time of my visit, page four concluded with the words: To be continued.
Overall Rating: 13
University of Connecticut Libraries
URL: http://www.lib.uconn.edu/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Not all parts of this electronic library are open to the public and those that are contain resources directed mostly at members of the U.Conn academic community. So it's not clear why anyone else would want to browse these pages. Be that as it may, the library does a serviceable job of digitizing its collections. Most of the site is in the early stages of construction, but telnet access and a searchable database of materials, including course enhancements, are in place. Adding descriptions to the barren links that comprise these pages would greatly improve the interface.
Overall Rating: 14
Brittanica's Lives
URL: http://www.eb.com/calendar/calendar.html
Category: Reference
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This is a simple search engine that extracts mini biographies from the vast Brittanica database based on any date of birth that you enter. A second cgi allows you to enter a year and generation. By entering the year 1935, for instance, and the generation of 20s, I was able to determine that in the year of Elvis Presley's birth, Jean Genet was the same age that I am now. Links in the bios will point you to the depths of the encylopedia, but there's a catch: you have to subscribe in order to follow them.
Overall Rating: 15
US National Debt Clock
URL: http://www.brillig.com:80/debt_clock/
Category: Reference
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Five trillion and change, the day I checked. That's a lot of beer and pretzels, kids. This simple but effective page from citizen/netizen Ed Hall is a sobering reminder that the country's affluence is hinged on some pretty heavy deficit spending. There's a lot of debate amongst economists about just how serious the problem is; meanwhile, the gargantuan figure just keeps swelling. The site is packed with relevant links, and Ed does a good job of explaining how he calibrates his debt-o-meter. So,...if you want to get in on the budget debate but aren't up on the numbers, come here for a quick and dirty rundown.
Overall Rating: 14
Xerox/PARC Map Viewer
URL: http://pubweb.parc.xerox.com/map
Category: Reference
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
PARC, in case you didn't know, is the Palo Alto Research Center, in the heart of the Silicon Valley. If you want a map of the area (or anyplace worldwide), just go to this site to have one generated as an inline GIF, right there on your browser. Actually, this page doesn't allow you to select a locale by name, (whereas the U.S. Census Gazeteer does) so you'll have to have a general idea of where Palo Alto is. Aim for San Fransico Bay and head a little south. You'll find it. And I think you'll be amazed at how well this map server works. On a slow connection the experience might be just a little exasperating, but with faster connections, it's fairly unbelievable, even if the maps are a bit crude. (U.S. maps have better detail than other areas).
Overall Rating: 15
New York City Smart Guide
URL: http://www.nycsmartguide.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Quite a few billboards dot the otherwise sparse (and gray) table of contents at the NYC Smart Guide. Big ad accounts, too -- everything from Aeroflot and Beck's Beer to Proctor and Gamble. There are even more Under Construction signs. Those things notwithstanding, the site provides a pretty serviceable index of maps covering the Big Apple. Not all the boroughs are represented, however, and while there's a points-of-interest listing, the entries there are not linked to the maps. Navigation throughout the site is a little confusing, and there's no background information of the sort you might expect; that is, no history, no recommendations, no ratings. So, what's the use?
Overall Rating: 13
Solid Earth Geodynamics
URL: http://banzai.msi.umn.edu/
Category: Science
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
This department at the University of Minnesota is concerned with the forces that originate from, and impact upon, the integument of our dear planet. Not as boring a place as it may sound, this site sports graphics with an interesting fractal quality. Unfortunately, they're a bit heavy for the bandwidth. Perhaps the authors were compensating for just missing the cover of National Geographic (the Rolling Stone of earth science mags)...I still don't know what a bluff body is, but I'm convinced it's worth paying a PhD candidate to find out.
Overall Rating: 15
GIS
URL: http://info.er.usgs.gov/research/gis/title.html
Category: Science
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
According to this site, a geographic information system "is a computer system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating, and displaying geographically referenced information." So? Well, for example, you can take both a map of an area and population data from that area and use GIS to combine them for analysis. It's useful. I promise. This government site is a fine introduction to those uses, with clear and concise explanations, examples, and history of GIS. Textbook-style fun--interesting in a strictly educational way.
Overall Rating: 15
Earth Observation Guide and Directory
URL: http://gds.esrin.esa.it
Category: Science
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Brought to you by the European Space Agency (ESA), the Earth Oberservation Guide and Directory Service provides a wealth of nerdy tech information transmitted from above the atmosphere. The ESA operates several satellites and this site is one of the forms of media they use to disseminate information and present ideas about new projects. For instance, learn how "the work-around solution for the wind scatterometer, currently under evaluation, will eventually introduce an additional attenuation in the transmission path also in Image and Wave mode, and the AMI on-board gain setting in these modes shall be adjusted accordingly to compensate for this attenuation." Umm... Yeah.
Overall Rating: 15
Atomic Books
URL: http://www.atomicbooks.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Boom! The stockpile of twisted literature available from this Baltimore, Maryland bookstore will blow your mind. They offer esoteric tomes on topics ranging from erotica to anarchism, conspiracy theories to survivalist techniques, as well as an armory of underground and adult comics, graphic novels, cult films, pin-ups and zines. Most items listed in the well-organized Atomic inventories are accompanied by brief, informative descriptions to facilitate your online shopping experience, and some also include pictures and links to the publisher's website. Atomic specials and new releases are featured regularly. Lead suit optional.
Overall Rating: 17
Auction Advantage
URL: http://emporium.turnpike.net/~auction
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Despite the fantasies this site's name might inspire, you'll have to look elsewhere for Picasso etchings, oriental rugs and Kennedy family furniture. Surf no farther, however, if Florida commercial property and Colorado vacation condos are what you desire. Auction Advantage deals strictly with real estate auctions throughout the country. It includes pictures and descriptions of property to be auctioned, plus links to related sites (for example, a City of Lancaster, California link for a ranch being auctioned there). The information is concise and up-to-date, but probably not too interesting unless you're actually in the market.
Overall Rating: 15
Nelly's Pilot and Aircraft Supply
URL: http://www.nellys.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
There's no doubt that actual pilots and aircraft owners will gain the most from this site, with its comprehensive catalog of headsets, flight plans, airplane parts and navigation charts. Even so, don't pass Nelly's by just because you haven't received your wings yet. The animations that jump, spin and soar on practically every page are just the kind of online multimedia bells and whistles many surfers search for. Plus, you can find out about airshows, events, museums, galleries, literature, check out flight sim games and aviation screen savers.
Overall Rating: 16
The Sound Garden
URL: http://www.soundgarden.com/music/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Sorry Chris Cornell groupies, this site has nothing to do with the Seattle band of similar nomenclature. The Sound Garden is actually a Baltimore, Maryland independent music store, with a huge stock of new, used, rare and bizarre records, tapes and CDs. The site sports record reviews, press clippings, special deals, a best seller list, a searchable catalog database (with instant-ordering capability), a listening booth, and even an in-store "sneaky spy-cam." Mail-order is easy as a mouse click, and the Sound Gardeners claim that if they don't have an item in stock, they'll find it for you within days.
Overall Rating: 15
Byte.my.disk!
URL: http://home.earthlink.net/~bytemydisk/index.htm
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Censorship on the Internet (The Communications Decency Act) is a hot issue. Gabby, Cynthia, and Monica are feeling pretty pissed off about it and, hey, you wanna buy a t-shirt? I'm not sure if the visuals-featuring attractive young women straddling chairs with pouty lips and tousled hair are tongue-in-cheek, but irony notwithstanding, how about some beefcake, girls? Horny young guys aren't the only ones surfing the Internet, and if I'm going to fork over $39.99 for a t-shirt, I want to get my money's worth.
Overall Rating: 15
DealerNet
URL: http://www.dealernet.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Car buffs have a home on the Internet at "The Virtual Showroom," where you can do everything but take the sucker out for a test drive. This site verges on information overload, with dealers, new cars, used cars, specialty vehicles, finance and leasing information, reviews, and a chat room, but the information is presented logically and with graphic pizzazz. I would be interested to know how this extends into the 3-D world-does the dealer honor the Web site price? Is it still negotiable? Nevertheless, this is a good place to start for an overview of what's out there and what it's going for.
Overall Rating: 17
The Ruins at Nan Madol
URL: http://taylor.scra.org/nanmadol/nanmadol.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Though this sounds like another adventure game title, The Ruins at Nan Madol refers to "one of archaeology's best kept secrets" -- an intriguing little equatorial island in the Micronesian group. The focus is on uniquely built structures, left hundreds of years ago by an obscure people known as the Saudeleurs. The buildings are constructed from pillars of crystalline basaltic rock, each one weighing tons. The text reads a bit like a "What I did on holiday..." essay, and is rife with embarrassing spelling errors (from a teacher, no less). Check out the photos of 3 inch cockroaches and footlong centipedes for a wriggly thrill.
Overall Rating: 13
Bus Plunge!
URL: http://www.users.interport.net/~tcs/index.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Have you ever peered out the window of some ancient bus careening along on some sketchy backwater road to see the skeletal hull of an identical vehicle upended in the chasm beneath you? If so, the phrase "bus plunge" will have real significance to you. This page chronicles the all too mundane occurrence of this world-wide catastrophe. It's hard to say whether the authors are acting more out of civic duty, xenophobic dread, or just macabre fascination (one suspects the latter). No gory GIFs, though, just the raw news text, cataloged for perusal.
Overall Rating: 13
The Barry Zone
URL: http://web.idirect.com/~baryzone
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Another vanity site where someone shares their personal experiences. Barry was part of the crew who traveled with the Rolling Stones to make the *At the Max* film, and he's posted selections from his journal from that time. No real dirt on Mick or Keith, but then again, he's only posted the first three entries. Barry also writes of his experiences working on the Monarch Butterfly movie for IMAX, which actually seems more exciting than following the Stones. Finally, Barry is a new dad. Link to his son Ross's page to find out more. The Stones, butterflies, and babies... I love the Web!
Overall Rating: 15
Eclectica
URL: http://www.netwizards.net/~zeno/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Some people create so-called "vanity pages." Others build Web pages to showcase their talents in a chaotic art world where money is thrown around but caught only by a select few. Jonathan Yeong is one of those frustated talents who uses the Web as a global resume board. Here, explore clean and elegant pages with essays about Jonathan's relationship to art and design, all beautifully presented as a showcase for his work. How psitively meta. Exquisitely designed. Someone offer this guy a job.
Overall Rating: 16
Wool and Water
URL: http://www.users.interport.net/~kmilai/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Named after a chapter in *Through the Looking Glass*, Wool and Water is the graphically interesting home page of Kim Milai, musician, teacher, and software developer in New York. Kim's site is primarily a collection of links--X Files, Lewis Carroll, spelunking, etc.--but she is also the creator of a fine site devoted to Friday The 13th: The Series. Plenty of scary stuff for diehard fans. Also exciting is the site Kim designed for a NYC elementary school. After all, those kids are the digital future. We're just playing in their world.
Overall Rating: 15
The Real Kramer Home Page
URL: http://www.bway.net/~kramer/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Seinfeld fans take note: Kenny Kramer is a force to be reckoned with. Kenny lives across the hall from Seinfeld executive producer and co-creator Larry David, and was the inspiration for the Cosmo Kramer character! Now, the real Kramer has put together a Reality Tour of New York City to bring fans to the places made famous on Seinfeld. Visit Monk's Restaurant, Elaine's office building, and even The Soup Shop! (Don't call Al "the Soup Nazi" though--he won't be pleased.) If you're a Seinfan, this site will hook you with snapshots from the tour, but you'll have to head to NYC for the real thing.
Overall Rating: 15
Noah's Place
URL: http://noahs-place.com/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Lots of the usual--Simpsons sound files, shareware games, and quite a few links (even a random link generator). But there's more! Newbies will dig the "People Who Like Getting Email" section. Read a person's description and drop them a line. Or post your own 100 word ad for $2 a month. Another interesting item is Noah's anonymous email form. In fact, I wonder if you can use the anonymous remailer to sign someone *else* up to be a penpal. For example, list your boss as a 14-year-old boy who loves Beavis and Butt-head and enjoys receiving nude celebrity JPEGs. That'd be good for a couple of laughs, eh?
Overall Rating: 16
Jason's World
URL: http://home.earthlink.net/~JTownsend/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Experience life as a teenager again through the eyes of Jason, your Web master. Read about Jason hitting the mall for the latest Smashing Pumpkins' release. ("It's got some cool music on it, and also some of the crappiest I've ever heard," he says.) Find out about the three things Jason does to escape the boredom of the "dungeon" (school). (Thinking of Pamela Anderson Lee "running very swiftly across a beach" is activity #1.) And.... Vote on who next month's featured "Babe" should be. This month is Ms. Lee of course. I voted for Alanis Moressette for next month (the choices were limited). Jason said his favorite food and drink is pizza and Coke. Mine too! Jason, I'll meet you at the mall.
Overall Rating: 15
HTML BAD STYLE PAGE
URL: http://www.earth.com/bad-style/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Every obnoxious, ugly, amateurish thing on the web, all in one place? What a great idea! Seriously, this page by Tony Sanders will be useful to HTML beginners or to the unfortunate schmucks using PageMill 1.0 who think they're cutting-edge. Bad Style specifies the correct placement and order of tags, even linking to the heathens whose honest mistakes first caught Sanders' attention. Apparently nobody has made any mistakes on the Web since October 3, 1995, since that's the last time this page was updated.
Overall Rating: 15
MESH MART
URL: http://www.cic.net/~rtilmann/mm/index.htm
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Mesh Mart provides 3-D mesh object files for 3-D modeling artists and developers and for VR environment creation. It also provides a textures pointer page with some good, and some broken, links. The "Object Catalog" organizes the 3-D objects into both a topical index, sorted by 33 subcategories, and a listing by file source (either Mesh Mart, itself, or Avalon). Mesh Mart also includes a listing of tools, utilities and FAQs of interest to 3-D and VR megawhiz-wannabees. The mesh files appear to be of high quality.
Overall Rating: 15
NINA
URL: http://www.washington.edu:1180/bibsys/mattf/nina/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
NINA has a very slow server and slow-loading graphics, even on a T-1, but those who wait will be duly rewarded. Anyone who played with a Spirograph as a kid will feel right at home here. Using Java, the user controls the number of lines and colors used, some technical settings, and even the speed at which NINA draws each new design. NINA is an early masterpiece of Java implementation, and so requires a Java-compliant browser. For those lacking Java, a gallery is included to illustrate what NINA can do once she's up and running.
Overall Rating: 16
WEB COMPARE
URL: http://www.webcompare.com
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This site compares competing webserver software and various Web browser features. The site hasn't been updated in a long time -- in mid-June, they were referring to April in the future tense and describing upcoming changes that still haven't occurred. What this site does have, however, is a broad array of information about the specific strengths and weaknesses of 52 web servers and 11 web browsers. Many browsers are not listed, but the folks at webcompare.com know this and are a little sheepish about the shortfall. They promise more listings soon.
Overall Rating: 14
Furious Green Thoughts
URL: http://members.gnn.com/furious/
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
What we have here is a lot of vitriolic ranting on topics such as the futility of college degrees, and mind control. A disclaimer at the outset proclaims loud and clear, "We Have No Morals!". It's a prominent strain in cyber-publishing: "unconventional material" representing marginal points of view thrust out there for all to see. There's no agenda, nor any ideological consistency in the critique of the system, but nevermind: shouting this loud takes dedication. Much of the writing is borderline, but that's at least half the fun.
Overall Rating: 17
Flakezine
URL: http://www.flakezine.com
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
In the digital age, a hiatus like the one Flakezine has taken can mean irrelevance and utter failure. A zine that goes for the inside line on snowboard industry gossip, Flakezine bitches ad nauseam about the unholy union between the mainstream publications (all of which come out regularly) and the snowboard manufacturers (that pay their bills). Somewhat amusing and they do have a point, but (until the revolution) money makes the world go round.
Overall Rating: 15
Split
URL: http://www.lainet.com/nomad
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
As much as I'd like to see Internet ventures like this survive, prosper, even flourish, I can't imagine why anyone would subscribe to Split. For $20/ year you get access to the magazine (which is free to everyone else), plus 1) a personalized Q&A resource 2) a match-maker service in case you can't find anyone to go on that safari with you 3) a free sample of anti-jet lag perfume. Uh-huh. The free part of the mag is fairly pleasant reading: destinations, spots to avoid, etc. They better rethink this strategy. Split can give away perfume by the gallon, but, I promise you, they won't get my twenty bones.
Overall Rating: 15
Zeitgeist
URL: http://sensei.co.uk/zeitgeist/
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
The stated aim of Zeitgeist is to provide the reader with "cerebral delicacies." And the writing is certainly intelligent, but is it interesting? The page looks great, and content-wise, it's all distinctively British, from the essay on Morrisey to the dissection of the "mod" ethos. Included in the Art section is a poem on the innocence of childhood, complete with a meadow of flowers in the background; it easily ranks as one of the more inane things I've read this calendar year. The vinyl reviews section is still under construction, but if the focus on Morrissey is any indication, then you have to wonder. To answer my own question: Zeitgeist is a snooze.
Overall Rating: 17
BigSky
URL: http://www.imt.net/~bgskymac/BigSky_MacEzine.html
Category: Zines
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Miles Orkin
Big Sky Mac Ezine is an online newsletter published by a Montana-based Macintosh user group. True to the classic user group archetype, it's friendly, informative, informal, and geeky. Every issue has a how-to feature (creating image maps for online publishing was the task in the latest issue), well-documented recommendations for shareware, freeware and payware, a Q-and-A meeting place, and links to other interesting sites. Periodic visits to Big Sky are definitely worthwhile for Mac users -- just be prepared for emoticons and behind-the-scenes Star Trek Voyager photos.
Overall Rating: 15
Tell-Tale Productions
URL: http://www.tell-taleprod.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
This is the official site of Tell-Tale Productions, a non-profit organization dedicated to making educational films. Their first movie, "Tibor Jankay - The Art Of Survival" is a documentary about Tibor Jankay (who else?), a Hungarian born artist who escaped and survived the Holocaust and later moved to California where he became a little-known but well-regarded artist. This site doles out information about the documentary, a brief bio on Jankay and showcases some of his artwork. It also contains many links to other Holocaust-related sites.
Overall Rating: 15
Bryant Foundation
URL: http://www.oir.ucf.edu/bryant/
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Featuring a large collection of Caribbean art, this is the sort of site that makes you long for bigger screens. Though the works have been meticulously digitized, with amazing clarity and intense colors, some of the wonder is dulled if you have to scroll down and to the right to see it all. The archive is also a little uneven: some nations like Aruba, are represented by a single work, while others like Haiti, bask in the spotlight with dozens of fantastic paintings. The curators of the site have big plans however, including sorely missed artist bios, and virtual representations of sculptures and other three-dimensional art. Look for this site to become a winner. In the meantime, give thanks for real museums.
Overall Rating: 16
Flicker Light
URL: http://members.gnn.com/Repasky/Repasky.htm/repasky.htm
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Flicker Light showcases digital art, fiction, poetry, and commentary, all courtesy of the unusual mind contained in the body of Tom Repasky. Just so you know who you're dealing with: Repasky believes his old self was taken over by an interstellar essence or alien of some sort after a near-death experience at age fourteen. He has been pretending to be a human named Tom ever since. His fascination with galaxies and space, etc. can be seen in the flashy neon, Day-Glo space-scapes that inhabit his Web site. The page is very busy, the images get a little abstract, the essays are sometimes cryptic, but his account of his brush with death is a must- read. How do you like our planet, Tom?
