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 what¹s going on behind those doors, and believe me, my face was pressed up against that window till it got all fogged up.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 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. MacWorld¹s 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 (out of 18): 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 (out of 18): 18

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 they¹ll 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-G¹s 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 (out of 18): 18

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 (out of 18): 18

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, ³what is a PDF all about?² Or, ³how can I watch that damn movie I downloaded?² 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 (out of 18): 18

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 (out of 18): 18

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 (out of 18): 18

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 (out of 18): 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 (out of 18): 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* magazine¹s 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, RGB¹s got it. The zine itself may lack sass and flash , but the content here is top-notch. Whether you¹re 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. ³But the graphics aren¹t all that swank or savvy,² I can almost hear you saying. ³And the buttons don¹t pop, spin, or whistle at me. And *gasp* there are no gaussian blurred drop shadows, or Kai backgrounds.² Well, don¹t you worry about that; everything¹s going to be just fine because: one, the site is a cakewalk to navigate, and, two, there¹s no danger of developing liver spots while the pages load. This is one example (of many) in which less is more. And anyway, you¹re here for more than pretty design; you¹re 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. It¹ll keep you in the higher echelons of the food chain, so to speak.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

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 (out of 18): 18

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 you¹re thinking of putting up a site, or haven't yet streamlined your existing page.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 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 I¹ve 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 (out of 18): 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, here¹s 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 Hotwired¹s new grease shop for an hour or two. They¹ll get you running smooth.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 18

Intel¹s 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 (out of 18): 18

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. That¹s for people with too much time on their hands, nerds, and those lucky enough to get paid for programming. Perhaps *now* I¹ll get around to creating home pages for my favorite candy bars.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

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. Microsoft¹s Internet Explorer, and what ever you do, visit the Plug-In corner. BrowserWatch will point you to the best plug-in¹s 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 (out of 18): 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 (don¹t 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 (out of 18): 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 Web¹s 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 I¹m in agreement with most of the reviews so far. For example, the Java Pac Man applet does, in fact, rule.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

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 ³Challenge² for the digital generation ‹an example of Web technology at it¹s 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 that¹s no easy task. While this site is technically and graphically superb, navigation is not intuitive. It¹s 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! You¹re losing me! Give me Lynx quick! Text only!!!! Text only!!!!
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

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. There¹s plenty here that you¹d expect from any self-respecting graphics site (like, umm, intriguing, well-executed graphics), as well as some of the annoying stuff that you¹ll find at too many sites nowadays (like, errr, a not-so-interesting use of frames). Still, there¹s 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 (out of 18): 17

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 (out of 18): 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 (out of 18): 17

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, it¹s an inspiring site.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

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. There¹s 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, I¹d say this merits a bookmark.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

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 (out of 18): 17

The Web Developer¹s 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 (out of 18): 17

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 ³middleman² server before making their way to you. Don¹t 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 (out of 18): 17

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) it¹s worth checking into before purchasing your next modem.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 17

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 they¹ve 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 (out of 18): 17

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 don¹t like what you see online, you better be prepared to top it. And Gordon¹s 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 won¹t find tips on how to include all the latest bells and whistles here, but that¹s of no matter for newbies. In the end, it¹s not glam and glitz but clear design and clean content that¹s the message of this new media. Start here.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

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
Don¹t send me anymore ³Good Times Virus² 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 (out of 18): 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. You¹ll 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 (out of 18): 16

GraphComp¹s 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 don¹t waste your downloading dollar on below-par VRML applications.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 16

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 what¹s 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 it¹s 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, it¹s a good place to get a feel for what has been successful in Web space.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 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 <HTML> to </HTML> 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 (out of 18): 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.....I¹m 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 you¹re 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 (out of 18): 16

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 (out of 18): 16

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 (out of 18): 16

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 (out of 18): 16

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 (out of 18): 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 (out of 18): 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 (out of 18): 16

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 (out of 18): 16

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 (out of 18): 16

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 (out of 18): 16

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 (out of 18): 16

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. Let¹s spread our own memes to the masses while we still can.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

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 (out of 18): 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 (out of 18): 15

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 (out of 18): 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 (out of 18): 15

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 (out of 18): 15

Internet Sleuth
URL: http://www.isleuth.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Deb Richardson
Yes folks, it's Yet Another Search Engine, only this time with a twist. The Internet Sleuth doesn't actually go through the trouble of searching the web-proper; instead, it sends the search request to other search engines -- sort of a search-engine clearing house. The problems? First, it just doesn't seem to work terribly well, and secondly, it¹s not at all intuitive. The searches I did came up with an assortment of links, only half of which were related to my request. Help information, when available, was brief and opaque. There is promise of an upgrade, however, so improvements are (hopefully) on the way.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

