Net stuff
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Daily Computer & 'Net News  Check the flow rate of the net with the Internet Traffic Report. c|net hosts a news site appropriately called www.news.com. Updated several times daily, the High Tech news from USA Today. ZD Net News has daily news stories from many Ziff-Davis publications. Techweb has computer related news for a high-tech audience. The New York Times carries the Computer News Daily.

Serious 'net stuff

Connecting from Home...
 
• Do you want to connect your home computer to the internet? First, you should read a series of articles about the types of modems available, what types of services you would like to get from your dialup service provider, and choose what browser you'll feel comfortable using.  This information has been neatly contained in Infinite Ink's Getting Connected.
• After you've decided on your strategy for connecting, you'll need to select an internet service provider.  The List contained 3500+ service providers the last time I checked in, with both local and national providers in the list.
• If you've chosen a service provider whose setup on your computer allows you to customize your internet experience, you can add some extra tools such as additional browser plugins, FTP tools, Telnet shells, Chat software, etc., available from the friendly bovine at  TUCOWS.

 

What to do on the net (for beginners)...
 
• From Pathfinder (Time, Inc), here's some help with the basics of the 'web.  Try to ignore the fact that the help is centered around their site, and take a look at the basics in general.
• Check out the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Guide to the Internet   It's based on the Douglas Adams popular book, The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.
• Zen and the Art of the Internet If a virtual tree falls in a virtual forest...
• Learn safe web navigation with Project OPEN - it could keep you out of trouble.
• After you learn the basics, you should learn about the Netiquette of the web.
• Web page links are referred to as URLs.  Most people don't care about that, but if you do,  here's where you can find out about the different types.
• See how it all began - Look at the Internet Timeline (e.g. Internet history 101).
• Do you need to understand what the computer geeks are saying? Have a look in the New Hackers Dictionary, also known as the Jargon File Resources.
• Internet Resources Meta-Index Resource directories & indices available on the 'net
• Internet Resources on the Web Similar to the above
• See what the Internic found on the internet with their Weekly Scout Report
• Before there was "The Web", us old-timers used to use such tools as telnet, FTP, and request-driven mailservers to farm the internet for information.  A valuable tool back then (let's say, 1993?) was Yanoff's List of Internet Connections.  It appears that Yanoff has made his last update to this list but you can still take a look at it when you're trying to find information that might not be readily available via the web.
• Another good source of info (but a bad play on words), the Information SuperLibrary.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Privacy...
 

• What kind of information is your web connection and/or browser revealing about you? Javascript, a popular tool that's embedded in web pages, can be used to poll your browser for information.  You can switch off javascript in your preferences for your browser, but you will lose much of the functionality of the web, as more and more web sites (including mine) implement javascript routines into the web pages.  Rather than cripple your browsing experience by turning javascript off, you can ensure that your browser doesn't reveal sensitive information as follows:

 
1) Upgrade to the latest version of your favorite browser.  Over time, various security holes and bugs have been fixed as browsers mature.  Also, you might like to know that Netscape isolates javascript functions to a separate part of memory without access to other parts of your computer, an area referred to by it's developers as the "sandbox", to prevent possibly malicious scripts from getting to places they shouldn't.  It's my understanding that Microsoft Internet Explorer doesn't provide this type of security...

2) Visit Consumer.net's Privacy Analysis page  which will attempt to gain information about your connection and poll your browser for information, then present it to you for review.  Don't worry, these guys won't use this information for evil, rather, they are one of the foremost leaders in the war against spammers, telemarketers, etc. and are out to help people keep private stuff private.

3) Adjust your browser's settings as much as possible to minimize what information it can give out, by minimizing the amount of information available under the "Preferences" menus.
 

• Project OPEN, mentioned earlier in the section on what to do on the net, has a tome about protecting your privacy while online.  It's worth a read.
• Have a look at your ISP's privacy policy, and the policies of any sites you provide information about yourself to, to make sure they're not going to sell your personal information to the highest bidder(s).  AOL once tried selling their customer's email addresses to a well known junk emailer, and almost started a riot until they pulled back the whole idea.  Once your email address gets to a spammer, he'll sell it to another, and so on.  Then you'll be engaged in a Spam War.  Fortunately I've developed a fairly extensive set of tools for doing battle should that happen, see below.