Overall Rating: 15
Sacred Cow
URL: http://www.raygun.com/sacredcow/
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
At this site you'll find photo essays with uplifting titles like, "Hollywood Rogues", "Dark Carnival", or (my favorite) "In the Asylum". It's laid out very nicely, with all the good cheer befitting a funeral procession on an overcast Tuesday. The shots, though stark, are dazzling at times, and left me wishing I could get a closer look. I couldn't. The narration lays the gloom and doom on a little thick, but at least their outlook is consistent. There's info on industrial music and a set of O.J. verdict-inspired dirges about the end of the world that left me scratching my head. All in all, you should avoid this site if you're maladjusted, hyper-sensitive, depressed, or asthmatic. Consult your doctor or therapist.
Overall Rating: 15
Bob Derr's Gallery of Galleries
URL: http://www.neosoft.com/ kcderr/galleries/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Bob Derr is a zany suit-turned-photographer,and his home page is drenched with that mid-life, just-wanna-have-fun kind of attitude. Joking aside, Derr is obviously talented; his photos of Greece are postcard perfect. He's also a cut-up: check out Bob's Lingerie Gallery (it's not what you think), or his own mini-tribute to the King, which boasts full-color snaps of Bob's favorite Elvis jumpsuits. Also of note: "24 Seconds in Cyberspace." (Family values bonus: at the bottom of every page is a reminder that all Bob's work is dedicated to his father--a nice touch that brought a smile to my face. Who says the Internet is indecent?)
Overall Rating: 16
Wildcat Kids Photos
URL: http://www.siprep.com/howdy.html
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
These are the pages of St. Ignatius, a Jesuit prep school that's nearly as old as its hometown of San Francisco. The focus here is on photography. Even as our government seeks to regulate online self-expression, "photography encourager" Paul Hanley leads his students into the expressive freedom of hyperspace. Photos are exhibited among seven galleries along with students' musings on their inspiration. Send email if you like what you see. Tables and a fresh palette of backgrounds keep the browsing smooth. An illustrated history of St. Ignatius provides some context, but requires more information to be interesting, or useful.
Overall Rating: 15
Internet for the Fine Arts
URL: http://www.fine-art.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
IFA charges galleries and independent artists to catalog and otherwise promote their works by featuring them in their busy web. Here, you can price an Alvar or a Warhol, and then fill out a form to initiate its purchase. There's no shortage of self-promoting unknowns in case you feel like speculating. It's hard to see how they expect to sell work, though, if it isn't visible. Add some jpegs, I say. There's plenty to see outside of the catalogs, a lot of it site-specific, and the list of links is rewarding.
Overall Rating: 15
Images Photographic Gallery
URL: http://www.planetdata.com/images/
Category: Art
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Heidi Swanson
Crooked teeth, plastic patio furniture, lace, and belly buttons; beautiful, disparate images are what distinguish this exceptional site. Ghostly landscapes and glowing appendages pepper this month's electronic exhibit in the Images Photographic Gallery, a beautiful site created to promote the arts on the Internet and provide a home for unrecognized artists to exhibit and sell their work. Photographs are presented against a pristine background, nicely complimenting the featured duotone and black and white prints. We also get the added bonus quirky insights into each artist's work. Take a peek!
Overall Rating: 16
The Strange Tale of Anubis
URL: http://www.tefnet.org/mpcpast.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Every journalist likes a good story; this one is the tale of Anubis, the dessicated cat. A computer screen may not be the ideal medium for the telling, but here it is: the narrative of a nineteenth century feline discovered as a mummified relic between the walls of two demolished buildings. Somehow, near the turn of the century, it found its way to the State Historical Bldg. in Madison,Wisconsin where it was on display for some years until the fossil was borrowed by some nascent newspapermen. It was never returned, and soon assumed iconic significance as the mascot, and indeed emblem of, the Milwaukee Press Club, having been dubbed Anubis--after the Egyptian, jackal-headed deity. And there you have it.
Overall Rating: 17
Strange Foreign Objects in Dogs Feces
URL: http://members.aol.com/scroach1/poop.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
If you've ever felt a perverse respect for goats who can eat barbed wire or for sharks with whole bicycles in their gut, you're overlooking the little miracle worker in your own back yard. Dogs, too, will eat almost anything. This site doesn't yet contain photos or x-rays, but the poetic language makes up for that. Among the undigestible riches so far are soap, screws, valuable jewels, underwear, coins, scouring pads, kitty litter, car parts, toys, boxes of crayons, and strings of beads. It's only one page, but what a page it is! A certain reverence prevails.
Overall Rating: 15
The Dog Ate My Homework
URL: http://members.aol.com/rkoul/dogindex.htm
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
A one-stop shopping place for anyone who'd rather fail and get away with it than succeed. This text-heavy site offers excuses in several categories and includes a featured excuse, updated weekly. Become a Zen master of lowered expectations with these gems: "I have low self-esteem." "We've run into a technical snag." "This has never happened to me before." Among the categories are excuses tailored for home, job, school, crime, men only, women only, and politicians. If you'd like to add some of your own, by all means do so; the goal is to include 1,001 excuses.
Overall Rating: 13
Rudd Equipment
URL: http://www.ruddequip.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Get out yer hard hat--The Rudd Equipment Company is ready to meet "construction needs on the World Wide Web." And we're not talking about ways to get rid of those annoyingly ubiquitous "under construction" symbols on the Web, either. Rudd Equipment deals in wheel loaders, excavators, cranes, drills, rollers, and graders. The heavy duty stuff. Use their site to see what's on hand and even put your own goods up for sale. Need to talk with a Rudd sales rep? Click on the map to find one near you. I may look into buying a crane. You never know when you'll need a big crane.
Overall Rating: 15
Weston
URL: http://www.rfweston.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Not the oil, that's Wesson. Weston is a large environmental services firm that will take care of your waste management, water treatment, air quality management, and even landfill construction needs. And the best part is that according to their site, Weston does it all with a "preserve, protect, restore" mindset about Mother Earth. In addition to plenty of info about the company and its history, you can also search and read papers dealing with environmental issues like pollution prevention and sustainable development.
Overall Rating: 15
British Airways
URL: http://www.british-airways.com/bans/checkin1.htm
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
British Airways is a densely packed site serving the needs of its UK customers. (All prices are in pounds!) If you're preparing to fly on this airline, there's an endless of supply of details that you don't need to know but can find out on this site, anyway--the airline's mission statement, environmental policies, etc. You can also check here for schedules and fares. Packed and well-organized, with only one thing missing: Online reservations!
Overall Rating: 15
Toshiba
URL: http://www.toshiba.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Web sites of consumer electronics companies are often boring, but useful. True, there's usually not much "entertainment" content, but electronics shopping is one area where new product information and spec sheets can be extremely helpful. If you're in the market for Toshiba goods, check here first. But you'll probably want to skip Club Toshiba, where you cough up demographic information in exchange for member percs like access to hourly news updates, and a Toshiba e-news letter. Whoopee. On the other hand, customization, like the ability to create your own Club Toshiba home page, is always an interesting Web fillip. But when in a rush, let this site do what it does best--help you become an informed shopper.
Overall Rating: 16
Letraset Online
URL: http://www.letraset.com/letraset/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Letraset is the graphic design imprint of the international company, Esselte, the people behind those fun Dymo label guns. Here, you can browse dozens of fonts, clip art, and background textures before contacting your Letraset dealer to drop some cash. A cool tool on the site is The Ripper--a script that enables you to type in a headline, choose a point size, and render your text using any of the Letraset fonts. I always like to try before I buy. Another fun gimme is the free font of the month--yours after you complete an easy multiple choice test about Letraset products.
Overall Rating: 16
Monsanto
URL: http://www.monsanto.com/index.shtml
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Based in St. Louis, Monsanto is a huge biotechnology company working in the areas of medicine, agriculture, fiber, and food ingredients. Basically, they engineer products that we eat and wear. With that kind of responsibility, it's wise for Monsanto to create a positive and calm corporate identity, as they do at the Web site. Relaxing images of forests, farmland, and small animals actually work well here. (Without a cheesy aftertaste!) Learn about Monsanto's herbicides, engineered plant seeds, medicinal concoctions, and other ways in which they've messed with Mother Nature. Biotech is the future--meet one of the major players.
Overall Rating: 16
Colgate-Palmolive
URL: http://www.colgate.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
First of all, I'm a Crest man. So I'm biased. But this company also makes Palmolive and Ajax, which I use frequently, so I'll try to remain objective. I'm not too interested in their "Story Behind Our Global Brands" or the fun historical facts about the company's history on their site though. And the product info galore doesn't do much for me either. As usual, the real fun to be had is in the "Kids' World" portion of the site, complete with brushing tips. You can even fill in a form to let the Tooth Wizard (what happened to the Fairy?) know your tooth is gone, and check your e-mail the next morning for a message! Now if my computer would just floss for me.
Overall Rating: 15
Kinko's
URL: http://www.kinkos.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Kinko's goes from "hippie to high tech," with a graphically upscale site and pithy quotes from the likes of Alexis de Tocqueville and Albert Einstein. Doesn't Kinko's make copies? Positioning themselves as the new "virtual office," Kinko's now offers -- in addition to the usual round-the-clock copying -- videoconferencing, digital camera rental, conference room rental, and individual workstations. Kinkonet (sounds like some kind of bondage accessory) lets you transfer your documents electronically. Go Kinko's.
Overall Rating: 17
College Board Online
URL: http://www.collegeboard.org
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The College Board administers the Standard Aptitude Test (SAT), and the Advanced Placement (AP) program. Their site confirms every paranoid notion I ever had about the SAT and other standardized tests, with statistics detailing mean scores, standard deviations, percentiles, and calculations of scores as a predictor of college grades in every subject. For anxious college hopefuls or veterans of the test with unpleasant memories this site will be a source of nightmares for weeks to come. But, on a positive note, students can register for the SAT online, and get information about the College Board's other resources for college applicants.
Overall Rating: 16
Blair Price's Web site
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/bwprice
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Blair Price has developed this home page to help people quit smoking. Along with a few links to interesting places, there's a big advertisement page for a computerized system for quitting smoking (LifeSign) that you can conveniently order right from the web site. Is this what Blair used to quit? Maybe I'm just cynical, but I have to wonder about the motivating factors, here. Overall, the page is pretty thin; nicotine fiends are better off going to the American Cancer Society or NIH web sites for balanced information on the evils of smoking.
Overall Rating: 15
1-800-TaxLaws
URL: http://www.5010geary.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Minda Sandler
This bare-bones page publicizes a national network of tax practitioners and financial planners. Just call the network's 800 number (this is a low-tech site), and you'll get to speak with or schedule an appointment in your area with a certified public accountant or attorney specializing in tax preparation, planning, and audits. That person can assist you in preparing your taxes and/or financial reports about your business, and planning your estate, promises the site. If you're not interested, there's still benefit to be wrung from the FAQ and the Tax News and Tips area, with its brief but helpful hints and information.
Overall Rating: 13
Armadillos Guide to the Internet
URL: http://riceinfo.rice.edu:80/armadillo/
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This server will give you every imaginable angle on K-12 education in the state of Texas. Armadillos provides links to a variety of educational resources for teachers and students, including Texas Studies, information about collaborative efforts between students and teachers, and resources on a variety of K-12 subjects (useful for teachers everywhere), as well as access to TENET which has job listings for educators interested in working in the Lone Star state.
Overall Rating: 15
Minnesota Preparatory Schools
URL: http://www.mps.org/
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
You ever stop to wonder how many college prep schools could be found in Winona Minnesota? Probably not, eh? Well, this server connects Winona's three preparatory institutions and their offerings, giving profiles of each school, the student life there, course selection, etc. There's even a resident dorm which provides housing for out-of-town students. If you're already prepared, collegiately speaking, link up to St. Mary's home page, a private Catholic University in, you guessed it, Winona, Minnesota.
Overall Rating: 15
Harvard Business School
URL: http://www.hbs.harvard.edu
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Straight forward information about Harvard Business School, including admissions, curriculum, research projects, and alumni. Check out the HBS Publishing page to peruse the 6,000 books, videos, and multimedia programs available for order. The site is a gateway to a number of HBS resources such as the Baker Library online catalogue, but you need to be a Harvard student to use it. In the shocked version the university shield rotates in 3-D, which as about as exciting as this page gets. But then, how much fun is business school?
Overall Rating: 14
U.S. Civil War Center
URL: http://www.cwc.lsu.edu
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
From Louisiana State University comes this ambitious, if somewhat dull, page devoted to collecting and making available every scrap of information concerning the nation's costliest war. Scholars and students will of course find the site helpful in researching the conflict, and genealogists will appreciate the short tutorial on researching individuals from the era. Like most link-driven sites, it's all very straightforward, and a little bit daunting.
Overall Rating: 13
The Biosfera Project
URL: http://riceinfo.rice.edu/~solis/bioesfera/bioesfera.home.html
Category: Education
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
The title project was undertaken by Carlos Solis, a professor at Rice University, to help train school teachers simultaneously in Spanish and Conservation Biology. This humble site describes the experimental program conducted in the Peten, a rainforest region of Guatemala. There are essays by some of the participants, links to sites related to Meso-America, and a somewhat crude map of Guatemala. It would be nice to see this site expand and refine. The map could be interactive, the pages made more attractive, etc. More importantly, there should be more emphasis on the people of the Peten.
Overall Rating: 13
Mr. Showbiz
URL: http://www.mrshowbiz.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Where else can you get the inside dish on the man who sucked Fergie's toes? Welcome to Mr. Showbiz, a site that covers the world of entertainment, from news of the trashy and tawdry, to insightful interviews with writers, filmmakers, and other such species. Check out Serb Heat, a three-day novel written online; plus music, book, film, and theater reviews. Get the latest-breaking entertainment stories, feature articles and the daily Watercooler poll. Visit the Plastic Surgery Lab where you can mix and match the facial features of Friends' stars to suit your fancy. Mr. Showbiz manages to cover show business without sinking into mindless star stroking, so go ahead: Indulge your prurient fixations without the guilt.
Overall Rating: 17
Lumo-Finnish Film Home page
URL: http://www.kaapeli.fi/~lumo/English/
Category: Film
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
"On June 28th 1896, on their way from from St. Petersburg to Paris, the projectionists for the Lumire brothers set up their equipment at what was at the time the Hotel Seurahuone on the market square in the heart of Helsinki, and played moving pictures to a packed house." This event marked the first public screening of any film in Finland and is the commemorative date of the Finnish film centenary. "One hundred years of film" is the theme of Lumo, the home page set up by the Finnish Film Foundation. It provides archive information, key dates in Finnish Film History, profiles of Finnish filmmakers, festival information and links to the Oulu film center which imports and rents 16 and 35mm films.
Overall Rating: 15
Networth Mutual Fund Market Manager
URL: http://networth.galt.com/www/home/mutual/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
If mutual funds get you going, the Networth Mutual Fund page (part of a larger site about personal investing) is worth a stop. You can search on funds by name or ticker symbol, current prices and assets, and even check out the top 25 performers. There's a link to Intuit's Quicken Financial Network for further intelligence-gathering. Another area features short infomercial articles by fund managers, the value of which is undone by a lack of background info; namely, who's informing us, and what's in it for them?
Overall Rating: 17
StockMaster
URL: http://www.stockmaster.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
A boon for obsessive stock trackers, StockMaster delivers fast, free quotes on U.S. stocks and mutual funds. Just type in the company or fund name -- you don't have to know the symbol or exchange -- and the service gives you a summary of the day's trading, as well as charts showing performance relative to the Standard & Poor's 500 and daily volume over the past 12 months. Mutual fund charts track performance over the past three years. There's nothing fancy about the design or interface, but if you just want the bottom line, StockMaster will give it to you.
Overall Rating: 15
Voyeur II
URL: http://spider.media.philips.com/voyeurII/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
"Sex, Murder....and audience participation." Oooh...it's so provocative. Teasing us with Hollywood's time-tested lures, the Web site ad for the sequel to 1993's Voyeur CD-Rom presents images of barely-clad couples in compromising positions, people struggling for guns, and Dennis Weaver. The most promising part of the site was titled "Enter the world of the voyeur," and it had some good intro content to the story of Voyeur II, but not enough. The entire Web site felt like a movie trailer, one that doesn't give any indication what the movie's about. As far as Voyeur II goes, all I really know is that Dennis Weaver is in it.
Overall Rating: 15
Bitmap Brothers
URL: http://www.bitmap-brothers.co.uk/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The Bitmap Brothers site promotes more than just games, it personalizes the creation of the games. Sports fans have their Dennis Rodmans, movie buffs have their Martin Scorseses, rock and rollers have their Mick Jaggers, so why should it be any different for computer gamers? Instead of "the next big game" from Sony or Nintendo, with the Bitmap Brothers you know who created it. The site includes a "softography," that shows a consistent design aesthetic in all the games, and probably helps sell old titles as well. Games include Speedball, The Chaos Engine, and Xenon.
Overall Rating: 16
Video Game Yellowpages
URL: http://www.gamepen.com/yellowpages/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
A list of sites is a list of sites is a list of sites. If it's going to be of any real value, it should be comprehensive, or at least have some unique listings. Neither is the case with the Video Game Yellowpages. All of these links can be found on Yahoo!, albeit in different categories. And I missed the unofficial fan pages. There was a section for them, but it only listed 20 or 30 sites. Now I know there's a lot more than that devoted to just Doom. Sure it's a lot of stuff to catalog, but if your going to use a yellow background...
Overall Rating: 14
The Gonzo Games Page
URL: http://thunder.indstate.edu/h5/jngonzo/.games.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Ah...a breath of fresh air. With all the emphasis these days on getting a multiplayer gaming network running over the Internet for twitch and shoot games like Doom and Quake, it was a real treat to see a bunch of links to original Web interactive games. Hunt the Wumpus, Battleship, Ferret Frenzy, and Dig Zone are all there. These are games from the early days of the Web, when killing time meant a Minesweeper site. No hourly charges, either, just a lot of page reloads. And for you video fanatics, there are links to sites dealing with Sega games as well.
Overall Rating: 15
Frame[zero]
URL: http://www.framezero.com/home.htm
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
This fledgling game company is currently developing a CD-Rom called "Neurosis," which "brings the player on a discovery of characters still trapped in an endless string of bizarre scientific research from the Vietnam era." Frame[zero]'s dark vision is illustrated by a string of screen shots which you can click through. "Enemy of Evil" is another game Frame[zero] has developed for the Web. I couldn't get very far with it, but the idea is that the player wakes up underneath a bed in a hospital room, and tries to figure out how they got there. Clicking on various points of the image on the page takes you further into the adventure.
Overall Rating: 16
MindSports
URL: http://www.mindsports.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
I don't really know sports trivia, so I was pretty lost playing these games. Nevertheless, I was able to win one baseball game on "Bullpen Ace," and score a field goal on "2 Minute Warning." Beyond just being baseball and football trivia, however, each game is set in the proper context. I liked the football field graphics on "2 Minute Warning" the best. Answering a question correctly makes the little players on the field move closer to the opposing team's goal. Kind of reminds me of those vibrating toy football games with the magnetic players. Remember?