Tip World
URL: http://www.tipworld.com/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1296
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Steve LeVine
If you're the kind of person who likes gossip, clips store coupons, and is not afraid to clutter up your mailbox with auto-e-mail, consider subscribing to the services provided by Tip World. The tips are brief, innocuous tidbits which may or may not be new or relevant to you, and they come sandwiched within teasers‹"check out this cool site..."‹which is how Tip World gets funded I presume. Choose among topics such as: Netscape, Microsoft, Apple, Computer Gossip, Games and Bug Reports. It's easy enough to unsubscribe. I know, because I did.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 15

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 (out of 18): 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 you¹re looking for anything more than a price list , you¹ll be disappointed.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

CAM CORNER
URL: http://www.ovd.com:80/camcorner/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0996
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
Not much more than a glorified pointer page, Cam Corner links to CU-See Me sites and a lot of cameras on the Web. There's a strange pseudo-depth to this site: Click on an apparently external link and go to another internal page with a link to the same external site. What possible function could this serve? "This Month's Featured Cams" and "Recent Featured Cams" link to sites with updated still images. "The Classics" links to 38 other such sites, but the aforementioned pseudo-depth extendss those 38 links over six pages. Why?
Overall Rating (out of 18): 14

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 (out of 18): 14

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 (out of 18): 14

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 (out of 18): 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 (out of 18): 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 (out of 18): 14

Clever dot Net
URL: http://www.clever.net/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0896
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Ananda Nada
Clever.net is an Atlanta-based Web space merchant. Their home page features a striking green icon and links to a FAQ, a server demo, and a cgi that lets you check the availability of domain names. This last feature had me psyched, so much so that I tried it about ten times - to no avail. It doesn't work! When I linked to "the new FAQ", I found it inaccessible. Furthermore, browsing "the old FAQ" was disorienting as its navigation buttons seemed to load pages at random. What I did read was informative, but this site requires considerable work before it sells any space.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

Gary's Guide to Graphics
URL: http://www.cs.gmu.edu:80/~garyq/graphics_guide/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 1096
Content Quality: Poor
Aesthetic Quality: Good
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Gary Barker
This site features an introduction to color theory and explains how to add a clunky shadow effect to graphics. Also, it contains a short rant against using the standard 16-color computer palette. Gary¹s guide is simplistic and shallow even if it is attractive. The approach is sort of like telling a kid who asks where rain comes from that the big fluffy things in the sky are called clouds; it isn't wrong, exactly, but neither is it very helpful. I can¹t see any reason to stay here longer than five minutes nor any to return.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

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 (out of 18): 13

Creating High Impact Documents
URL: http://home.mcom.com/assist/net_sites/impact_docs
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0197
Content Quality: Good
Aesthetic Quality: Poor
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Deb Richardson
One of the many pages which reside on the Netscape home site, this one is a mini-tutorial on using inline images. The content here is technical and sparse, and goes on at length as to how to use varying formats without first telling you why. Included is information about GIF and JPEG formats, image scaling, and the low/high resolution trick. The "real world examples" section offers a single outdated link. For a page purportedly about high impact documents, it's surprisingly low impact, short on content, and out of date. There are far better style and instruction guides out there, so give this one a miss.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 13

The Almost Complete HTML Reference
URL: http://www.well.com/user/millenn3/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
No site offering advice on HTML design compares to the extensive resource directory from ³The Almost Complete HTML Reference Guide.² Find books on HTML design, information on more than 22 Web browsers, links for more than 30 HTML converter sites, tips on color backgrounds and transparent GIFs, and even step-by-step guides for creating forms and tables. Anyone just beginning to create a pit stop on the Web should check out this guide before construction.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 12

VRML
URL: http://www.newtype.com/NewType/vr/index.htm
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Virtually everyone wants to learn more about the Virtual Reality Modeling Language, or VRML. Thanks to this graphically savvy Web site, VRML promises to be the next cool thing on the Net. Read about VRML browsers, industry news, projects, outside sites, specific hardware, and software. Build a VRML world of your very own with help from downloadable software and various Internet tools. The VRML Web site design is classy, polished, and eager to amaze visitors. Even short attention span surfers will appreciate the sections on VRML art and arcade games.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 11