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Spam Wars (fighting against junk email)

This item got so big it turned into it's own page...

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Net fiction...(or is it???)

 

Sandra Bullock stars as Angela Bennett, in The Net . She learns the hard way about how much information about a person is in the world's computer systems when she is deleted from them one day...

When the information you want to move from one place to another too sensitive to be transmitted over wires, you hire a courier like Jonny Mnemonic to carry it for you in his head. In this movie version of the story (which is drastically different from the William Gibson original short story) Jonny suffers from a problem familiar to most of us: Too much data and not enough storage space...
By the way, it was Gibson who coined the term Cyberspace as "A graphical representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system", in his book Neuromancer.

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Eye-berspace (Looking Thru the Web)

Note: Some webcams operate only during local daytime hours, and some may be dark at night, or will offer pictures shot during the previous day.

Various Webcams located in Colorado...
 

Seven views from 9 News
Denver #1	Denver #2	Denver #3
Elitch's		Boulder
The Divide	All The Cameras	Northern Colorado

 

Nine places to see from KCNC TV (if their server is working)
Denver #1	Downtown	Denver #2
Denver Public Library	Current Broadcast	I-70 Evergreen exit
Denver #3	Mile High Stadium	Denver #4

• Check out current traffic speeds along the major Denver interchanges via Pinpoint Traffic.
• In Boulder, at the intersection of 9th and Pearl - self-updating picture every 5 minutes.
• The view from outside the University Bicycle Shop, in the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. Updates every 5 minutes.
• The view from inside the University Bicycle Shop.  Updates every 3 minutes.
• View of a radio station studio with an odd name, in Boulder... Talk to them.
• See how the bird house is doing on Elkstreet in Allenspark.
• Check out Pike's Peak and see if it's still there.
• Colorado Springs webcams, from television station KOAA.
• Ski Resorts (via Resort Sports Network):
• A-Basin
• Aspen
• Berthoud Pass
• Breckenridge
• Copper Mountain
• Crested Butte
• Keystone
• Steamboat
• Summit County
• Vail
• Winter Park

A few webcams from around the world...

• In England, you can see a live picture of a Coffee Machine - The First Webcam.
• The Amazing Fishcam Updated pic of Netscape's fishtank every 5 minutes.
• For Netscape 1.1 or newer, check out Netscape's live-as-it-gets fishcam.
• Live from New York (literally!), the Manhattan Skyline Webcam.
• From the home of the Flying Toasters, the Berkeley Systems Kitchen Cam.
• A picture of the Hollywood sign that hasn't changed for months...
• Moving along the coast, you can take a look at San Francisco, toward the bridge.
• If you see students in the USC Campus cam, then they must not be in class...
• See what's showing on Comedy Central at this very instant...
• See if their's a show on at c|net TV.
• TALK to the computer wizards in a Syracuse, NY computing lab.
• A view of London, and a current weather summary below it. It's probably raining.
• Another view of London, from the River Thames - complete with a weather report and a movie of the previous day.
• See Paris via La Cameras #1-4 and learn some French while you're there.
• See Finland from the Russian Border at the Vaalimaa border crossing point.
• Another view of Finland from the Russian border at the Nuijamaa crossing point.
• Where are Vaalimaa and Nuijamaa you may ask? Have a look at the map.
• Another cold place, 4th Avenue at G Street in Anchorage, Alaska.
• Just what is the temperature up there?
• They keep the Nuclear Wessels in Alameda (Star Trek fans will get that joke).
• Visit the Webcam Webring, where you can choose a webcam at random or follow the chain they've developed.

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• From NASA, twelve Kennedy Space Center video feeds, where you can adjust the size and refresh rate of the images (Netscape required).
• The Ambit NASA webcams and mission displays page has several more images but takes much longer to load (also requires Netscape).
• Get the VDOlive broadcast plugin, so you can see the following real time broadcasts:
• The Great Video/Fair Audio Shuttle mission only broadcasts from the The Space Zone.
• The Fair Video/Great Audio NASA TV/ Shuttle mission broadcasts from Houston Chronicle.
• What's on NTV? take a look at the broadcast schedule...

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The WeatherTop pageSpam Wars This page last updated  July 28, 2001