Overall Rating: 16
Kid's World
URL: http://www.kidsworld.com
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Can you say sugar shock, boys and girls? We knew you could. Okay, so it's not as cloying as, say, Baby Bop. But the ol' Bopster would feel right at home. This site is utterly, hopelessly, brazenly harmless, except to adults. Adults who linger will suffer terribly. Children with an especially high glucose tolerance will enjoy the games and activities, which develop reading, arithmetic, and basic science knowledge. The site is graphics-heavy and relatively slow-loading. The whole sugary blob is sponsored by game maker 7th Level, and should serve as a nice intro for young'uns new to the Internet.
Overall Rating: 16
SignWeb
URL: http://www.signweb.com
Category: Professional
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Doubtless a lot of fetishists are accidental visitors to this one. The word "vinyl" is in the HTML source for the splash page a whopping 14 times, not to mention repetitions of "hot" and "tricks." What a disappointment it must be. SignWeb is a site for the folks who make banners and business signage. As such, it provides industry tips, articles on the biz and adverts for things like neon transformers and ballast, estimating software, and vinyl sources. Hmm, ... maybe not so disappointing after all.
Overall Rating: 15
Monkey Business
URL: http://www.jotto.com/menu.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Appealing graphics make Monkey Biz fun, but it helps to be familiar with Space Monkey books from the get-go, and to be able to read plain, densely formatted type. The producers the site/books/T-shirts clearly intend to make Space Monkey's persona paramount, but is our simian astonaut meant to appeal to parents or kids? Grown-up jokes are embedded in the copy (will kids want to click on "a message from the CEO" -- even if it turns out to be SM himself?). Sadly, there are lots of typos throughout. Let's hope the visitors are all good spellers.
Overall Rating: 16
Mr. Men Silly Page
URL: http://www.rucc.net.au/neteffect/mrmen/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
A gang of cheerful, silly Australian lads offer us lots of "Mr. Men" cartoon characters, derived from a series of books. The site is simple and colorful, and young visitors are encouraged to draw their own Mr. Something-or-other characters and submit them for a monthly contest. The winning entry is actually printed on a T shirt and sent to the enterprising artist. Call me a P.C. prig if you must, but I don't see why all of the androgynous characters qualify as "Mr." (there's scant mention of a Little Miss watch you can order, but no string of characters using that moniker). Still, for those who know the context, Mr. Men is probably a fun page to visit once.
Overall Rating: 15
Let 'Em Starve!
URL: http://home.stlnet.com/~fourworlds/
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This page is one-joke spoof on the Republican party, taking the conservative message a half a step further with the "Let `em Starve" theme song for Campaign `96. The erstwhile anthem's lyrics are cynical and funny, sure, but predictable: "If your daddy's gone and your mama's on crack, you should have the moral fiber to stay on the track." Reminds me of the song from the movie, *Bob Roberts* : "... and they complain, and complain, and complain, and complain..." It's been done, is all I'm saying. You can listen via Real Audio or download a WAV file. There are some carefully chosen links and a mock interview with a "Republican strategist," as well. Worth a visit, but not much else.
Overall Rating: 15
Jews in Prison
URL: http://espresso.internet-cafe.com/sbchabad/prison/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Sponsored by the Santa Barbara Chabad Chapter-and written by a Rabbi with ten years of experience visiting prisons -- this site is dedicated to supporting and counseling Jewish prison inmates (a subject not broached at the Bar Mitzvah). The Rabbi briefly presents the difficulties Jewish inmates may face with regard to obtaining Kosher food, observation of holy days, anti-semitism, depression, etc., and offers suggestions for dealing with them. He also shares anecdotes about inmates who have maintained their dignity despite the adverse conditions through personal and intellectual growth. C-2 A-2 T-2
Overall Rating: 15
Muscle Net
URL: http://www.musclenet.com
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
For muscular types, and the men and women who worship them, Muscle Net pays homage to the pumped and ripped at the Virtual Gym. Along with links to pro-shops, gyms and nutrition centers across the country, Muscle Net addresses topics such as how to get even more muscular, how to meet muscular guys and girls (gay and straight), and the pros and cons of steroids. In the Muscle Lounge, you can peruse personal ads with images of burly boys and brawny babes. You can also genuflect at the alter of "ThorLover's Temple to Muscle Worship" and "YugNorac's Female Muscle Page."
Overall Rating: 15
Actor's World Link
URL: http://members.aol.com/AWorldLink/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Actor's World Link provides a forum for actors to be discovered by casting agents on the Internet. For $75.00 a year (shorter time periods are also available) actors get a head shot and brief resume on the Web. The idea seems intriguing, but at this point there aren't very many actors represented, and there's no information offered describing success rates, no client testimonials, nor any other proof that it works. I don't know what the exact odds of being discovered on the Internet are, but it sure seems like a long shot.
Overall Rating: 15
CareerSite
URL: http://www.careersite.com/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
CareerSite is a job seeking/posting web site for both employers and prospective employees. As a "non-member" you can either search their database for specific job titles or browse current openings at a number of companies. You can become a member (for free) which involves about an hour's work to complete the necessary forms and submit your resume. Members can then respond easily to job postings and their resumes are available to be browsed by prospective employers. While probably best not to limit your search to CareerSite, it's a nice free service for job seekers who don't mind a small investment of time and energy.
Overall Rating: 16
Fairplay
URL: http://www.fairplay-publications.co.uk/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Fairplay, a weekly shipping magazine published in Great Britain, has gone online with Electronic Fairplay. Information on ships can be searched for in the Database by the name of the company or a particular vessel. The Fairplay Daily News service provides worldwide news flashes of shipping events of the past 24 hours and beyond. Products are also available through the site, such as the PC Ships Register, and CD Exports (both shipping information databases). The site makes good us of frames and is easy to navigate, but the information is, of course, esoteric and only of interest to those directly Global involved in shipping and/or import/export.
Overall Rating: 17
U.C. Berkeley Museum Informatics Project
URL: http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
The photos that adorn the Museum Informatics home page are inviting, but step inside for a look and you'll realize that this site is for the cognoscenti. Unless you work in the field of information technology for museums, there's little of interest here. If you're conducting research or just curious about Berkeley's holdings -- the university has 80 museum and archive collections -- you can access links here to individual museum Web sites and several searchable scientific databases. Once you locate the sites you want, though, there's no reason to return to the Museum Informatics Project; that is, unless you're an...um,...informaticist.
Overall Rating: 15
California Museum of Photography
URL: http://cmp1.ucr.edu/exhibitions/cmphome2.html
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Online exhibits drawn from this University of California, Riverside museum touch on historical subjects ranging from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles and San Francisco to Ellis Island and prerevolutionary Russia, as well as contemporary themes such as X-ray photography and artists' visions of guns. The collection is impressive and this site displays ample portions of it, but you have to drill through too many layers to get to the pictures. You'll also need substantial system resources to view them efficiently. Unless you're a serious photography fan, the payoff may not be worth the patience required.
Overall Rating: 14
Native American Documents Project
URL: http://www.csusm.edu/projects/nadp/nadp.htm
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Described as "only a shadow of a beginning," this site is part of an effort to make documents detailing the history of federal policy toward Native Americans more accessible. Currently there are three meaty sets of well-organized data here, among them reports by the 1871 Indian Affairs commissioner and Board of Indian Commissioners. Some may be surprised to find that even government-appointed commissioners of that time considered many federal and settler actions dishonorable, illegal, and greedy. Although the dense, dry prose and complete lack of visual relief might repel nonacademic visitors, most of us could learn a thing or two here.
Overall Rating: 14
ECLAT
URL: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/Complit/Eclat/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
The University of Pennsylvania's directory of comparative literature resources on the Web covers an impressive amount of ground, although it provides little, if any, commentary on the sites it lists. Links are divided into eight categories, including comparative literature program sites, theory sites, electronic libraries, academic journals, and professional associations. Some of the sites are briefly described, and the contents of others can be assumed, but if you want to know anything about the specific contents of a theory site, for example, you have no choice but to go there and start reading.
Overall Rating: 15
New Mexico Gay Rodeo Association
URL: http://www.swcp.com/~rkmartin/nmgra.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
As you might guess, this site delivers a calendar of events and detailed information about New Mexico Gay Rodeo activities. Links to the New Mexico AIDS Emergency Fund and the New Mexico AIDS Services Food Bank, but I wasn't able to find any information on the larger Gay Rodeo Association (referred to without explanation as IGRA) or links to any related sites. *From the Chute*, the NMGRA newsletter is expected soon.
Overall Rating: 13
Chrysalis
URL: http://204.140.223.156/chrysalis/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This is the online version of a "recovery and transformation" magazine. The cover story is an interview with Beverly D'Angelo who talks about life without addiction, while another feature, titled "Drunks In The Bible" gives an overview of alcoholism in the land of Canaan. Then there's the piece from erstwhile child star Corey Feldman, "In My Own Words," in which he talks about his struggle with various substances. Did you know that Corey and Sam Kinnison used to do drugs together? A couple areas didn't load properly or at all. A resource guide to related sites is forthcoming.
Overall Rating: 14
Internet Poetry Archive
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/ipa/
Category: Literature
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
The tendency, sometimes, is to judge a site based on what it could be, on what it promises to become. The Internet Poetry Archive is just such a spot. It has much potential to be a great source of information for all students of the written word. At the moment three poets are highlighted, including Nobel prize-winner Czelaw Milosz. What makes the IPA different from other sites is its open embrace of all the technology available. Listen to the poems in their original language and in translation, read a biography of each artist prepared by a literary scholar, hear what the poet has to say about the meaning of each piece. Graphics, when appropriate, are used to illuminate the subtle meanings of complex works, and short bibliographies encourage deeper study. The IPA promises to expand its database, and upgrade its tech to include video. Though still under construction, it promises to be great.
Overall Rating: 17
CBS News Up to the Minute
URL: http://uttm.com/
Category: Media
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
I know it's just a name, but I really felt rushed, worried it was going to be updated even as I read. I needn't have worried. UTTM is CBS's grave-yard shift news program; its dramatic moniker hides the fact that it is actually pretty dull. The page is organized like a broadcast, with anchors, headlines, features, movie reviews, sports etc. There's a spot for women's health and even a section for news about space, aptly titled "The Space Space". UTTM boasts video news clips, which isn't that impressive because, hey, I have a television.All I can say is that it really captures the essence of late night news: sleepy and sort of half-assed.
Overall Rating: 15
The Sewanee Review
URL: http://www.sewanee.edu/sreview/Home.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
An elegant home page, with its stained-glass graphic and friendly editorial, gives this southern site a fitting sense of hospitality. Published since 1892, a history of the *Sewanee Review* suggests that its devotion to literature, regardless of the latest "critical lunacies," has been the magazine's key to success. As of this review, this is the most illuminating information on site. If that doesn't grab you, feel free to read the currently featured poets, including Neal Bowers and Jeffrey Harrison, browse the editor's links, or consult the writer's guidelines. Or wait until the site is done. Aesthetics: 2 Content: 2 Smarts: 1
Overall Rating: 14
Free Burma
URL: http://freeburma.org/
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This site is simply a gateway to resources promoting the establishment of democracy in Burma. An evolving directory provides a networking tool for the Burma support community, listing people and institutions whose decisions will influence the country's future. Choose paths from a list that endeavors to link all serious and like-minded webs, including the Burmese Refugee Project and Students for a Democratic Burma. Graphically, the page is tricked out with an anti-pepsi icon and the familiar tickertape javascript that tells you, in this case, to "Oppose those relying on external elements, acting as stooges, holding negative views..."
Overall Rating: 15
Amnesty International USA
URL: http://www.igc.apc.org/amnesty/
Category: Political
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This no-frills site publishes Amnesty International's Annual Report as well as frequently updated articles, in English and Spanish, on problems such as New York Police brutality. Its Info section outlines AI's principles and history, soliciting donations and allowing you to fill in a membership form. Detailed reports are available on projects such as the China Campaign. The Freedom Writers page, which provides information on people perceived to be prisoners of conscience is, of course, depressing and, at the risk of seeming naive, might even be useful if it contained mail-tos for relevant bureaucrats.
Overall Rating: 14
Loud Records
URL: http://www.loud.com/index.html
Category: Music
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Loud Records' site is as packed and powerful as its recording artists. Covering the New York Hip Hop scene, Loud features the likes of Sadat X, Cella Dwellas, Wu-Tang Clan, and the Alkaholiks. Go to the Open Bar, click on a bottle, and get the appropriate flavor, including sound clips and information about the groups. Links connect you to Peeps Republic and Loud Radio, which features a DJ competition comprised of a series of mixes broadcast every two hours. Strong design and a good bit of information, though not all of the pages are up and running yet.
Overall Rating: 15
Queensryche
URL: http://www.cris.com/~marcus44/rych.shtml
Category: Music
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This fansite is devoted to The Ryche: the myth, the recordings, and what the guy who runs the page thinks of it all. It's dark. It's metallic. And the color scheme and gothic lettering remind me of what someone would spend hours drawing on a pee-chee folder. You say you've been wanting a peek at The Ryche comic book? Ryche pictures to download so you can look at them any time you want? Hankering to enter the CD- ROM world of the Ryche? You wanna read Ryche's Internet magazine? Who'd have figured there were more Ryche-related sites than you could shake a spiked amulet at?
Overall Rating: 15
Hollow Ear
URL: http://www.hear.com/hollow/
Category: Music
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Defined here as "(1) music and art that defies easy categorizations or quick quips (2) a sideways glance at commercial culture," Hollow Ear fits the bill on both counts, exploring a variety of off-the-beaten-path sounds and ideas. The Sound File delivers clips of music from all over the world, offering up everything from Vietnamese folk to Romanian Gypsy bands. Features include interviews, commentary, poetry, and a regular column from Moscow. Check up on the doings of rebel radio in "Radio Resistor," a section which archives a now defunct publication by the same name and links to various independent radio sites. Eclectic coverage, nice layout, and an interesting angle make this 'zine a good read.
Overall Rating: 15
Firefly
URL: http://www.ffly.com
Category: Music
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Firefly is a software service that matches its members to entertainment recommendations and to each other, according to their interests and tastes. The more information with which you provide your "agent," the more accurate the recommendations sent your way, highlighting music, movies, and members to meet. Only extended usage will determine how valid Firefly's picks are, but there's a lot of info available for immediate access. Enter the name of a band, musician, film, etc. and you'll get a page of information and be asked to rate the subject for Firefly, helping it to better define your tastes. Ultimately, this site will be as interesting as its users. Good design and lots to do.
Overall Rating: 15
Sonic Blue Heaven
URL: http://www.netgate.net/~dwpd/nirvana/
Category: Music
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
OK. If you like Nirvana, you will really dig this page. There is an unbelievable amount of mind-numbing trivia here, like why Kurt spelled his name that way or the date he smashed his first guitar. The detail of the research is impressive in itself. But then I wonder....what is a person who compiles thousands of obscure facts about another person like? Or am I just a jaded anti-fan? Features include Nirvana movies, tons of sound bites, and links to other Nirvana pages and Hole sites. Don't know what more a Nirvana fan could ask for.
Overall Rating: 15
WXYC Chapel Hill
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/wxyc/
Category: Media
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
From alternamusic-rich Chapel Hill, comes the sounds of WXYC, a very hip radio station that's dug its heels deep into the net. Since 1994, WXYC has been a Web radio station, first using CU-SeeMe and now simulcasting with impressive Xing Streamworks. More information could be included on the site (band profiles? Chapel Hill hang-out scene reports?), but minimalism has its merits. Tune into the new wired sounds from last year's Gavin College Station of the Year and experience eclectica at its finest.
Overall Rating: 16
HighTimes
URL: http://www.hightimes.com
Category: Media
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Yes, one of the oddest magazines to flip through, giggle at, and never buy, has hit the Web. Now you can actually read current and past issues, without living in fear that your parents will find it between those Zeppelin records. My favorite part of the site is the "Pot Shots" gallery of buds and bongs -- reminds me of centerfolds in men's magazines...only different. Make sure to pay a visit to the herbal Oracle, where your reefer-related questions will be answered. As the site says, "We've got all the space we need! So who got the weed?!" (eyeroll)
Overall Rating: 15
WorldwideCheerleader
URL: http://www.telepath.com/gdj1146/jenn/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Unknown
Sis boom bah! This site... hoorah! Jenn's views on cheerleading, you'll spend your time reading. By the way, she's a sophomore! Jumps, chants, and cheers galore! Yeaaa... Jenn!
Overall Rating: 16
Flying Circle Graphics,Inc.
URL: http://www2.eos.net/speed/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Flying Circle Graphics, "Dedicated to WWI Aeroplane Exotica," is the story of one man's fascination with the instruments of war that flew during the early part of this century. Read a brief account of how the webmaster fell in love with the subject as a child, his observations about the design of certain aircraft (linked to photos), and a few bits about the character of specific pilots. Fairly well-written, but content-lite.
Overall Rating: 15
The RabbitWeb
URL: http://www.cland.net/~tonyholt/rabbits.htm
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Rabbit Web is a fine place for serious rabbit fans to sniff around. Angora information from Nepal, rabbitry suppliers, classifieds, and both private and commercial links, will please any bunny breeder. And if you're into a specific kind of rabbit, find others by joining or setting up a specialty club through Rabbit Web. For example, the American Fuzzy Lop Rabbit Club is already showing off its prize winning rabbits on the site! And damn if the bunny pictures aren't adorable!
Overall Rating: 15
NegativWorldWideWebland
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/id/negativland/
Category: Music
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
The official rest stop for the part-time "rock" group, Negativland--a band that has been involved in a copyright lawsuit with U2's Island Records. It seems Negativland used a snippet of a U2 song without their permission. Naturally, a legal battle ensued. Island won an out of court settlement, but the band fought back by telling their story through music and through their local radio show in California. In keeping with the anti-copyright theme, there are articles and links to other copyright-related topics and other negative places. Their online store is positively overflowing with goodies--purchase their tapes, CD's, pamphlets, books and more. And yes, audio files are freely available for downloading.
Overall Rating: 15
Styx
URL: http://ParadiseTheatre.com
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Party on, Garth, *STYX* are back and taking the 70's into the 90's with their fab Revival page...Yes, on tour again for the thrill of the masses who once rocked to tunes as familiar as,...um...*Come Sail Away*? If you liked them the first time around you may feel a nostalgic warmth for this tour; on the other hand, if those old albums all ended up in Frisbee heaven you can leave this site off your bookmark list. Lots of tour photos all of which could be captioned "See! We're still alive!"
Overall Rating: 15
National Press Photographer's Association
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/nppa/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
This is a sober, straightforward place for photographers interested in the latest conferences, congresses and workshops pertinent to the trade, as well as summaries of the year's past meetings that one may have missed. Astonishingly uncontaminated by actual photographs, it offers little to the casual image-hungry surfer. Not a recruitment tool by any means, this page assumes you're already in the fold. If so, worth a moment.
Overall Rating: 14
Phase of the Moon
URL: http://www.speakeasy.org/~chris/pom/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
You think just looking at the night sky is good enough? No way. Beam-in here to check out the moon's current phase in all its complexity. Posted according to Seattle time, the lunation number, lumination percentage, and age of the moon (to the second) are given. And that's it, folks.
Overall Rating: 15
Gina-Global Internet News Agency
URL: http://www.gina.com/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Gina provides comprehensive coverage of Internet developments, highlighting new products and services. Businesses can use Gina services to connect with countless other Internet-related buyers and sellers. The Internet Wire provides daily updates of new product press releases, and Technology News Tips offers lists for PR professionals looking for places to post promotional material. The Expert Net lists experts and speakers available for conferences, trade shows, and seminars. Useful place for Internet businesses to swap information.