Experience Power Design
URL: http://www.libertynet.org:80/~power/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Excellent
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Experience eye-popping graphics ‹ literally ‹ on the Power Design Web site. This design company creates Web sites for TV stations, national magazines, and even a football club. Learn how to redesign a national magazine in two weeks. Read notes from a seminar on the importance of unique Web site design. Buy a shirt that says, ³Power means never having to kiss ass.² Power Design is one interesting company striving to make the Web more wacky and witty. Any company that uses tweaked pictures of dentures on a cereal box can¹t be boring.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 10

Jim Massey's HTML Workbook
URL: http://sokol.softaware.com/library/jim/jimhtml.htm
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Good
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Jim Massey wants to ³enhance human potential by expanding the HTML technical envelope² with his HTML Workbook. This online workbook includes Massey's ³1,001 Web Site Tour List,² his ³10 Standard-Setting Web Technology Page,² the ³Emerging Edge Tutorials² section, and links to Dr. Cye's ³HTML Reviews of 130 Books,² the ³Timothy Leary Page,² and more. There¹s also Web Server news, articles, and tools. Instead of pushing the technical envelope to other sites, Massey takes the time to explain where he thinks Web technology will go, and how we can use it to enhance our lives.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 6

Home Page Generator
URL: http://www.cs.uoregon.edu/~jolson/makehome.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Excellent
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Instead of going through all the anguish of mastering HTML, visit the Home Page Generator and make a minimal home page in minutes. This form-driven site asks for basic information to include on the page such as the title, contact information, and a bit of text. You can preview your newly created page or copy the code to add your own graphics and backgrounds. The Home Page Generator has yet to offer the razzle-dazzle options of forms, tables, or animation, but gives HTML-phobes a chance to create Web sites of their own without much hassle.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

HTML Help
URL: http://www.obscure.org/~jaws/htmlhelp.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Aside from the nifty graphic of an industrial worker, the HTML Help site is a bland list of HTML design tutorials available online. With information on HTML writing, converters, browsers, graphic viewers, and news groups, HTML Help offers a push in the right direction. Yet with all the HTML bookmark lists already on the Web, this site should try to offer something more than just a push.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

The Common Gateway Interface
URL: http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Enter The Common Gateway Interface site for useful information on CGI. Common Gateway Interface, or CGI, is a standard for external gateway programs to interface with HTTP servers. Where a plain HTML document that the Web daemon retrieves is static (which means it is a text file that doesn¹t change), a CGI program, however, is executed in real-time, out-putting dynamic information. The site explains this concept further with examples of CGI forms and other functions. Learn various simple CGI commands in the archive or the online tutorial. The Common Gateway Interface site is a crucial bookmark for both beginning and advanced HTML programmers.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

Web Weavers Warren
URL: http://fox.nstn.ca/~tmonk/weaver/weaver.html
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Web Weavers Warren warrants a big wet kiss for supplying creative professionals with wall-to-wall links on Web design. Follow links to sites specializing in Web backgrounds, browsers, CGI, counters, editors, HTML, icons, image maps, newsgroups, Perl programming, SGML, style, utilities, VRML, and more. Web Weavers Warren could use more graphics other than a yellow wizard to get you to stay and look around, but with myriad links, most visitors would bookmark this site as a useful reference link anyway.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

The El-Cheapo Web Page
URL: http://www.oanet.com/homepage/darryls/cheapo.htm
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0496
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Thrifty would-be Web site designers have an online muse called The El-Cheapo Web Page. Here you can learn where to go for free Web page space, cheap HTML software, and copyright-free graphics. El-Cheapo has links galore to other pages that offer help in building a Web site from scratch or to add more snazzy features to one already established. The site itself could prosper from its own advice by showing off more graphics and CGI scripts, but it seems the Web master wants visitors to learn, not necessarily to be entertained.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 5

The World Wide Web Consortium W3C
URL: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/
Category: Web Technology
Issue: 0396
Content Quality: Not Rated
Aesthetic Quality: Not Rated
TechnoSmart Quality: Poor
Site of the Month: No
Author: Bonnie J. Burton
Producing specifications and referencing software, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) works within the Internet community to help promote standards on the Web. Read about W3C¹s philosophical views of the Web, or see for yourself what W3C plans to focus on ‹ whether it be security concepts or HTML scripting. W3C lacks to graphics to keep most visitors¹ attention spans, but those interested in standardizing the Web will find a wealth of information and opportunity to get involved.
Overall Rating (out of 18): 4