WebQuest:
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of
the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests
are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information
rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the
levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The model was developed
in early 1995 at San Diego State University by Bernie Dodge with Tom
March. The website provides training materials and a large collection
of WebQuests.
Filamentality:
This website, created by SBC Pacific Bell, helps teachers create and
post a web-based learning page. You don't need to know any HTML and
you can go back and edit it at any time. Filamentality helps you pick
a topic, provides web searching tips, lets you use "fill-in-the-blanks"
to gather good Internet sites, guides you with interactive pages that
help you shape your ideas around whatever specific goal you have,
and then, gives you your very own web page on the Internet.
Quia
Web is one of the world's most popular educational technology
websites. It pioneered the "create-your-own" concept, giving
teachers the ability to create customized educational software online,
built around their own course materials and made available to students
over the Web. The idea proved so popular that more than 300,000 teachers
have registered to use the service. Quia provides templates for creating
14 different types of online activities, including flashcards, matching,
concentration (memory), word search, hangman, jumbled words, ordered
list, picture perfect, pop-ups, challenge board, scavenger hunt, rags
to riches (a quiz-show style trivia game), columns, and cloze exercises.
Quia also includes a directory of thousands of online activities and
quizzes in more than 50 subject areas.
Hot
Potatoes is a suite of programs published by Victoria University
and Half-Baked Software. Teachers use the Hot Potatoes programs to
create educational materials, especially exercises and tests. The
Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create
interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, crossword, matching/ordering,
jumbled-sentence and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot
Potatoes is not freeware, but it is free of charge for non-profit
educational users who make their pages available on the web.
Question
Tools: Marking questions by hand is a time-consuming, expensive
and sometimes inaccurate process. Question Tools will automatically
mark tests and exams for you. Students and trainees can receive immediate
and accurate feedback on their performance. Question Tools is a software
suite that allows anyone with a Windows PC to create on-line tests
and exams. The suite comprises: SimpleSet (a free and easy to use
question editor), Exam (a free and secure alternative to delivering
tests in a web browser), Editor (a professional’s tool for creating
and editing questions), Results Analyser (for dealing with group results)
and Server (for delivering tests over intranets and the internet).
Puzzlemaker:
Puzzlemaker is a puzzle generation tool for teachers, students and
parents. It includes Word Search (type in a list of words and the
computer will hide them in a grid of letters), Criss-Cross Puzzle
(your list of words will be linked together, numbered and formatted,
ready for you to print and hand out), Number Blocks (creates a block
of numbers that will challenge arithmetic and algebra skills), Cryptograms
(enter a phrase and the computer will assign a number to each letter)
and Math Square (math formulas are linked together to form a square).
Word
Search Factory is designed to help you quickly and easily create
professional looking word search puzzles to provide your students
with the extra vocabulary and spelling practice they need in a format
that they will find enjoyable. You can choose from a wide variety
of grid sizes and word orientations for your word search puzzle. Then
simply print as many copies of the puzzle as you require, along with
the automatic answer key.
Webmonkey:
This website has been teaching people how to build websites of their
own since 1996. If you intend to create a website, then this is the
right place to visit. Information is organised under Authoring (HTML
Basics, Tables, Frames, Browsers, Tools, Stylesheets, DHTML, XML);
Design (Site Building, Graphics, Fonts); Multimedia (Audio/MP3, Shockwave/Flash,
Video, Animation); Programming (JavaScript, Java, ASP, PHP, ColdFusion,
Perl/CGI); Backend (Databases, Apache/XSSI, Unix, Security, Networks,
Protocols, Jobs).
InvisionFree:
This website provides free notice boards to individuals, groups, or
businesses. InvisionFree installs the board for you. You don't need
to use ftp or know how to cope with MySQL. InvisionFree runs on custom
server software built to run fast and run stable. InvisionFree is
pop-up free and has no plans to ever use pop-up ads. InvisionFree's
dedication to providing top notch support and the freedom to create
the board you want make InvisionFree an interesting alternative even
to paid hosts. Why pay for a service when you can find just as good
if not better for free?
Quandary
is an application for creating Web-based Action Mazes. An Action Maze
is a kind of interactive case-study; the user is presented with a
situation, and a number of choices as to a course of action to deal
with it. On choosing one of the options, the resulting situation is
then presented, again with a set of options. Working through this
branching tree is like negotiating a maze, hence the name "Action
Maze". Action
mazes can be used for many purposes, including problem-solving, diagnosis,
procedural training, and surveys/questionnaires.