Overall Rating: 15
WWW Home Appliance Repair Assistance Center
URL: http://www.shadow.net/~syncmast/
Category: Reference
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Would you like to know how a refrigerator works? Perhaps your trash compactor needs fixing? Welcome to the Home Appliance Repair Assistance Center. A lot of pages are under construction, so I was disappointed when I tried to get tips on repairing a gas range and a dishwasher, but the clothes washer insight was helpful. Then again, maybe home appliances are not the highlight of this site. I mean it pales compared to the homepage of a Home Appliance contributor. Click over to the Hackrbum home page and learn about UFO's, Bible prophecy, and Government secrecy. Unfortunately the page titled "Hackrbum's View on the End of the World" could not be found. What do you think that means?
Overall Rating: 14
In Christ Ministries
URL: http://www.inchrist.org
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Judging by all the awards that festoon this site, Christian sites are ambitious business. A Virginian named Kelly provides a place for evangelical Christians to study Bible texts, share poetry, testimonies and "praise reports" (examples of prayer at work). Weekly sermons (essays) by various ministers, "words of wisdom" (posted by visitors), and a good-sized selection of other links of interest round out this Web ministry. Links include sites on devotions, evangelism, business, Bible study, and art and music.
Overall Rating: 15
MP Technologies Home Page
URL: http://www.wpg.ramp.net/~mptech/index.html
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
This personal Jehovah's Witness page was built by two Canadians to promote their Bible software (the company is called MP Technologies) and offer global news and notes on the 125-year-old Christian sect. Not affiliated with the official church or its publishing arm, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the site does provide selected articles from its publications. There's an excellent FAQ on the beliefs of the Society, and links to other JW pages.
Overall Rating: 15
Witches' League
URL: http://www.celticcrow.com
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Names like "The Black Feather," "Starwood," and "Celtic Feast" greet you at the Witches' League of Public Awareness (and American history students will be pleased to know it's based in Salem, Mass.). The site has a suitably dark, cosmic and symbol-laden look. Though new, it's well-organized and promises links to everything from witches in the military to teen witches, pages about cats ("and animal friends") to gay witches. An excellent overview of contemporary witchcraft and its ancient roots. Look for "Witches' Do's and Dont's" to dispel any witch-myths you may harbor.
Overall Rating: 16
Young Jains of America
URL: http://www.utexas.edu/students/yja/
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Jainism, a Hindu religion whose precepts of nonviolence and asceticism resemble Buddhism, has many followers among East Indians in the U.S. The Young Jains site keeps the Diaspora current on organizational matters (chapters, conventions, membership, newsletters), as well as offering numerous links to pages on vegetarianism and animal protection, Jain history, and university Asian Studies programs. A good intro to the religion, its origins, and modern outgrowths in a new culture.
Overall Rating: 16
Book Stacks Unlimited, Inc.
URL: http://www.books.com/scripts/news.exe
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
This ambitious bookstore invites browsers to pour over some 400,000 titles in a well-designed space. The site profiles new and award-winning titles and provides a searchable topic list. (Publish date, ISBN number, price, and ordering details appear.) Browse among audio clips and a large selection of electronic books posted several times a month. These include works from the likes of Kipling, Dickens, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Earn credits ("Bookmarks") toward free books. You can also ship gifts. Stop by the Cafe to speak your piece about your favorites. Already well-organized, Book Stacks promises to become an enticing spot with more author and review information.
Overall Rating: 16
Moz
URL: http://www.bridge.net/~moz/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Moz-E Shirts (get it?) are either a swell idea or an awful one; I can't decide. Here it is: You put your e-mail address on a T-shirt for all the world to see. Florida college student Moz offers Nancy (of Sluggo fame), a conehead guy, a cool sax player, a steaming cup of joe, and Van Gogh flowers. Or send in your own fave graphic (standard formats, please) and choose a font from his esoteric selection. Cool feature: he'll sends you a GIF of what the shirt will look like. If you like it, be ready to pay cash; Moz doesn't take plastic.
Overall Rating: 16
Music Boulevard
URL: http://www.musicblvd.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
At Music Boulevard you you can browse music titles by genre, artist, album and song title. Albums display an All Music Guide rating and release date, and you can choose CD's or cassettes. (Though you must open an account before buying, it's transacted via a secure server.) Sign up for e-mail news of the shop's sales. One smart feature: choosing an artist gets you a list of similar artists to investigate. But when I picked Terence Trent D'Arby from the Oleta Adams list, they said no titles were available. Hmm.
Overall Rating: 16
The Blue Armadillo
URL: http://www.bluedude.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Karen Wickre
Once upon a time, there was a meek, blue armadillo destined to become roadkill. After nearly meeting his fate at the hands of an 18-wheeler, he started pumping up and turned over a new leaf. Now known as Blue Dude, he spends time surfing, rollerblading and posing for a line of T-shirts. Any or all of nine in the series can be yours -- or you can even rep the whole line. Cute designs and a story line make this an appealing notion.
Overall Rating: 15
New Hope Friendship Missionary Baptist Church
URL: http://inet1.inetworld.net/~robt/
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
One of the great things about the net is the potential for attracting a global audience with your page. Here, a local Baptist church spreads their weekly bulletin to people everywhere. As such, it is mostly geared to the church's congregation in San Diego. Fortunately, there is a lot of information on other churches with Web pages, a list of vacant churches that need pastors, and information on conventions. There is also topical news about the recent arson fires in predominately black churches, including a list of the victims. The guestbook makes for entertaining and inspirational reading including a rather ominous message left by one guest: "I was impressed [with the site] and I think hell will be too."
Overall Rating: 13
Friends of Osho
URL: http://earth.path.net/osho/
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Are you a friend of Osho? Come on over and find out. Buddhism is the order here at this spiritually deep site. Despite the pre-Netscape look about this page, it does a credible job of informing you about Osho, the man (who was "never born, never died") and about Buddhism worldwide. Osho's biography is especially interesting. Also learn what meditation is and isn't and how you can partake. You can also join the mailing list to talk to like-minded folk.
Overall Rating: 13
Dial-the-Truth
URL: http://www.av1611.org/
Category: Religion
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
I found this page nauseating at times. All the same, I have to commend Dial-the-Truth for its innovative approach to saving souls. At the DTT Web site you can sign up for Bible Study via e-mail or browse through DTT's archive of apocalyptic religious tracts online. Other features include Dial-A- Verse, an order form for pamphlets (free), and an electronic registry of the saved. DTT has definitely mastered the net. Of course, DTT's notion of "the truth" is a narrow one. The site claims to have "saved" satanists, homosexuals, prostitutes, people in prison, cultists, and others; needless to say, they didn't get me.
Overall Rating: 17
Internet Plaza
URL: http://internet-plaza.net/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
A "virtual mall," you can either window shop at the Internet Plaza or browse through merchandise at numerous and varied retail establishments. Shops are divided into categories including Book End, Fashion Blvd., Gourmet Lane, Sports and Fitness St., Travel Ave., and Kids Way, each represented by a handful of stores. For those folks who either loathe, or are unable to reach, the real thing, this is probably not a bad alternative to shopping malls: no parking hassles, lines for dressing rooms, rude clerks, or crowds. Navigating the site is easy, the mall metaphor consistent throughout. C-2 A-2 T-2
Overall Rating: 15
West Coast Paper Company
URL: http://www.wcpc.com/index.html
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Paper Channel is West Coast Paper Company's web site, dedicated to the manufacture and sale of paper. The problem inherent in this concept is that one of the great things about choosing paper is handling samples to feel their unique weight, shade, and texture. The product catalog section contains photos of the packaging, but tells very little about the actual physical characteristics of the paper. Those who are familiar with WCPC's stock might want to order online, but those who haven't used their paper will probably want a tangible sample of the product prior to purchase.
Overall Rating: 15
Global Passage netStop
URL: http://www.globalpassage.com/netstop/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Global Passage netStop is biting off a pretty big piece to chew in attempting to provide travel information for the entire world. With so many travel sites out there, it's a question of where prospective travelers want to invest their Internet time. Still, this site is worth a visit *if*: you are traveling to Australia, New Zealand or Thailand; *and/or* you want to live vicariously through the travelogues and photos of other travelers. For other destinations, there are many more comprehensive sites on specific cities, regions, and countries. C-2 A-2 T-2
Overall Rating: 15
Cyberbotanica
URL: http://biotech.chem.indiana.edu/botany/
Category: Science
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Produced by Lucy Snyder of Indiana University's Biotech Project, Cyberbotanica is a hyperlinked guide to plants that can be used in Cancer treatment. Currently, only a small section of the guide is posted containing information on plants and chemotherapy. Find out about hemp and periwinkle for example, and how certain ingredients in those botanicals can be used for pharmacological purposes. Among planned future chapters is one on fungi which produce antibiotics. Organized clearly and simply by plant and medicinal compounds, Cyberbotanica could become a very useful research and health aid as the site develops.
Overall Rating: 15
New England Aquarium
URL: http://www.neaq.org/
Category: Science
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Aside from a basic virtual tour (with neat aquatic sound samples), the majority of the information on this site is press releases and background information about the Aquarium's projects and events. Their work in conservation is absolutely interesting and worthwhile, but perhaps they could balance the big picture with more ways to "act locally." Even their kids' section -- including "Virtual Whale Watch," in which you can go along on a whale adventure (meaning, you can look at snap shots) -- is banal at best. The New England Aquarium site is better than an aquarium screen saver I suppose, but doesn't compare to pushing your face against a tank and looking a fish right in the eyes.
Overall Rating: 15
Matt's Solar Car
URL: http://www.-lips.ece.utexas.edu/~delayman/solar.html
Category: Science
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
As we deplete our oil supplies, some ingenious folks are busy designing solar automobiles that may replace the current gas-guzzlers. And a few adventurous nerds are even racing these solar cars! For a window into the solar car world, check out this site. Find out which universities are building and racing solar race cars and scroll through photos of the Jetsons-esque automobiles. Then link to information about upcoming solar car races. Matt has even archived digests of the Electric Vehicle Email List, where you can learn about technical stuff like the latest advances in batteries, a key component for electric and photovoltaic vehicles. Solar cars--what a bright idea.
Overall Rating: 15
Jane Goodall Institute
URL: http://www.gsn.org/gsn/proj/jgi/index.html
Category: Science
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Jane Goodall Institute, named for the passionate scientist who became famous for hanging with chimps, is dedicated to wildlife research, education, and conservation, and, more specifically, with studying chimpanzees. Here, you can find out about the Institute and its protective efforts for chimps, who are more closely related to us, genetically speaking, than they are to gorillas! If you want to join the Institute in preserving the balance between humans, the Earth, and the other creatures who share our world, their Roots and Shoots program is a good place to start. Here, kids can learn how to start and join environmental and community service projects in their own area.
Overall Rating: 15
Special Olympics International
URL: http://www.specialolympics.org
Category: Sports
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This is a straight ahead page that informs visitors about the Special Olympics--its history, philosophy, and how to volunteer. Founded "on the belief that people with mental retardation can, with proper instruction and encouragement, learn, enjoy and benefit from participation in individual and team sports," the Special Olympics has been doing non-profit work since 1968, helping its athletes, families, and communities lead richer lives. This site also contains valuable information on the nature, preventable causes, and occurrences of mental retardation. Each year, approximately 7,250 cases of retardation are prevented due to prenatal screening and treatment. The Special Olympics International page is a good example of how the net can give a boost to non-profits.
Overall Rating: 15
College Lacrosse
URL: http://www.centennial.fandm.edu/lacrosse/mainmenu
Category: Sports
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
I'm sorry, but this site is a severe eye-glazer. Not a single graphic or textual variation. Line after line of players' names, game scores, record holders, and international team statistics. No links, no nothing, and all of it done in unyielding red, white, and blue type. Was I foolish to hope for more? Was it too much to ask for a little tongue in cheekiness? Something to lift the pall of stuffiness that hangs over this sport....probably for a very good reason. I try to be reasonable and imagine, what if I were a total lacrosse fanatic? What if I lived and breathed the sport.? Well, truth is I'd probably still be bored stiff at this site....or maybe I'd just be boring. C-2, A-1, T-2.
Overall Rating: 14
World of Golf
URL: http://worldofgolf.com/
Category: Sports
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Yes, the name is daunting...The World of Golf. What does the uninitiated know about birdies and pars? Well, you won't get much help from this site. The World of Golf turns out to be a shopping site. Are you looking for a $499 titanium with graphite shaft number? Woods, Irons, Wedges, and putters. It's all here. You can get pricing info and specs at the click of a button. No links, simply "a world of clubs...for you."
Overall Rating: 15
The CyberBoxing Zone
URL: http://members.aol.com/delisa1066/private/boxing.htm
Category: Sports
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
How else would one ever discover that Smokin' Joe Frazier writes like Mickey Spillane? "Bonavena hurt me with that right hand, hurt me like I hadn't been hurt since Georgie Boy had sledgehammered me that first day in the PAL gym. I'd walked into Bonavena's right like an innocent who'd strayed into the war zone." It could only happen in the Cyber Boxing Zone. And in addition to reviews of books by boxers (you said it couldn't be done) and about boxing, you get the update on related movies, computer games, and comics. This is the place for current boxing news, upcoming schedules, and information on current and past world champions. Also links to an AOL newsletter.
Overall Rating: 15
Tonga Online
URL: http://www.netstorage.com/kami/tonga/tstonga.htm
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
"Where the Hell is Tonga?" this site asks. For the geographically uninformed a detailed map of the South Pacific tells you exactly where it is. In fact you can get all your Tongan questions answered here. There is information on history, culture and yes, travel. Meet other Tongans on the net, too. Overall, there isn't much depth here, but the scarcity of Tongan web sites makes this a valuable resource for those interested. In all, this one has the feel of a work in progress: lots of potential.
Overall Rating: 15
The Bahamas
URL: http://microstate.com/bahamas/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
They bill themselves as "The First Bahamas Web Site!" Let's hope it's not the best. The tone here is dry as a bone, acting more as a glorified database than a relevant travel resource. It has scant images, links to Gopher sites that didn't work when I tried them, and outdated travel info. For Bahamian trivia and dull overviews it's not bad, but for real Bahamian insight and spirit, look elsewhere.
Overall Rating: 13
Ghost Town of the Month
URL: http://www.public.asu.edu/~wmogan/ghost.html
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
If you happen to find yourself in the Arizona desert with time on your hands, you'll be glad you consulted Mike's Ghost Town of the Month page. This site highlights 19 crumbling relics of the Gold Rush, providing photos, exact coordinates, and detailed directions. If you are out of the Arizona area, this page provides a brief but telling description of Arizona boomtown history, with enough photographs to make you feel like you've almost been there. Afterwards, you can look through Mike's personal photo album and watch as he and his intrepid buddies rappel down rock faces, fondle firearms, and rescue boy scouts.
Overall Rating: 15
Central Park
URL: http://www.centralpark.org/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
The Central Park site is as close as you can get to this historic center without actually being there. Take a guided tour, check up on the myriad groups operating within the park, and learn its history: You might be curious to know that its creation caused considerable controversy. Expansion in 1863 required displacing roughly 1,600 residents and saw the downfall of Seneca Village, which had been one of the city's most stable African-American settlements. This is a useful way to tour the park if you're too far away or far too nervous to do the real thing. E.S. C-2, A-3, T-2.
Overall Rating: 16
ChezMark!
URL: http://www.ualberta.ca/~mmalowan/ChezMark.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Mark Malowany is a self-professed computer geek or "MacGink," as he puts it. Using frames, his home page smoothly links you to mostly Macintosh and internet-related material. In his bio, you learn that Mark has spent some time schlepping around in "alternative" bands with unfortunate names like Picasso's Puke, StarBabies, and Elephants Gerald. You can download their music while you're browsing a news-page devoted to things like PGP and Canadian politics. In short, this is a serviceable newsletter from a fellow whose life is consumed by HTML tags and graphics design.
Overall Rating: 15
Yes Mark's Cyberhome
URL: http://pages.prodigy.com/marks_cyberhome/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
By day, Mark's a copier technician, but by night, well, he's "one total and completely outrageous Web page maniac!" Using playful forms and primary colors like something straight out of preschool, Mark has built a website to induce childhood nostalgia. He provides links to kids' online magazines for your cyberparenting pleasure, and also gives pointers to nodes ranging from a shareware gateway to a list of Web cartoons. But the neat thing about Mark's page is its apparent lack of cynicism, a quality you can hire his design team to inject in your domain. Aesthetic: 3 Content: 2 Smarts: 2
Overall Rating: 16
Brett's Bestest
URL: http://home.earthlink.net/~bglenn/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Brett Glenn's splash page asks, "If this were the last day of your life, how would you live?" When you try to enter the site, a Java applet prompts you to confirm that you're breathing. Which pretty much crystallizes the winning humor of this wry sixteen year old. The actual contents of the page, ranging from his wish list of CD's to a diagram of his desk, are fairly useless and he knows it, taking every opportunity to poke fun at himself. Brett's poems, however, exhibit the more promising flipside of his obsession with time misspent.
Overall Rating: 16
2323 Silicon Valley Park
URL: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/2323/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
A high school student in New Jersey is the guiding force behind this attractive and friendly site for QBASIC programmers. He's sort of a BASIC groupie and the site includes his fanzine for the language. Also included is an HTML version of the FAQ for the comp.lang.basic.misc newsgroup. The text on a few pages is difficult to read (dang those backgrounds, anyhow), but every page is at least interesting to look at. Due to his sophisticated graphics and obvious hard work on this site, we'll forgive his hyperlink to those insidious evil-doers Hootie and the Blowfish.
Overall Rating: 16
Adrenalin
URL: http://www.calweb.com/~dstoflet/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Java, I tell you, Java! The guy is nutty about Java. Sure, there's some other stuff here, but don't forget his work in... JAAAAAAAAAAVAAH! I'll bet he says it over and over again, just to let the word roll around on his tongue. Mmmmmmmm, how wonderful it feels just to say it. He dabbles in Visual BASIC, does some screwy things with Netscape-style frames and has a spiffy Web tour thingamabob you can take for a spin, but Java is where his heart is. Lucky thing for us he's willing to share tips and examples (source code for Applets and such) particularly for incorporating Javascript into websites.
Overall Rating: 16
Nerd's Heaven
URL: http://boole.stanford.edu/nerdsheaven.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
A directory of directories, this attempt at online Valhalla is appealing mostly due to its snazzy graphics. Ooh baby, just look at those graphics! But, um, that's not what the site is there for. It's supposed to link eventually to every online source for free and/or inexpensive software, regardless of platform or purpose. There are a lot of links here and some of them are really obscure. So, even though more than half the personal pages on the Web point to one or more of the sites on this list (ever hear of Yahoo?), it's probably worth a bookmark.
Overall Rating: 15
How to Become a Server Daemon
URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/chris/daemons/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
This rather stale offering opens with a sketchy schematic tutorial on how the Web is structured. Its very basic layout suggests that the writer could have spent more time reading the content of his own site. Mainly useful as a link-up to other places where Web development really happens (CERN, e.g.). Many of the links yield dreaded 404 errors, but there were some nuggets in the section marked Tools for Server Keepers: icon libraries, gateways between the Web and various databases, HTML translators, and the like. Afraid this daemon is actually a gremlin.
Overall Rating: 13
Freeze-dried Comedy
URL: http://members.aol.com/freezedc/main.htm
Category: Zines
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Hotshot and Mohawk, designers of the Freeze-dried Comedy homepage, grabbed some jokes, some graphics, and threw it together to see what would happen. This site is still young (I was visitor 422 on the counter) and the inexperience shows. Some spots are still under construction, the organization is a little garbled, and most importantly, only about half of the jokes are funny. Admittedly, a few jokes had me laughing, but just as many were duds. There is a roundup, however, of a links to other "funny" sites, under the heading, "Weird Wide Web". Their sponsors page, where they listed Mexico as a patron ("they all chipped in") was somewhat insulting, and the designer's bios are typical: confusing nonsense with humor, and zany for zaniness' sake. content: 2 aesthetic: 2 savvy: 2
Overall Rating: 15
Fade to Black
URL: http://www.fadetoblack.com
Category: Zines
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
An online comedy mag, Fade to Black is worth a yuk or two. Well,...maybe just one yuk. The problem is that the premises are the funniest parts of the jokes. Consider, for example, "The Great Publicity Search" in which the editors write to uptight activist organizations and ask to be boycotted. Not bad if you can follow it up with what's known amongst professional cut-ups as a punchline. No easy trick, I admit, but there it is. As it is, the resulting letters are mildly amusing at times, but more often tiresome. Other gags include a spoof on *Consumer Report* called "Which Religion is Best?" and "Net Nymph," a fictitious piece of software designed to screen everywhere everything on the Web except porn. Laughing yet?
Overall Rating: 15
Casablanca
URL: http://www.bogo.co.uk/doug/casa/casa.html
Category: Zines
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Check out the publication the Guardian called "a rude little magazine." Casablanca trumpets itself as "tough on slime and tough on the causes of slime," and claims to represent opposition to "the humbug which characterizes our age." Sounds good so far. Sounds even better when you consider that they publish the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Tibor Fischer. Only problem is this isn't the zine. I'm not sure what it is. The splash says that Casablanca *is* going online, not that it *has*. When I clicked on articles, the was a header thanking the magazine for allowing its reproduction. It's like a magazine cover with no innards, some kind of weird shadow play, I dunno. It's not a zine though, whatever it is. Not yet.
Overall Rating: 13
Compuserve's Our World
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Compuserve's Our World attempts to develop a "global community" by providing free software, graphics and 1 megabyte of server space for anyone who wants to put up their own home page (providing you are willing to forego pornography, obscenity and racist material). While this is an intriguing concept, the twenty or so home pages I scanned were disappointingly uniform, most featuring a photo or two and a series of links. This still doesn't quite feel like a community to me; rather a bunch of individuals gathered together in a central location. A beginning, perhaps, but there's a lot more to community than a shared interest in having your picture on the Internet.
Overall Rating: 16
The Andy Kaufman Home Page
URL: http://fly.hiwaay.net/~bkm/akhome.htm
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The Andy Kaufman Home Page is friendly and respectful. It's full of testimonials and trivia concerning one of the strangest celebrities of the late 70s and early 80s. Kaufman, best-known for his role as mechanic Latka Gravas on the sitcom Taxi, was by turns a con artist, a performance artist, an actor, a stand-up comic, an Elvis impersonator, and wrestling champion. Single-minded in his pursuit of worldwide confusion, Kaufman died of cancer in 1984 at the age of 35. This site has none of his energy.
Overall Rating: 14
PoliticsNow
URL: http://www.politicsnow.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Sometimes, when a Daddy Website and a Mommy Website love each other very much, they decide to make a new, baby Website. That's the case here, sort of. The merging of ElectionLine and PoliticsUSA has created PoliticsNow, the content of which alternates between impressive and lackluster. Clearly, a lot of talented people work long hours every day on PoliticsNow, but it's still drab in many ways. Highlights: A searchable directory of more than 7,000 movers and shakers, an almanac of American politics, a searchable database of political news stories, and the sardonic "Hit List."
Overall Rating: 15
PythOnline
URL: http://www.pythonline.com/fakeopen
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
PythOnline is for the Python (Monty) acolyte with time to kill. Not surprisingly, it's very funny in places, but the troupers are so wrapped up in being witty and self-referencial (not to mention self-reverential), they've forgotten about bandwidth and ease-of-use. Whereas Python was quick, Pythonline is plodding. Visitors can't even get from point A to point B without taking as many as seven unwanted steps between them. We're not all squawky-voiced pepper pots with endless free time. Your patience will be rewarded, but not enough. Nudge-nudge. Wink-wink. Say no more.
Overall Rating: 15
Theatre Direct, International
URL: http://theatredirect.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Theatre Direct, International seeks to become for live theatre what 777-FILM has become for movie theaters. Background information, showtimes, ticket sales and gossip are provided for live shows in New York, touring US stage companies, and London. The gossip seems like satire. To wit, did you know ex-Monkee Mickey Dolenz is writing a musical version of the 70s sitcom Happy Days? It premieres in London's West End before 1997. And, on Broadway next season, audiences will delight to a toe-tapping musical about the sinking of the Titanic. Somewhere out there, someone is trembling with anticipation.
Overall Rating: 15
The Paintings of Vermeer
URL: http://www.ccsf.caltech.edu/~roy/vermeer/
Category: Art
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The Paintings of Vermeer is a tribute to 17th century painter, Jan Vermeer. Only 35 of his paintings have survived and all of them are available here in digitized form. Vermeer's art was ignored for more than 200 years after his death, but in the nineteenth century his photorealistic work became widely recognized. Scholars suspect Vermeer's realism was the result of his using a camera obsura, one of the forerunners of the photographic camera. Intended for art scholars, the site makes the subject accessible for the layman as well.
Overall Rating: 14
C-EdRes
URL: http://cnet.unb.ca/c-edres/
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
C-EdRes claims to be a "one-stop site" for finding and evaluating education-related Internet resources. Joining its e-mail list will get you a weekly set of new reviews written by teachers. These aim to keep others in the education industry apprised of what's new and worthwhile on the Internet. The results are diverse and growing, and you can search the regularly updated online database. If you're an educator, and would like to publicize an online resource among your peers, C-EDRes is a good place to do it. An added feature is the the list of arts-related links. Aesthetics: 2 Content: 2 Smarts: 2
Overall Rating: 15
Accepted
URL: http://www.accepted.com
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Linda Abraham, the author of *How to write an OUTSTANDING Personal Statement.* maintains a website that aims to help you do just that. Her rather plain page offers concise, useful pointers on how to advantageously turn your personal statement into a "human interest" piece starring yourself. Separate strategies are outlined for Medical, Business, Law and Graduate schools. You can also read the endorsements of applicants whom Abraham has helped to gain admission with her editing services, to which she devotes the rest of her site. If you're interested in professional help, send an e-mail or call her. Aesthetics: 2 Content:3 Smarts: 1
Overall Rating: 15
Lip Balm Anonymous
URL: http://members.aol.com/LipBalmA/index.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
And I thought I was the only one! Start your recovery here with the proven Twelve Step method. Principle #1 is "We admitted we were powerless over lip balm -- that our lives had become unmanageable." Learn all about the evil industry of addiction, from Carmex to Blistex, and help fight the insidious dependency. Something eating at you? Ask Lip Balm Anonymous. One troubled soul wanted to know if Vaseline counted as lip balm. (It does.) All the support you need is right here, friends. Hello, my name is Suzie, and I'm addicted to chapstick.
Overall Rating: 16
A & E
URL: http://www.aetv.com/
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
A & E is one of the most underrated cable channels. Where else can you catch a "Biography" of Amelia Earhart before enjoying a guilty chuckle courtesy of Howard Stern? The A & E site is cleanly designed with deep background on their programming -- from mysteries to classic movies to Quincy reruns. Teachers will appreciate the A & E Classroom materials, so they can help make watching TV educational! (Seriously!) If you're into A & E, it's worth stopping here to browse the daily and weekly schedules. Of course, that isn't much use if you don't have cable. As if.
Overall Rating: 15
Harry Shearer
URL: http://www.pobox.com/harry/
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Visit the wacky home page of Harry Shearer, comedian and host of Le Show on NPR. Filled with character impersonations and sketches, political humor, readings from bizarre magazines, and eclectic musical interludes, Le Show is absolute ear candy. And for those of you who have given up on radio as a dead media, you'll recognize Shearer as the hyper-talented voice behind The Simpsons' Mr. Burns, Smithers, Principal Skinner, Reverend Lovejoy, Ned Flanders... do I need to keep going? Even if you're not a fan of Le Show, it's hard not to find something of comedic attraction on this site. (The Simpsons sound samples are not to be missed.)
Overall Rating: 16
Gigaplex
URL: http://www.gigaplex.com/
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Talk about information overload! Gigaplex is a 600+ page entertainment webzine! Divided into around a dozen sub-sections -- everything from Filmplex to Bookplex to Yogaplex to Golfplex -- this site shouts comprehensiveness. Recipes, celebrity interviews, athletic tips, book excerpts, and other entertainment tidbits are all free for the browsing. (Although the writing quality could certainly be improved.) There's also plenty of related crapola to blow cash on. If I'm wrong and the successful Web publishing model turns out to be "general interest" as opposed to "hyperspecific," Gigaplex has it made.
Overall Rating: 15
Batman TAS Encyclopedia
URL: http://www.cmgnet.com/~ames
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The series that inspired the "Dark Deco" genre of TV animation is well-documented on this truly fanatical fan's site. This is *the* place to learn the history of Gotham CIty's weirdest and wildest inhabitants, from familiar faces like Catwoman and Penguin, to newer rogues like Joker's female flack, Harley Quinn. An episode guide reprinted from Cinemafantastique has also been posted so you can keep track of your own "see and must-see" list. Alfred would be proud.
Overall Rating: 15
AT&T Business Network
URL: http://www.bnet.att.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Today, high-tech communication is obviously an integral part of big business. Always striving to be out in front of the competition, AT&T provides this directory of business resources online. Divided into sections like Industry, News, Management, and Government, the Business Network is a rich list of links covering every element of the business world. Kudos to AT&T for posting intelligently-written annotations so you don't waste too much time poking around for what you want. One drawback, however, is that the site is organized in so much detail, it can take almost a half-dozen clicks to get into the depths where the links actually dwell.
Overall Rating: 16
Prosperity Partners
URL: http://www.note.com/note/pp/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Won the lottery recently? Bumming about the 20 year pay-out schedule? Sued the pants off someone and want all your money right now? Prosperity Partners is here to help. What this firm does is legally buy out your lottery ticket or other unusual cash flow instrument and present you with a lump sum of money -- a technique they claim will stop inflation from eating at the value of your payments. Sounds like a good idea, but what's the catch? You certainly won't find an answer to that question on the home page. My suggestion? Wait until you hit the Pick-Six and *then* call Prosperity Partners for more information.
Overall Rating: 15
NAIC
URL: http://www.better-investing.org/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
Investors clubs have made it onto the Web, enabling physically separate people of like-minded financial interest to pool resources (intellectual and pecuniary) for their common good. This site represents the efforts of one of the older groups around. There are tutorials for new investors, offers to sign up for the full investing courses they provide by mail, documents detailing the investment strategy they've honed over three decades. If propinquity is your preference, check out the calendar for the next investment seminar in your area.
Overall Rating: 13
The Greatest Films
URL: http://www.filmsite.org/
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
I was all set to get film clips of my favorite classics--Claude Raines and Bogey strolling into the mist, Gene Hackman's Manhattan chase scene, Woody Allen casually flinging records to impress his date -- but all I got were text summaries of some of these gems, filed by decade, genre or a memorable quote. Of course I was expecting the impossible, given copyrights and all, but we can dream, can't we? The admitted emphasis is on older classics, and all of them are in English. The only graphics are icons created by the author, so don't expect promotional photos to add to your scrapbook.
Overall Rating: 13
The Lost Elvis Diaries
URL: http://home.mem.net/~welk/elvisdiaries.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
This broad parody of hard-boiled detective novels puts a reporter on the trail of The King's rumored but previously unseen diaries. If incessant Elvis jokes, stock characters, and lines like, "I sensed he was lying. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the glint in his eye, maybe it was the stammer, or maybe it was the 'I'm Lying' T-shirt he was wearing," strike you as darn funny, you might enjoy this chapter-a-week serial yarn. Unfortunately, the diaries themselves don't appear until chapter 15, and then only as dull one- or two-sentence entries. Maybe that's the kicker--Elvis's diaries are boring.
Overall Rating: 15
The Slurpee Shrine
URL: http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~munoz/slurpee/slurhome.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
A concept in search of content, The Slurpee Shrine is unlikely to satisfy any but the most ardent worshippers of the icy treat. Other than a clever animated Slurpee graphic and the Slurpee Facts section, which is nothing more than a list of flavors, there's not much here--no Slurpee history, no personal Slurpee experiences, no Slurpee lore. You can add to the list of flavors and vote for your favorite, but that's it. The somewhat desperate-sounding plea for ideas leads me to believe that after his initial great idea, the Slurpmaster found himself sitting in front of a computer screen saying, "Now what?"
Overall Rating: 14
The Squashed Bug Zoo
URL: http://squashed.roach.org/zoo.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
The weirdly elegant, sepia-colored photo of a long-legged, delicate-winged dead insect that serves as the Squashed Bug Zoo's background gives this frankly disgusting concept an aura of aesthetic inquiry. But not to worry, fans of insect gore, there's nothing high-minded about the presentation of this collection of mostly viewer-submitted squashed-bug photographs. Each specimen is accompanied by a caption describing the critter and the circumstances of its death. There's also a small-vertebrate section, which is not as nauseating as you might think, although I didn't have the stomach to view the rat part. Definitely an uncommon passion.
Overall Rating: 15
Education Place
URL: http://www.eduplace.com/
Category: Education
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
Created by Houghton Mifflin, the Education Place is packed with fine activities for grammar school students, plus ideas for teachers and advice for parents on helping kids learn. But to my mind the site's most delightful feature is its update of Mad Libs, called Wacky Web Tales. These things will always be funny--what else produces phrases like "After handing our toes to Leonardo Da Vinci at the door ..."? Enjoy them with your friends and family. Other games help kids hone their skills in science and math, and the Project Center gives teachers access to online projects as well as non-Internet-based classroom activities.
Overall Rating: 16
Campbell Soups
URL: http://www.campbellsoups.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Ever since Andy Warhol made it cool, Campbell's has possessed an enviable position in the soup world. Unfortunately, Campbell's website is a lot like their soup: warm and comforting, but not exactly overflowing with substance (which is fine if you're home sick). The standard stuff is here: Campbell's Soup recipes (you know the green beans with cream of mushroom and french fried onion rings on top?), Campbell's Soup souvenirs, and general information about the company and its other brands. I found the Seasonal Sampler section to be particularly humorous, with suggested menus for significant yearly events (Campbell's on Yom Kippur?).
Overall Rating: 15
Budweiser
URL: http://www.budweiser.com
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Engines revving and testosterone coursing through the veins of men across America reverberate through Budweiser Online, like the sound of the ocean dimly echoing in a conch. The site features automobile race information ad nauseam, beermaster tips, photos from spring breaks in Fort Lauderdale, Cancun, and the Bahamas, and Thirst for Knowledge ("exercise your brain with "how to say 'beer' in 33 languages"). You can also buy Bud Gear (clothing and accessories) and download the Bud Frogs screensaver. It's pretty obvious who Budweiser's target audience is -- you know who you are -- and there's plenty here for them.
Overall Rating: 16
Moto Laverda
URL: http://www.keycomm.it/~laverda/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
This bilingual site is sponsored by LaVerda, the Italian motorcycle manufacturer. The text is in both Italian and English (the stilted, translated variety) and features brief description of the various models, along with photos for enthusiasts to drool over. A full line of clothing and accessories will also be available through the site some time in the future. This is not an overly hyped-up site, and possesses a certain homespun charm that a lot of the slicker corporate sites lack.
Overall Rating: 15
Diesel Jeans
URL: http://www.diesel.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Diesel Jeans' web site sports the faux seventies look of its fashions: bell bottoms, halter tops, and hip huggers are showcased at this site which is rendered in blinding neon colors and swirling, psychedelic patterns. Its design metaphor is that of a funky, slightly seedy hotel. Enter through The Foyer, and take the guided tour to peek through keyholes at a series of strange collages. The Ground Floor boutique, with fashions for kids, women, and men, made me wish I had kept the beloved terrycloth romper of my childhood. This is a refreshingly wacky site that doesn't take itself seriously at all, and offers some fun surprises.
Overall Rating: 17
E-data
URL: http://www.e-data.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
E-Data owns the rights to a 1985 patent that has far-reaching implications for many businesses. Simply put, the patent involves the technology that allows for the sale and distribution of products electronically using encryption methods. Currently involved in complex patent infringement litigation, E-Data is, in the meantime, offering "amnesty" to companies who may be infringing, providing they purchase licensing agreements to use this technology. Companies who have taken advantage of this offer include Adobe Systems, IBM, and Kidsoft. While the patent is currently in contention, this issue is worth checking into for companies conducting electronic commerce.
Overall Rating: 15
The Black World Today
URL: http://www.tbwt.com/index2.htm
Category: Media
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
TBWT aims "to be the one 'must stop' in cyberspace for Blacks the world over; a place where they can come each day to feed their minds and souls with uplifting information and inspiration, a place to meet and chat with each other and to engage in commerce." With its sophisticated design and knowing reportage, TBWT seems prepared to realize its ambitions. Here you'll find cogent politico-economic and cultural analysis from a pan-African perspective, complimented by historical and geographical profiles of black countries and achievers. Furthermore, embedded Webchat and a classifieds section give this site a promising degree of interactivity.
Overall Rating: 17
tt.net
URL: http://www.tt.net/index.html
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
tt.net is a Minneapolis-based ISP that maintains a large Website catering to the local independent music scene. A straightforward, graphical interface points you to a comprehensive and frequently updated list of local record labels, bands and management services. Labels hosted here include Restless Records, TRG, Atomic Theory and their numerous subsidiaries. Bands range from *The Replacements* to *The Last Poets*, and *Babes in Toyland*. Individual sites typically include press information, sound and video samples, and ordering information. Primarily, this site was built to shift units and is best approached with that in mind. Of the individual nodes, Restless seemed to be the most evolved.
Overall Rating: 15
The Theremin Home Page
URL: http://www.Nashville.Net/~theremin/
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Invented by Leon Theremin in 1918 and credited with being the first "synthesizer," the theremin is played by waving one's hands near two metal antennae: one for pitch, the other for volume. The result is a beguiling elasticity of sound that's been much in vogue of late among experimental musicians. Here, neophytes and adepts alike will find what they're looking for, from theremin ordering information and detailed building schematics to performance schedules and a photo gallery. You can also download sounds, browse a bibliography or join a newsgroup that discusses technique. A visually appealing, informative, one-stop site.
Overall Rating: 16
500X Gallery
URL: http://www.whytel.com/users/rawspace/500.html
Category: Art
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
The 500X Gallery, operating since 1978 in the great state of Texas, encourages young and emerging artists to take creative risks in an uninhibited forum, free from the restrictions of mainstream galleries. The nicely designed site allows you to view the works of the 500X Gallery staff and members and provides links to related galleries. Especially good is the Pablum link which includes, in addition to record reviews and Japanese culture, a DIY HTML page called Webhead.
Overall Rating: 16
Havana Street
URL: http://www.eden.com/~havana/index.html
Category: Art
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Havana Clipart is a company which specializes in 40's era graphics. There are some freebies available on this site but if you want the goods, get ready to spend between $59 to $79 bucks for a CD-ROM. As a site, it doesn't offer much except for page after page of faces, people, and vehicles done with a wartime twist, which are fun to look at. Links to a zine called Retro and The Clipart Connection site.
Overall Rating: 15
Last Ditch
URL: http://www.bway.net/~ditch/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
I got so caught up in page after page telling me to turn back, I was hooked. There's not much to the Last Ditch site, but then they're the first ones to say so. What you do get is some funny writers who make fun of their site so effectively, it comes off as a success. Good self-deprecating stream-of-consciousness stuff, and the Sewage Report is a must-read.
Overall Rating: 16
The Bacon Oracle
URL: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~bct7m/bacon.html
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Any idea what the Bacon number of Max Von Sydow is? Well, Max appeared in the film Awakenings with Robert De Niro and De Niro was in Sleepers with Kevin Bacon, giving Max a Bacon number of two. See how it works? All of this information is brought to you courtesy The Oracle of Bacon at Virginia and two guys who set out to prove that no one could have a Bacon number bigger than four, since he always acts in movies with big casts of famous actors. You can also play a version of the game with Schwartzenegger as the center of the universe.
Overall Rating: 15
In Our Path
URL: http://www.tmn.com/iop/
Category: Art
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This combination of photos, essays, and interactive maps follows the construction and aftermath of the Century Freeway Corridor in Los Angeles. Beginning the project in 1982, photographer Jeff Gates soon found the ramifications of his curiosity broadening as the project took shape. The end product of his work was several exhibits/community symposiums which are combined on the site. Seeking simply to capture the sense of "abandoned suburbia" that the scenery exuded, Gates became caught up in the stories of the people being displaced by the freeway as well as those involved in building it.
Overall Rating: 15
Phone Losers of America
URL: http://www.peak.org/~bueno/
Category: Bizarre
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Apparently inspired by a guy who dabbles in illicit phone codes and credit card fraud, Phone Losers of America takes as its premise the fact that symbols of communication authority should be made fun of: Ma Bell, AOL, and Bill Gates. There's a Prank Phone Call page with sound bites of choice harassment, reviews of recordings of more prank calls, extensive links to phone and bad attitude-related sites. Also, an anti-award page. Self mocking we-are-proud-to-be-phone-losers humor throughout. To hear the site's ringleader, Redbox Chilipepper tell it, "everyone's talking about PLA. If only they were saying something nice."
Overall Rating: 15
The East Village
URL: http://eastvillage.com
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Here's a synopsis straight off the site: "Best friends Eve and Mick have recently slept together, but right afterwards Mick hurried out of Eve's apartment. Both were very uncomfortable ... Mick especially, since he had also been sleeping with Eve's next door neighbor, Lila. But after the sex with Lila got too rough, ..." You get the idea. From there it's off to the races in this "cybersoap." Now, I don't know how many soap fans cruise the Web, nor how many will want to read episodes from a monitor, but ... well, if the story intrigues you and you have time to kill ... have a look-see. Personally, I think Mick and Lila make a lovely couple, even if she does play a little rough.
Overall Rating: 17
Enzian
URL: http://www.enzian.org/fi/index.html
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Enzian could be a hell of a site if all the features it advertised worked. Though it boasts a comprehensive list of film resources on the Internet, as of this writing at least a third of the links are down, while another fifth lead to shoestring sites that aren't worth seeing in the first place. The search engine is an impotent parody of technology that shrugged "no matching entry" when I tried as sure a bet as "Marlon Brando." Enzian's primary role, then, seems to be to promote the Florida Film Festival, which, by all accounts, needs promoting. Enzian hypes the fifth year of the festival while declaring the state of Florida the ideal place to make a movie. Hmm. But, criticism notwithstanding, Enzian has potential. With some updating and housecleaning it could all come together.
Overall Rating: 15
Multiplicity
URL: http://www.multiplicity.com
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
The Hollywood studios feel compelled, it seems, to somehow turn the Web into a vehicle for extended movie trailers, big involved things that will really help the movie buff to "get into the movie." But, near as I can tell, they invariably hinge on a gimmicky, faux-interactive interface that just makes you think twice about going to any movie by the same title. On the Multiplicity site, you're asked to decide whether you need a clone. Are you stressed? Bogged down by the constant push-and-pull of modern life? So on and so forth. With the content out of the way, it's on to the game, the heart and soul, it would seem, of any movie site. Requires Shockwave.
Overall Rating: 17
Chain Reaction
URL: http://www.chain-reaction.com
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
The Chain Reaction site tries to make the film look serious, as if the future of mankind were at stake and not just the career of Keanu Reeves (Sorry, Keanu, you'll always be Bill to me. Or was it Ted?). Of course, if you like the idea of this thriller, you can always download a screensaver with an action scene from the new movie. The Research Lab section of the site actually does offer a well-organized, if simplistic, rundown on something as serious as alternative fuel sources and current energy technology. Of course, you'll probably opt for the games, instead, provided you have Shockwave.
Overall Rating: 17
Flashers!
URL: http://www.flashers.com/
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
No, it's not the sequel to Showgirls, it's an online magazine. Or as they call themselves, a "Showbiz Photo Cyberzine". It's a glorious full-color affair, with very large (and time-consuming) pictures of your favorite, and not-so-favorite, celebrities. The owner of the site wishes to dispel the image of paparazzi hiding in the bushes to take compromising pictures of celebrities. Instead you can see tasteful pictures of stars at movie premieres, awards ceremonies, gala parties, film festivals and other big Hollywood events. Jumping from page to page can be difficult since the site is very linear. There is a regular photo caption contest to keep the fans coming back for more.
Overall Rating: 15
CameraNet
URL: http://www.boulevards.com/cameranet/index.htm
Category: Film
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This site commemorates the Camera cinemas' twenty years of feeding the San Francisco Bay Area film culture. The listings will be locally useful of course, but their Web-wide crosslinks to reviews and related pages give them some global value as well. CameraNet also hosts informative pages on genres and schools such as the currently featured Hong Kong cinema and the silent films of the twenties, so you can get the scoop on, say, Jet Li or Lon Chaney to compliment a screening. The film-booker's report from Cannes is insightful and CameraNet's appeal to a loyal community bodes well for growth.
Overall Rating: 15
Conquest of the New World
URL: http://conquest.interplay.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Advertising has reached new levels with the World Wide Web, putting the same amount of material in front of the consumer as a television infomercial. Interplay has set up the Conquest of the New World site as a way of showing off all the aspects of the game. Using a lot of Shockwave files, it illustrates all the strategy points of the game, such as exploring, trading, lying, and stealing. Each screen covers some aspect of our politically incorrect forefathers' takeover of North America. Beautifully designed, the site is one elegant commercial, that even includes a little Shockwave game that really makes you want to play Conquest.
Overall Rating: 17
Crabbe Huson
URL: http://www.contrarian.com/
Category: Finance
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Crabbe Huson sounds more like something on the menu in a French restaurant than an investment firm, no? But it's an investment firm, all right, based on the "contrarian" school of buying and selling. You can read up on the Crabbe Huson philosophy at the site, an attractive, serviceable introduction to the company and its approach. To simplify, Crabbe and Huson, the two founders, believe that at crucial times in the investing process, the majority is dead wrong; therefore, when they zig, you zag. Doesn't sound all that revolutionary to me, but what do I know? You can research the fund profiles and prospectus for yourself at the site.
Overall Rating: 15
SOHO America
URL: http://work.soho.org/soho/soho.html
Category: Finance
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
SOHO, as in Small Office, Home Office, not South of Houston. This organizion offers an advocacy service for small businesses for a membership fee of $33.00 a year. What you get in return for that modest layout is info and reference materials pertaining to small business, access to small biz experts, benefit offers, and a voice in Wahington. Think of it as a privately run Small Business Administration. If the site is any indication, membership may be worthwhile. At the very least, it's worth a visit for anyone working out of the home. Don't leave without having a look at "Window to the World," an extensive list of links to biz-related sites.
Overall Rating: 16
Aftershock: Arcade Alley
URL: http://www.ashock.com/html/arcadealley.html
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
Up for some classic video arcade action like Space Invaders and Frogger? If you're one of those people with fond memories of your Atari 2600 or who pumped quarters into games like Q*Bert and Centipede down at the mall, then you'll overwhelmed by nostalgia for the good old days at Arcade Alley. Aftershock's programming is impeccable. Their games look and sound just like the originals, and you won't waste any quarters playing them (although you probably have a lot more quarters to spend now). Aftershock is dedicated to bringing more replicas of classic games to the Web, so watch this space; it's going to turn into a full arcade, just like they had at the mall.
Overall Rating: 16
Bingo Zone
URL: http://www.bingozone.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Wayne Cunningham
The beloved game of churches and Indian reservations, Bingo has found its way onto the Web, and the Bingo Zone not only offers different varieties of the game, but also cash prizes. There are probably plenty of Bingo experts out there that would recognize the different kinds of Bingo games here and appreciate the diversity. The games they run are fully interactive, including players from all over the world. On weekends, the games start every 30 minutes, and run 24 hours, but on weekdays, they are only from 10 AM to 4 AM Eastern Standard Time, which should be enough for most players.
Overall Rating: 15
Dr. Greene's HouseCalls
URL: http://www.drgreene.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
No he doesn't do housecalls, it's just a cool name for Dr. Alan Greene's Web page. For starters, read the doctor's biography and look at his picture. Doesn't he exude professionalism and warmth wearing that Alan Alda-like sweater? The main section here is the Q&A of the day, where the pediatrician answers questions. His responses contain words like "nitrofurantoin, rimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, pneumocystis and Shigella so he must know his stuff! You can also search previous questions that this very huggable doctor has received. Keep in mind that Dr. Greene can't help parents with children requiring "immediate attention".
Overall Rating: 13
International Association of Physicians in AIDS care
URL: http://www.iapac.org/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
This organization means to educate people. Their mission is to "maximize the survival and quality of life of people with HIV disease." The page is a little overlong on information about the organization, but there is a lot of AIDS information here as well. Use the online search form to find what you're looking for. You can even subscribe to their monthly newsletter. Most of the articles here are their own with few links to supplement the material. There's also information on upcoming medical conferences, like the one with the unfortunate title, The Third European Chlamydia Meeting.
Overall Rating: 14
Healthwise
URL: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/healthwise
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Advice and news on health and wellness brought to you by the Columbia University Health Service. The key attraction here is the "Go Ask Alice!" section where people ask questions about anything health-related. You can search questions by topics: Sexuality, Sexual Health, Relationships, Drugs & Alcohol, Fitness & Nutrition and Emotional Well-Being. Or you can browse the archives by keyword. Healthwise offers refreshingly frank and informative answers to very touchy questions that you could never ask your mother. Or Dear Abby.
Overall Rating: 14
Hepatitis Information Network
URL: http://www.wp.com/hepatitis/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Who is at risk for getting Hepatitis C and Hepatitis B? Find out here. Anyone interested in Hepatitis will find lots of information. You can read articles from medical journals, find out about upcoming conferences, and see results from an online survey. Although the graphics are rather low key, they're adequate for the job. A quiz also tests your Hepatitis knowledge.
Overall Rating: 13
/b> 15
Thinking Allowed
URL: http://www.thinking-allowed.com/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
You can peruse 38 transcripts and purchase more than 200 videos drawn from this independent public-television series featuring discussions between host Jeffrey Mishlove and various intellectual luminaries. Follow the train of thought that leads to this statement by Mishlove, from a talk with Fred Alan Wolf about Physics and Consciousness: "It's almost remarkable, when you talk about it that way, that I'm sitting here looking at you and you look like a humanoid." Seriously, though, this is meaty stuff--we're not talking beach reading. Thinking required.
Overall Rating: 14
Biography.com
URL: http://www.biography.com/
Category: Humanities
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Based on A & E's excellent television show, the Biography Web site is pure mind candy for those enthralled by other people's pasts. Speak out about Biography subjects like Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Lewis in the "Speak" bulletin board section. Then, test your knowledge in the Anagram Game or Biography Quiz. (Who was the U. S. engineer who, in 1852, developed a lift that incorporated a safety device, making it acceptable for passenger use in skyscrapers? Tune in to Biography to find out.) Biography.com is an educational complement, rather than a boring advertisement, for a fine television show.
Overall Rating: 15
Kids on the Internet
URL: http://www.the-hermes.net/~ljh/
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
"I am 12 years old, and not some company, so I would know what kids like and want," the president of Kids on the Internet (KOTI) confidently claims, and who am I to argue? Much of the site was under construction when I visited, but planned features include Kid Surf, a hand-picked (see above) list of sites accompanied by brief reviews; Sound Off, an e-zine filled with kids' writing; e-mail pal match-ups; and a guide to Internet chat conventions. KOTI could be the start of a kid-created online community.
Overall Rating: 15
A Bullet Can't Kill a Dream
URL: http://www.digitalrag.com/iqbal/iqbal.html
Category: Kids
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Sandra Stewart
A moving demonstration of how kids can make a difference in the lives of others, A Bullet Can't Kill a Dream outlines the short, tragic life of Iqbal Masih and the efforts of a Massachusetts middle school to help realize his vision. Iqbal, a Pakistani boy who escaped forced labor at age 10, spoke out worldwide against child slavery and in favor of schools. He was murdered last spring. Broad Meadows Middle School students have started a School for Iqbal Fund and launched a letter-writing campaign for an investigation into his death. The site tells kids how to get involved with both projects.
Overall Rating: 15
FoodTV
URL: http://www.foodtv.com/index.htm Lifestyles
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
For all you can stomach in recipes, restaurant reviews, culinary tips, and products that you just *can't* live without, visit the Food TV Network Web site. Missed the latest how-to from Debbie Fields' -- of "Mrs. Field's Cookies" fame -- Desert Show or The Essence of Emeril? Ingredient lists are here for the browsing. And if you're a recipe fetishist, there are also plenty of cookbooks from Food TV show hosts advertised on the site. You can even buy a fancy kitchen knife endorsed by the Food Network. No, it's not a Ginsu.
Overall Rating: 15
Campaign for our Children
URL: http://www.cfoc.org/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Campaign for our Children is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to reducing the number of teen pregnancies in this country. According to this site, a US teenager becomes pregnant every 26 seconds. That's a lot of babies having babies. Good parent and teacher resources are available on this site, and the Campaign's slogans are poignant without being naive--example: "A baby costs $474 a month, how much is your allowance?" While their call for abstinence may not be realistic, almost anyone urging kids and parents to *talk* about sex is OK in my book.
Overall Rating: 15
Jewish Domestic Abuse and Agunah Problem Web Page
URL: http://users.aol.com/agunah/index.htm
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
In Jewish religious law, according to the home page, an Agunah is "a woman who is prevented from remarrying, either because of the disappearance of her husband, absent proof of his death, or because of his refusal to grant her a "get" ["bill of divorcement", or religious divorce]. This site, maintained by a law student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was designed as a resource for Agunot (plural of Agunah) and Jewish women suffering from all kinds of domestic abuse. The site offers articles, information about resource organizations for victims, excerpts from Jewish family law, and first-person accounts. Not a pleasant subject for a Web site, but definitely an important one.
Overall Rating: 15
AcronTech
URL: http://www.acrontech.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Computers may be valuable tools, but what if you can't read the words on your screen? AcronTech manufactures products to increase the independence of visually-impaired people. Their products include large-print and speech-synthesizer software applications, audible sign technology, and portable video magnifiers. While the AcronTech Website is primarily an expanded company brochure, it's in everyone's best interest to know that these kinds of products are available for the people who need them. *Equal* access to information is what the New Edge is all about.
Overall Rating: 15
Naked Magazine
URL: http://www.crl.com/~nakedmag/nakedmag.html
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Naked is a magazine for men who like to get naked. "Nudists, exhibitionists, and voyeurs use Naked as a forum of expression of their lifestyle." So, what we're talking about here is a site that tells gay and bi men where to take it off and how to locate others who are equally clothing-oppressed. You can find out about a Caribbean cruise (limited to 110 naked guys), check out personal ads, view nude models, and learn about nude organizations and getaway spots. The Naked Video sample was a total tease, however, and despite heavy perseverance, never loaded.
Overall Rating: 15
BeautyLink
URL: http://www.beautylink.com/
Category: Lifestyles
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Kind of an online Glamour meets Seventeen magazine, The Beautylink tries to camp it up enough to make its departments enjoyable, but comes off kind of hokey all the same. But what should one expect from a site that promises to link you up with all the beauty the Web has offer? Cyberteena provides helpful hints for the under 21 crowd, Angora Teasdale can give you a makeover in the Looks section, and Blade Shearson ("I make you look gorgeous!") offers useful info in the Cyberspa. If the whole project makes you ask, "Is Fashion Silly?" there's a link to a site by that name that's pretty interesting.
Overall Rating: 15
Labyrinth
URL: http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/labyrinth-home.html
Category: Literature
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Labyrinth, a World Wide Web server for Medieval Studies sponsored by Georgetown University, is not for the faint of heart, or tongue. If you don't speak and/or read the medieval form of some romance language, don't bother visiting. The authors of the site's stated goal is to put medieval works online, and their intended audience is clearly scholars, not amateurs. They don't even offer translations into modern English, French or German for the lightweights among us.
Overall Rating: 15
Levity
URL: http://www.levity.com
Category: Zines
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Levity, a zine of the arts, was developed by Levi Asher, a prolific guy with some prolific friends who obviously likes having his writing, opinions, and picture on the World Wide Web. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's something a little too self-congratulatory about this site for my taste. Some of the writing, graphics and ideas at the site are interesting, but they are overshadowed by the techno/goddess/hypno/psychedelic jargon sprinkled liberally throughout. A little levity would go a long way.
Overall Rating: 15
Modified Online
URL: http://www.compulink.co.uk/~modified/
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Billing itself as an interactive music channel, Modified Online (from a UK media group by the same name) brings live four-track audio mixing to the Internet, offering a menu of various mixes that you can listen to while uploading and modifying your own sounds. If you have Netscape and Shockwave, you're invited to enter The Freezer, ("the world's first interactive Web single") but even appropriately equipped, you might still be out of luck. I consistently got the message, "Sorry groove cruisers, new Freezer transmissions are temporarily on hold while us hard drinkers are drinking hard in Ibiza." There are, however, more hotlinks than I've ever seen in one place and a demo of Modified's interactive FreQUency CD-ROM.
Overall Rating: 15
Internet Music World
URL: http://www.mw3.com/imw
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This is a no-frills zine targeting music-related people who need to stay Web savvy. Articles in the most current issue (Winter 96) run the gamut from *Internet for Dummies*-type explanations to Industry CEOs' take on music and the Web. It all seems a little stale. The most dynamic part of the site is its link to Baudway Communications Music Interactive page which makes a more concrete and interesting connection between music technology and its Web applications.
Overall Rating: 13
Steely Dan Internet Resource
URL: http://pages.prodigy.com/steelydan/
Category: Music
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
More than just a fan page, this site is worth visiting even if you're not big on the band's sound. Though all aspects of Steely Dan's world are represented in the manner of discography, photos, history, sound clips, tour schedules (first European shows in 22 years), etc., other areas of the site offer good reading to random passerby. In the Cafe L'escargot, you're given several chat options, a reading room with music-related essays, and links to The Electronic Frontier Foundation (well worth a visit!) and Pathfinder. A nicely designed and comfortable place to spend some time.
Overall Rating: 15
The Purple Martin House
URL: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PurpleMartins/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
The purple martin is a bird, one of the swifts, and apparently in some danger of being displaced by more prolific sparrows and starlings. It's a handsome bird with an enchanting song (.wav file included at the site), and will nest in anything clean and hollow, preferably high and out of the way. The authors would like you to consider helping preserve this bird's domestic presence, and to that end offer you the opportunity to send away for any of a number of fine birdhouse designs for your yard. I would have liked to learn a bit more about the habits of these feathered bipeds, and must say I remain perplexed by the authors' chauvinistic attitude toward the martin vis-a-vis its avian competitiors (the site is brought to you by Dead Sparrow Productions, sporting a suitably macabre logo). Can't we all just get along?
Overall Rating: 15
Public Relations Society of America
URL: http://www.prsa.org/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), headquartered in New York City, is the world's largest organization for public relations professionals. The odd thing is, this site is as visually interesting as a cardboard box. I mean, isn't public relations about selling an image, a product, a service, and making it seem appealing? Wouldn't you think a site from the PRSA would try to integrate a little flash and color? What you do get here is Tactics, their monthly newspaper, updates on seminars, locations of PRSA chapters, and lists of available resources. It's hard to get excited about any of it. Maybe the PRSA needs a little PR of its own.
Overall Rating: 13
SEE Worldwide
URL: http://www.tic.ab.ca/SEE/
Category: Media
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
The utterance, "eh?" in response to the SEE Worldwide site is not an anti-Canuck jab so much as a comment on the overall dreariness of this alternative newsweekly from Edmonton, Alberta. The print rag is probably a lot more interesting (I don't know), but the online edition is singularly uninspired. There's a lot of information here (lagging a bit behind it's newsstand "weekly" status), and the writing is wacky and irreverent. But the presentation of the mateiral practically defines "lackluster." One potential Brownie Point: In a brilliant stroke of irony, their "In the Web" column is apparently not available online.
Overall Rating: 14
Zomboy
URL: http://www.netdoor.com/com/inferno/zomboy/
Category: Media
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Minneapolis-based comics artist, Thomas Florimonte, has inked, he says, for some of the best pencilers in the business. Greater ambitions have led him to combine his writing and inking talents in the creation of Zomboy. Here you can read about Florimonte's self-actualizing revelation and page through the first issue of his colorful comic which is out in stores this summer. The book's art and story are dictated by the misadventurous impulses of a pubescent kid, and since there's no shortage of them in the world, Zomboy should be a big success. You can order an autographed copy from the artist.
Overall Rating: 14
Ikebana
URL: http://www.meshnet.or.jp/ikebana/
Category: Pasttimes
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
For those who don't know, Ikebana is Japanese flower arrangement. But it isn't just throwing a bunch of flowers together. It is meant to be a relaxing and spiritual experience. Even big, tough Samurais do it. This site is brought to you by Ikebana International, a group which promotes Ikebana and boasts 10,000 members worldwide. Their motto is "friendship through flowers". You can learn how to join the club here (it only costs you 5,000 yen a year) and look up upcoming conventions or events from all over the world. For those who want to read more about it, there's a list some recommended books. It's just too bad there aren't more pictures of actual arrangements.
Overall Rating: 15
Christian Coalition Interactive
URL: http://cc.org
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Before entering the site you're given a shakedown: use Netscape with these margins or else! Once inside, the shakedown continues. The Christian Coalition is a conservative organization formed to preach their brand of Christian values (read Republican values). They are active in many political fronts fighting for the Christian cause. Every day, there are news items and updates on continuing stories of interest to the CC community. They also have a "non-partisan" (yeah, right) voter guide that includes congressional scorecards that list issues important to the CC like the cleverly worded "Promoting Homosexuality to School Children" and "Taxpayer Funded Pornography." Each congressperson is essentially graded on whether they voted along with the CC or not. The "Family Resources" page has no real resources unless you want to buy books, tapes, pins, magazines and games--for a suggested "donation". If only all "non-partisan" organizations were this fair and even-handed.
Overall Rating: 16
The Everlasting GOP-Stopper
URL: http://members.aol.com/gopstopper/index.html
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Don't you just hate the Conservative media? Or is it a Liberal media? Oh, whatever. This site is "Your Antidote to the Conservative Media". The Everlasting GOP-Stopper is an almost-weekly magazine dedicated to highlighting inane Republican ideas and quotes, demystifying skewed facts and figures and just generally mocking the conservative right. There is a Hypocrite of the Week feature, along with "classic articles" (only a precious few were available when I visited), not to mention merchandise: GOP-Stopper t-shirts and the like.
Overall Rating: 15
Net Vote `96
URL: http://netvote96.mci.com/
Category: Political
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Along the same lines as the *Rock the Vote* campaign, the Net Vote `96 page from MCI allows for online voter registration, reportedly "netting" a thousand new voters in the first 24 hours. (*Now, I'm all for getting out the vote, and I salute the people who are working to make it easier, but rhetorically I wonder whether people who can't be bothered to go down to the post office or fire station to register should be allowed to vote in the first place? I know I'll catch hell for that sentiment, but ... *) The other main feature of the site is a political poll restricted to high school students (passwords required) wherein they can register their opinions on the issues. Results from the surveys will be posted at the site. It could be interesting.
Overall Rating: 17
Association of Women Industrial Designers
URL: http://www.core77.com/AWID/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Perhaps it's not my place to say so, but it does seem a little unfortunate that AWID, a professional society for women, should choose a kitchen motif for its interface. It's nice enough, I suppose, with it's sherbet-colored cabinets and its fresh from the oven icons. It just seemed out of place a little. No matter; although the cupboards are a little bare in my most spots when I looked, its a promising start, with ingredients for female designers like job listings, online portfolios, resume postings, newsletters, etc. Young women interested in a career in industrial design should check out the FAQ, located just under the plate of donuts, in the "chat" cupboard.
Overall Rating: 16
Centre for Design at RMIT
URL: http://daedalus.edc.rmit.edu.au/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Despite the pretentious spelling of "center," this would appear to be a hard-nosed organization devoted to sustainable architecture and industrial design. The pages are a little bare, despite some pretty startling color, but it appears to be meant as a brochure/bulletin board only, advising interested parties of design contests, like the Green Heating Quest, and conferences like the one on "life cycle assessment." Even the links are no-nonsense and profession-oriented. Not much here for the idly curious.
Overall Rating: 15
Pear Pages
URL: http://www.usapears.com/pears/
Category: Professional
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
A handsome page from the hardworking folks at The Oregon Washington California Pear Bureau -- what do you think, they grow on trees? -- this is the place to come for the lowdown on the more 3,000 varieties out there. This month's featured pear is the Seckel, a roundish, diminutive little number that hits markets in mid-August. Recipes are included. Grocers and suppliers can contact the Pear Bureau via email, and parents wishing to tempt their lil'uns away from the Sugar Pops might pay a visit to the PearBear Healthy Kids section.
Overall Rating: 16
CLASSMATES ONLINE
URL: http://www.classmates.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
A way for former high school friends to find one another, including an e-mail address registry. So far there are listings for ex-students from more than 18,000 high schools in the US and Canada (as well as a few American schools overseas). Registration is free, but a one-time $15 membership allows a user to post a 250-word bio and a hyperlink to any one URL. Registration is intuitive, but takes a long time when the web server is bogged down. A list of cities in California (99 K) took four or five minutes to appear.
Overall Rating: 16
MACZYNSKI'S INFO PAGE
URL: http://www.info-s.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Similar in spirit to what Yahoo! was when it was still on akebono.stanford.edu, Maczynski's has an organizational problem that will prevent it from becoming a popular resource: There is no organizational depth. That means respected newspapers are listed on the same page with art and literature zines, hobbyist publications, science fiction and whatever the cat dragged in. There are thousands of links, however, and this site is certainly worth at least one visit for a bookmark raid. The categories with the most listings are Music and Talk and Home Page Plus.
Overall Rating: 15
DINENET MENUS ONLINE
URL: http://www.menusonline.com
Category: Reference
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Aside from the tiresome Java-generated crawling text on its splash page, this site is pretty cool. Every restaurant in each of eight metropolitan areas (Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington/Baltimore) is invited to submit its menu, two reviews and a photograph. Participating restaurants are not charged for the service, and so several hundred restaurants have already joined in. Now, all this site needs is to collaborate with FedEx to offer a nationwide, high quality food delivery service: 30 minutes cross-country, or it's free. Land to goshen! Wouldn't that be the cat's pajamas?
Overall Rating: 15
The Great Globe Gallery
URL: http://hum.amu.edu.pl/~zbzw/glob/glob1.htm
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
This site consists of thematic and historical maps, planiglobes, and cartographic nets in various projections, as well as satellite images, icons, and artistic visions. Zbigniew Zwolinski's aim has been to collect images of the Globe as a compliment to education in Earth sciences, geography, cartography, and Geographic Information Systems, as well as to exhibit the diverse artistic renderings of the globe. You'll also find a wealth of detailed data on the earth's history, composition, and relation to other objects in the solar system. Photo credits and annotations are sometimes lacking, but overall this is a striking show.
Overall Rating: 16
San Diego Zoo
URL: http://www.sandiegozoo.org/
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
If you're fond of the venerable and gigantic San Diego Zoo, then this site should prove appealing. Its elegant and smoothly crosslinked pages connect an illustrated web of information spanning the zoo's history, its grounds and all its collections. You can take a virtual tour of the simulated rain forests and wildlife animal park, read about a rare albino gator and other recent acquisitions, or learn about endangered species and conservation efforts. Details are also provided on how to become a member of the San Diego Zoological society.
Overall Rating: 15
Ring of Truth
URL: http://www.webring.org/rot/
Category: Religion
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
The Web Ring is a conceptual method of grouping together links to Web sites that have similar content. The premise: Get sent to a random link in the ring from a Ring of Truth home page, and click "next link" or "previous link" from that site, and so on... Eventually, you'll have traveled the ring and be back at the site where you started. Rings can have any theme and the Ring of Truth "seeks to open people's eyes to the world they are faced with instead of cowering in fear behind religious dogma and superstition." Hmmmm... Simply put, the theme seems to be underground culture with a gothic/industrial/dark bent. Should have guessed--the Webmaster quotes Nine Inch Nails on the Ring of Truth home page.
Overall Rating: 16
The Official Temple of Set
URL: http://www.calweb.com/~reshef/ Religion
Category: Religion
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Protect your children! The Satanists are online! In the mid-1970s, Mr. Devil carn-man himself, Anton La Vey, redesigned his Church of Satan, according to this site "as a non-functional vehicle for his personal expression, exploitation, and financial income." (More power to him!) Alas, the Temple of Set took over to fill the religious void. Before you scoff, the Temple of Set urges you to check out their history and basic tenets, outlined at this site. Bottom line: It's not about listening to Slayer and sacrificing kittens. Now, if they can score the hell.org domain...
Overall Rating: 15
Jews for Judaism
URL: http://www.clark.net/pub/mpowers/j4j/web/
Category: Religion
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Jews for Judaism is a national organization dedicated to countering deceptive missionary and cult groups targeting Jews for conversion. Unfortunately, the site lacks any real content other than some background on the organization and contact information. One interesting area, though, is the "Ask the Rabbi" section. Here, you can find Jewish responses to typical missionary claims like "there is only 'one way' to obtain salvation." While this information may be useful in serious debate, my preferred tactic is to inform evangelists, nicely, that I have a Church of Satan meeting to go to and, regrettably, will have to miss their "party." But if a Jewish friend or family member has strayed from the flock, perhaps Jews for Judaism might help.
Overall Rating: 14
Christian Computing Magazine
URL: http://www.ccmag.com
Category: Religion
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Cybernuns, check this: Christian Computing magazine is all about "Applying Tomorrow's Technology to Today's Ministries." Enjoy useful articles on subjects like how to "use clip art specific to your ministry for effective publications" and timely reviews of products along the lines of "Bible Baseball for Windows." In fact, the editor-in-chief's email address is god@heaven.com! (Not really.) Seriously though, the magazine's focus may seem odd, but it looks to be a useful guide for those using technology to improve yet another form of communication -- in this case, the communication of religious ideals.
Overall Rating: 15
Oregon Dept. of Forestry
URL: http://salem10nt.odf.state.or.us/homepage.htm
Category: Science
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Most of the information on the content-rich Oregon Dept. of Forestry site is concerned with forest fires in the area -- statistics, progress of groups battling blazes, and other news. Forest fires are a science to be studied, and outdoor adventurers will appreciate this detailed insight into the matter. The photo gallery features intense images of burning land while the Q & A section explains the point behind things like "prescribed burning." Weather information and links are also well-organized for more information on the amazing greenery in our national backyard. And don't forget to check out the Smokey Bear posters!
Overall Rating: 15
Liquid Insanity
URL: http://users.visi.net/icculus/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
I'm not really sure what the significance of "Liquid Insanity" is, but it's the alias of hacker/geek Adam, and this is his website. The graphic quality of the site is quite good, with letters fashioned out of mercury and a zingy textured background. Other highlights are "Bill Gates is Satan!," which offers concrete numerological proof that Bill Gates is indeed Old Scratch himself, and "Your Child is a Hacker," a list for parents to help them determine whether their child is a hacker. (Note to Adam: you should add "can't spell" to this list.)
Overall Rating: 15
The Aesthete's List
URL: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~dward/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
The Aesthete's List, Diane Ward's home page, is dedicated to art, poetry, philosophy, and other cerebral subjects. An obvious bibliophile, (her day job is Cataloguer at the SUNY Buffalo library), she has assembled an impressive collection of links related to poetry, novels, art, artists, international news, culture, and the environment. Graphics clearly aren't priority number one, and there is an overly serious, almost prissy tone to the site, but aesthete's everywhere will find it a good jumping off place into the more academic world on the Internet.
Overall Rating: 13
Reverie
URL: http://www.walrus.com/~jerd/reverie/page1.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
I wanted to like Reverie. The opening page is simple and elegant with a camera and notebook side by side on a black background. Click on the camera, and view black and white photographs, many of which are quite artistic. However, click on the "dream journal," and it's another story. It's a known fact that dreams are infinitely fascinating to the dreamer (and maybe their psychiatrist), but incredibly boring to everyone else. Who wants to read, in minute detail, the dreams of a total stranger about whom you know nothing? Without any context or discussion of personal revelation, it's self-indulgent and soporific.
Overall Rating: 15
Read to Me
URL: http://www.pixi.com/~reader1/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Rachel Saidman
Read To Me, sponsored by The Hawaii Education Literacy Project, is a Windows-based application that allows Windows Clipboard, Microsoft Word, ASCII files and Internet sites to be read aloud by a talking head (in English or Hawaiian). Is it just me, or does it seems a bit ironic that a literacy organization developed something that allows people to not read? At any rate, this is an interesting idea that could increase the interactive potential of web sites should it gain widespread appeal. Additional features include a dictionary, adjustable speed and pitch, and links to 482 Project Gutenberg classic works.
Overall Rating: 16
Notebooks.com
URL: http://www.notebooks.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Do you know the difference between active matrix and dual passive screens? Planning on purchasing a notebook computer? Here, they offer a three step effort: first, learn all about laptops. Then click and choose your price, the configurations you need, and the options you want, and voila, you get a list of computers that best match your needs. Lastly, choose your computer model and enter your contact information so someone can contact you to discuss the purchase. No online ordering. There are, however, links to computer manufacturers and a resource for laptop accessories. Overall, a very informative and easy-to-use site.
Overall Rating: 17
Steve's Steak Central
URL: http://www.bestbeef.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
Steve from Steve's Steak Central isn't just talking ordinary steaks, here. He's talking "inspirational steaks." All the steaks he sells are "Certified Angus Beef" by the American Angus Association. Not just beef; pork, veal, and lamb as well. (The AAA, I've learned here, certifies only the best steaks.) Besides buying beef you can browse through their menus and recipes. You can even get tips on meat freezing, thawing and recommended cooking techniques. Of course, inspiring beef doesn't come cheap; expect to pay a premium for these choice cuts.
Overall Rating: 15
Great American Rose Company
URL: http://garoses.com/
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
All roses, all the time. The Great American Rose Company grows and ships roses directly from "The Rose City," Madison, New Jersey. Using their online catalog, you can choose from a somewhat small selection of rose bouquets and get them shipped fresh from their farm to yours. You can also smother your sweetheart with roses by buying a dozen roses every month for a year. Once you receive your bouquet come back here to learn how to make them last longer and to prevent that affliction known as droopy roses. To order, use their secure online order form or just call or fax it in.
Overall Rating: 14
The Used Computer Mall
URL: http://www.usedcomputer.com
Category: Shopping
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Jose Alvear
You can't get much more focused than this. There are *no* graphics -- none, zero, zip, nada. If you're looking to buy or sell used computer equipment, this is may be a resource. It works like this: People come to read and place ads for used computer equipment. It's free to post ads and they run for about a week. Click for the newest postings. All kinds of equipment is listed: RAM, hard drives, computer systems, notebooks, printers, even some software. When you see something you're interested in, e-mail or call the person directly. There's also information on auctions, shows, swap meets and other organizations that deal with used or refurbished equipment. It's hard to know, of course, whether people are really conducting business here, so it may warrant caution.
Overall Rating: 13
Scott's House of Cheese
URL: http://www.europa.com/~scottycs/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Remember the cheese shop sketch from the Flying Circus? Scott C. Smith's House of Cheese is sort of like that: no cheese anywhere in sight. Select one of two versions: Full Cheese or Low Fat, "now with less glug." When I tried, either choice gave me the same thing: a small, but diverse collection of links, and not of them as cheesy as the scrolling message bar would have you believe. Links are in place to such sites as The Late Show, Duke Nuke Em, The Defense Information School (Scott's alma mater), and Info Seek -- nothing too cheesy there. Even Scott's own movie reviews are earnest and straightforward, if not exactly uninspired. I guess there's something to that old adage, excuse me, ad: "It ain't easy bein' cheesy."
Overall Rating: 15
The Couch
URL: http://www.castboy.com/menu.html
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Welcome to The Couch, Castboy's guide to Hollywood Babylon. Unoficially, that is. Billy Damota, a.k.a. Castboy, is -- you guessed it -- a casting agent. In Hollywood, no less. As such, the main course here seems to be a lot of grainy snapshots of our host and various luminaries from Arnold Scharznegger to Morton Downey, Jr. Not exactly the company I'd want to keep, but, hey, what the hell. Quite a chameleon, Castboy is, sporting a new look for every occasion. Beyond that, the page is one big indulgence, (in keeping with the Vanity category), unfortunately marked by a lame sense of humor. To wit, the section called, Women Who Have Pissed Me Off. I know it's a joke, Billy. It's just not very funny.
Overall Rating: 15
Raider Nation
URL: http://members.aol.com/jimbokli/jimbo/raiders.htm
Category: Sports
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
This is the home page for the Raiders football fan who just wouldn't feel right if they weren't shirtless and painted come game time. We're talking rabid fans commiserating with other rabid fans about their team in Oakland, "the football Mecca of the world" ("FACE WEST AND CHANT 'RAIDERS RULE!'"). You understand the attitude we're dealing with here? Besides checking out stats, rosters, commentary on everything from training camp to the layout of the new stadium, you'll find homages to past championship seasons, and a definition of the "Raider Mystique." Also get your official Raider Nation gear, including beer mugs, shirts, and caps. Sure it only comes in black, but it will look great with a leather jacket and a motorcycle. A great page, damn it all, `cause people just don't take sports seriously enough these days.
Overall Rating: 16
International Hockey :League
URL: http://www.theihl.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
To think that I made it this far without any inkling that something like the International Hockey League even existed! And these ain't no scrubs, has-beens, nor wanna-bes; the IHL is widely regarded as the second best league in the world. What's more, the league pioneered the four quarter game and the television-enhanced puck, while boasting the first black head coach and the first woman to ever play pro hockey. This site is a whole lot of fun, with weekly giveaways, plus all the stats, schedules, etc. you can bear. Keep up with all the season's hockey action right here.
Overall Rating: 16
Go Ski!
URL: http://www.goski.com
Category: Sports
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Go Ski is more travel agent than skiing zine. Everywhere you turn, it's resorts, resorts, resorts, indexed by country, by region, by snow conditions,... even employment opportunities. There's even a damned resort search engine. You'll also find plenty of weather info, and random travel tips (where to stay, where to party, etc.). You have to be more persistent to find the essays on the skiing life, but this is the real heart of Go Ski. Equipment reviews, how to join the National Ski Patrol, etc. All good fun. Go Ski is more geared to the ski bum than the casual skier, which just means you can trust what they're saying.
Overall Rating: 15
Husker News
URL: http://www.net-link.net/~fricke/home.htm
Category: Sports
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Daniel Alarcon
Covering all news pertaining to the two-time NCAA champion Nebraska Huskies, this site provides a wealth of information for the dedicated fan. Aside from all the usual stats and prognostications, the best feature of the Husker News is the Video Marketplace, a sort of Huskies-only classifieds where tapes of past games are advertised and traded. I was surprised at how many people were looking for obscure 1984 football games. There aren't many graphics or any high-tech gadgetry to speak of, but it's clear these guys love their team. And judging from the traffic on here, that's all it took to fill a niche.
Overall Rating: 15
Homer, Alaska
URL: http://akms.com/htguide/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Homer, Alaska, the halibut capital of the world, was named after a '49'er who helped settle the town. Homer's web site is a recreation and tourism guide for this Kachemak Bay town, "where the road ends, and the sea begins." There's more to do in Homer than you might suspect: The Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby, clamming, kayaking, hiking, sailing, and all of this in an area that combines Eskimo, Dena'ina Indian, and Russian history. Don't worry if you can't make it all the way to Alaska; this web site is a worthwhile read on its own.
Overall Rating: 15
WebFlyer
URL: http://www.insideflyer.com/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
WebFlyer is geared to frequent flyers: how to get more miles and how to use them. This zine is the online synthesis of Frequent Flyer Services (FFS), a company that conceives, develops, and markets products and services for frequent travelers. Randy Peterson, a "frequent flyer guru," shares a host of mile-earning programs with you and includes reviews to make the choice easier. InfoFlyer lets you sign up with whatever service you choose while online. The site is repetitive graphically, and not too exciting textually, but if you're flummoxed by the world of amassed mileage, it's is worth a visit.
Overall Rating: 15
Go Europe.com
URL: http://www.goeurope.com
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
If you're looking for help planning a trip to The Continent, welcome to Go Europe.com, brought to you by the European Travel Commission. With a comprehensive and searchable Events Calendar you can plan your trip around seasonal happenings, or hear from folks who've been there and back; ask questions and swap photos in the Travelers Forum; get the specs on the 26 member countries of the European Travel Commission in Gateway to Europe. Though not aimed at the budget traveler and lacking accommodation listings, Go Europe.com is useful in providing background information and a general orientation to most European destinations (Russian travelers look elsewhere).
Overall Rating: 15
California Travel Parks Association
URL: http://www.campgrounds.com/ctpa/
Category: Travel
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Primarily a home base for members of the CTPA, most of whom are campground or RV park owners, this site lets you find any campground in the west (whose owner is a member). Click on the tag for California, Nevada, or Oregon, and you can search by region, city name, campground name, accommodations, etc. Since there are 500 listings, chances are you'll find the place you're looking for. If you're a member of the CTPA, the Professional Services page puts you in touch with all the other members. The site is not much to look at, but it will help you get to places that offer a more impressive view.
Overall Rating: 14
The Macintosh Funnies
URL: http://www.wolfenet.com/~pminer/
Category: Vanity Pages
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Our host, Pete Miner, on Bill Gates: "Big deal, I'd have 18 billion dollars too if I owned Microsoft!" Pete's a cut-up, see, and his material, such as it is, all revolves around computers; or, rather, Macintosh vis-a-vis Microsoft. Is this fertile ground for comedy? Pete obviously thinks so. And, since I suspect Pete is a very nice, well-meaning guy (as are most bores), I'll let you be the judge. Pete tries his hand at all manner of comic monologue, here, including a little Vogon poetry and a semi-clever self interview. Family members contribute to his online follies as well. So judge for yourself, but I think you'll agree that the line I quoted at the beginning is as good as it gets. And how good is that?
Overall Rating: 13
NetTracker
URL: http://www.net-tracker.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Your own Web-searching valet? Nothing beats the human mind for filtering and parsing data, and Net Tracker takes advantage of that very fact. Their commercial service puts actual humans to the task of doing your search for you, and tossing out the dross (goodbye "404 File Not Found" errors). As a purist I probably wouldn't entrust my Web search to anyone, and I'd miss the serendipity of interesting near-misses, but I suppose for dry research on a deadline, it could be worth the hefty fees (up to $20 an hour).
Overall Rating: 14
Internet Learning Tour
URL: http://pavilion.baynetworks.com/pavilion/depot.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
This is an elaborate and intricately rendered promotional piece for the manufacturers of hardware who want to make it visually clear exactly what they do: make routers, servers, and switches for the internet. To do so they've adopted a serviceable metaphor: A freight train carries information down railways to switching stations, back and forth between (computer) depots. The easiest way to view the panels is to follow their paginated tutorial; alternatively you can download 6 meg self-running animated files (nothing better to do with your online time?). The site was a bit slow for my patience, but nice enough to look at.
Overall Rating: 17
The Offerings Project
URL: http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~geo/holly_crawford.html
Category: Zines
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
This is an idea in keeping with the notion of the Internet as community, first and foremost. Holly Crawford, of Stanford University, invites you to send her an offer. It can be anything: a sketch, a poem, a recipe, a formula, you name it. If it strikes her fancy, she'll make it part of her ongoing collage. Not really a zine, perhaps, but I don't know what you'd call it. The Offerings Project is sort of like the World Wide Web in miniature. A bunch of stuff, posted up along alleyways like so many concert flyers, shopping circulars, lost pet notices, for sale signs, love letters, etc. Chances are you won't look at any of it. Leastways, not really.
Overall Rating: 15
Stet
URL: http://www.stetmagazine.com/
Category: Zines
Issue: 1196
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Patrick Joseph
Stet proclaims itself "the best in cutting-edge fluff." If these zines keep writing my reviews for me, I'm gonna be out of a job. I'm not joking: that about says it all. Three clever young men have put their wits together and produced yet another digizine without a mission, thoroughly steeped in the attitude so often labeled GenX, and almost totally bereft of fresh ideas. As a part of that generation who detests the label and is quickly tiring of the attitude (call me jaded), I found this one hackneyed and tiresome. Clever but inane features clog up the bandwidth here like hair down the drain. You choose the logo. You pick the winner in The Fight of the Day: "A jackal or a monkey with a tazer?" Yeah, funny. Who cares? Time to get the cleaning stuff out, kids, pin your ears back, and get to work.
Overall Rating: 15
Culture in Cyberspace
URL: http://www.radix.net/%7Ewlefurgy/welcome.htm
Category: Art
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Every Monday, CinC features a fresh page of cross-linked reviews on arts and education-related Web sites, with special attention to the legal and industry trends that contribute to their design. Editorial is intelligent, insightful and wryly humorous, reflecting the curiosity of a weathered publishing professional who has fallen in love with the Internet. There is a weekly e-mail edition, and past issues are archived. Design is tastefully modest, but the links page (covering CNN down to the latest of nrrdy Web zines) should be recoded to launch a second browser window if the viewer links out of site.
Overall Rating: 16
Rhizome
URL: http://rhizome.com/
Category: Art
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
A rhizome is a horizontal stem that extends underground and sends out shoots to the surface, connecting plants in a living network. Taking this metaphor for the Net as a point of departure, rhizome lets a community of hype-free designers and critics focus on sites of new media art emerging everywhere from the cyberpunk-next-door to the St. Petersburg Bienalle. Their reviews are knowledgeable, honest, and fiercely individual. A weekly mailing lets you join in the discourse. Designwise, Rhizome's baggy interface reflects its laid-back editorial and feels pretty smooth, but it's visually off balance and the colors need tweaking.
Overall Rating: 16
IPPA
URL: http://www.capstudio.com/ippa/award.html
Category: Art
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
The Internet Professional Publishers' Association DX award recognizes Web sites for design excellence. Its criteria are decidedly more serious than those of your run-of-the-mill "cool site awards". The IPPA focuses on the finest examples of design for "commercial applications" through the Internet, so you've got to be a Web-savvy merchant in order to win their admiration. Each week you'll find a big money site like Virgin Records or Salon critiqued by a conservative writer who hates plug-ins. If you're interested in keeping abreast of corporate repurposing and web design, this is a good site to bookmark.
Overall Rating: 15
Legacy Software
URL: http://www.legacysoft.com/
Category: Gaming
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Chris Charla
You know those sites you run across sometimes that have no real reason for existence except for the fact that someone at the company obviously said "damn, we need a Web site?" Well, this is one of those. Ok, maybe its not *that* bad. Legacy is an LA-based edutainment software house, that just completed it's IPO, has a hot new title out, Emergency Room (first in a series of real-world job titles), and they're even hiring. How do I know this? Because even though their site interests me about zero percent, it is well laid out and provides a wealth of info on the company.
Overall Rating: 15
Land Rover
URL: http://www.landrover.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Sports Utility Vehicles are just so...rugged. Macho. The person who drives one *must* be a true outdoor adventure type. Either that, or a yuppie with some extra cash to blow. But the Web site does succeed in grabbing you with that off-road virus. Pictures of muddy vehicles on picturesque landscapes and model specs abound, and Land Rover will even help set you up with an adventure to match your vehicle: "So if you'd rather be a traveler than a tourist, if you enjoy acquiring new driving skills and mastering new sports, if you appreciate warm hospitality and ice-cold champagne, look within for an Invitation you cannot refuse." Yeah, as if my old Chevy Sprint wouldn't have made it to the Redwoods.
Overall Rating: 15
Smucker's
URL: http://www.smucker.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
That must be jelly because jam don't shake like that! Smucker's is the brand when it comes to fruity spreads for your breads. And here, you can take a dip into the history of the company, starting with the time Jeremy Smucker prepared the first batch of Apple Butter with fruit straight from Mr. Appleseed's trees. A nice old fashioned-style lay out, but without much content beyond nutritional info and a few recipes. The Smucker's quiz is cute, but just leaves me hungry for some Strawberry-Passion Fruit on a lightly browned piece of toast.
Overall Rating: 15
Black and Decker
URL: http://www.blackanddecker.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
I bought my first drill this year. And it's a Black and Decker. Of course, B and D and American males go together like baseball and popcorn, so stop here if you want to see the company's most-impressive tool box. There's plenty of product info, a few contests, and even detailed plans on how to build your own furniture--including a computer desk! I knew that Black and Decker Router would come in handy someday.
Overall Rating: 16
Smirnoff's Pure Thrill
URL: http://www.purethrill.com/
Category: Corporate
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Welcome to the Smirnoff Pure Thrill Hotel--a world of drinking, decadence, and death. This well-designed and thought-out bells-and-whistles site is based on the idea of a classy hotel, where you can meet the Rene the hotel manager, the scamming Countess, and a host of other characters involved in the murder that unfolds as you browse the site. Smirnoff has done an impressive job of creating content as opposed to just pushing product. The hook that brings you back? You have to visit periodically to find out whodunit.
Overall Rating: 17
The Biz
URL: http://bizmag.com
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
From our global-domination seeking friends at Time Warner's Pathfinder, comes The Biz: The Entertainment CyberNetwork, a full-force entertainment rag for the Web. Offering hourly Variety and Reuters news, The Biz is worth checking out periodically for some Hollywood dirt. And once Entertainment Tonight is over, you can turn here for interviews with stars ("Anthony Hopkins Survives Picasso", for example) and a series of music columns divided by genre. P.S.: Kudos to The Biz for naming their advertising industry section "Advertainment." That's a meme to spread!
Overall Rating: 16
Channel Surfer Journal
URL: http://www.tiac.net/users/tvbobs/
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Forget the Web as an entertainment medium, it's time to return to the mothership! Channel Surfer Journal is apparently a print publication and guide to television, and if the Web site is any indication, it's an irreverent alternative to TV Guide. (Example from the online listings: "This Friday, Everybody Loves Raymond, or at least CBS hopes so.") Not much to the Web site beyond a survey of the current week's offerings, but just wait until the Net and tube really converge. Yeah. Right. Keep sucking on that glass teat, people! (Now, where can I get the dead tree version of the Channel Surfer Journal?)
Overall Rating: 15
LateNet With Tim Conway, Jr.
URL: http://www.ifnet.com
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
LateNet is a RealAudio entertainment talk show hosted by Mr. Conway, Jr. himself. The night I logged in, Multiplicity's Kari Coleman was in the house, and other funny folks were poking around. The site looks hip, but navigation is a nightmare. Ever heard of frames, people? The show airs live nightly, but through the beauty of low-fi Netcasting, you can hear it anytime you're time-shifting heart desires. Sort of like a public access radio talk show, if it weren't backed by Budweiser. But it is.
Overall Rating: 14
X-Files Home
URL: http://www.xfiles.com/
Category: Entertainment
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: David Pescovitz
Not affiliated with the X-Files TV show (but congrats on getting the domain!), the X-Files Home Page is a fan club in its nascent stages, with a few links, some X-Philes humor, and links to the Virtual Merchant hawking fan gear online. As a matter of fact, the most interesting (and almost only) thing this site has to offer is the X-Files MegaChat room. With so many X-Phile pages on the Web, this Webmaster has a lot of work ahead of him to prove himself worthy of the domain name. The truth must be out there, because it certainly isn't here.
Overall Rating: 14
The Fen/Phen paradigm
URL: http://www.fenphen.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
This site is dedicated to the study and promotion of a new type of medical treatment which has proven successful in curing addictive and compulsive conditions, alcoholism, and drug addiction through a joint administration of fenfluramine and phentermine, two drugs approved by the FDA in the `60s. Administered together, these drugs work to balance the body's production of dopamine and serotonin. Dr. Pietr Hitzig is the man behind the Fen/Phen clinical studies. He's planning to host a series of interactive case studies on the site, where individual patients will be treated in real time. Nice presentation of some interesting info.
Overall Rating: 15
The National Center For Stuttering
URL: http://www.stuttering.com/amessag.htm
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
The National Center for Stuttering, established in 1976, is dedicated to the study and treatment of a much misunderstood condition. They are involved in research, treatment, and education, offering a 24-hour stutterers' hotline. The NCS Treatment Program moves beyond conventional speech therapy by shifting the focus away from the stuttering itself to what they perceive to be the trigger for the stuttering: various types of tension--environmental, psychological, etc. They contend that stuttering is "learned extricatory struggle behavior, learned in childhood to release an individual from an inborn, often inherited, tendency to lock the cords when under conditions of stress." Repetitive design but a useful information resource.
Overall Rating: 15
Heart Home Page
URL: http://www.hearthome.com/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
The Heart Homepage bills itself as the "primary source of information on the prevention and treatment of heart disease." Sponsored by Galichia Medical Group, you can get the answers to twenty of the most frequently asked questions or fill out a personalized form to get answers to individual questions-- straight forward, but rather one-dimensional. The only link is a promotional page for Galichia. At least some links to health-related sites to hold up the prevention end of the quotient would seem logical. A weak pulse at best.
Overall Rating: 15
Lupus Foundation of America
URL: http://internet-plaza.net/lupus/
Category: Health & Fitness
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Emily Soares
Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease which causes inflammation of various parts of the body, especially the skin, joints, blood and kidneys. According to the Lupus Foundation of America, more people have lupus than AIDS, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis combined. Pretty frightening figures for a disease that doesn't get much air time. This site provides current information, a calendar of events, a health forum, research library, and info about causes, symptoms, testing, and treatment. Visually unexciting but very informative.
Overall Rating: 15
The Island of Doctor Moreau
URL: http://www.drmoreau.com
Category: Film
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Prepare to be shocked, as this site makes heavy and interesting use of Macromedia's Shockwave plug-in. Better than caffeine-on-a-stick for masking sleepiness, this site doesn't need an audience to have hours of good, clean fun all by itself. It zooms from page to page without provocation, plays sound clips and little animations, and doesn't care especially whether anybody is there to watch it whoosh and twirl or hear it chirp and squeal. It's interesting, though, and reminds us of what we used to say in the old country, "Not to eat flesh -- that is the law."
Overall Rating: 17
Filmmaker Magazine
URL: http://www.filmmag.com
Category: Film
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This highly specialized site is intended for the smallest of minority groups: Independent filmmakers. Long afflicted by The Man, indie filmmakers developed a subculture of their own, gathering together frequently in dark rooms called "theaters" to indulge their special needs. In our more enlightened times, filmmakers are free to do as they please, without fear of persecution. So far, five editions are available in this online variation of the quarterly magazine. The site's designer uses Frames effectively and doesn't go nuts with animated GIF files. Perhaps the nicest feature is the daily news feed, from IndieWire.
Overall Rating: 16
The Low-Res Film Festival
URL: http://www.lowres.com/menu.html
Category: Film
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This site celebrates an underground festival of ultra-short films, most of which were created using the Macintosh computer. Low-Res attracts the best and the brightest to try their hand at making films less than 5 minutes long. Don't be fooled into thinking you're getting a whole baby film when you download one of the QuickTime zygotes available here, though. You must attend the traveling festival to see the real thing. The presentation of the material on the site is very strong despite the few graphics. And if you're interested in getting down to the work, the Do It Yourself section is definitely worth your time.
Overall Rating: 16
Rosencranz And Guildenstern Are Dead
URL: http://www.susqu.edu/ac_depts/arts_sci/english/lharris/class/stoppard/rose.htm
Category: Film
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This site never really explains itself. Is it intended as fan support of a wonderful play, or academic exploration of a brilliant playwright (Tom Stoppard)? Somebody's term paper? They never tell us. The play (and the movie) *Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead * is witty and wonderful, but ultimately a tragedy, in which these two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet achieve identity only in death. As for the site, a huge image map download is a major weakness while a selection of audio and video clips is its strength. Read the terrific play before coming here for heightened enjoyment.
Overall Rating: 15
Sweater Productions
URL: http://jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu/~sweater/
Category: Film
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This site has potential and even a little charm, but that's no reason to effervesce about it. The counterintuitive use in the table of contents of blue and purple type, usually reserved on the Web for new and used hyperlinks, is incomprehensible. Also annoying is the damned Java tickertape, which is even worse than the benighted