IP
Tools Course Journal:
This course will enable students to create eLearning contents for
their own students and after the course they will be able to use this
material and contents in their own classes and courses. Participants
can create their eLearning modules on any learning platform they have
access to. For those who do not have any platform available will get
access to eJournal and they also get training and guidance for implementing
their eLearning contents. One of the objectives of the course is the
introduction to ICT and international projectwork.
EMail
Mail2web:
Recent research claims that 14% of emails contain viruses or spam.
It is therefore sensible to delete offending items on the server.
Mail2web is an Internet based email client that allows you to pick
up your email from almost any POP3 or IMAP4 email server. You simply
enter your email address and password to access your inbox. You can
then read, reply and forward your messages. No registration is required
to access this application that has been developed, maintained and
supported by SoftCom Technology Consulting Incorporated, a global
leader in reliable and cost effective Internet based services.
E-mail
Anywhere: This free service lets you check your existing email
account using a standard web browser. You can use it to keep in touch
from anywhere with access to the Internet. You can read any messages
waiting for you, send replies, and delete unwanted items from your
Inbox. The only thing you need to use the service is an active POP3
email account. This includes virtually all email accounts provided
by internet service providers, schools and universities.
Brightmail:
According to Brightmail spam now accounts for 40 percent of all email,
up from eight percent last year. The company’s statistics indicates
that more than 5.5 million unsolicited emails were intercepted during
November, three percent more than in October. The research also reveals
that 15 percent of unsolicited email is of a pornographic nature,
while financial services mail accounts for 32 percent of all spam.
Product advertising accounted for 29 percent of all unsolicited email
sent during November 2002, according to the filtering firm.
MailWasher
allows you to preview multiple accounts and all aspects of your e-mails
before you download them. It also allows you to delete and bounce
e-mails back to the originator. The sender will receive an e-mail
saying the address was unknown. Another feature helps identify and
mark e-mail as normal, virus, possibly virus, possibly spam, probably
spam, chain letter, and blacklisted, so you can deal with the e-mail
as you wish. Other features are comprehensive customizable filters,
use of MAPS RBL to identify spammers, multiple accounts, visual and
auditory notification of new e-mail, minimization to system tray,
and much more. It is compatible with POP3 servers. This is a full
version with no restrictions, but donations are gladly accepted.
YouEMAIL
is an email that provides good looking graphic emails that say who
you are and what you like. All accounts are free and easy to use.
If you register by the 27th September you will receive a free graphic.
The graphics available cost no more than what you pay for mobile ring-tones
and graphics.
Email
Filtering: Imagine checking your email and only receiving messages
that you want. No more junk and no more viruses. This is the service
that Email Filtering offers. This English-based company scans your
email and removes viruses and junk mail before they reach your computer,
and you do not need to change your email address or install any software.
The service costs £21 a year.
Message-Labs:
It is estimated that each day 11 million spam emails are sent worldwide.
That is a five-fold increase since 2000. Recent research by the email
security company Message-Labs, suggests that the average employee
spends up to 10% of the working day reading and deleting spam. According
to the European Commission the problem costs £6.4bn a year in
connection charges and lost productivity. The situation is unlikely
to change as direct-mail costs 200 times more per person than an email
campaign. The cost of email addresses is so low that these campaigns
only need a 0.01 success rate to become profitable.
GLWebMail
XT: Gordano LTD, an International Internet Messaging software
developer, recently announced new features to its GLWebMail XT service.
It now includes a program to eliminate spam at the user level and
the addition of personal calendars and alarms. All message processing
within GLWebMail XT remains active whether or not the user is logged
on. When used as a consolidator, GLWebMail XT can collect mail from
external POP/IMAP accounts. Thus, unwanted mail sent to those accounts
can also be removed before reaching the user’s inbox.
Free
eMail Guide: Free webbased pop3 readers are new online services,
which allow Internet users with a pop3 or imap email account to read,
reply, forward and create messages everywhere in the world. These
free webbased pop3 readers give you the same functionality as your
email program at home. One of the advantages of these services is
that you don't have to create a 'new' email account to get access
to your email on the web. This way your friends and business relations
can reach you anywhere on the same email address.
SpamCop:
Junk e-mail, also known as spam (inspired by the monotonous repetition
of the word in the Monty Python song), is a growing problem for web
users. SpamCop's original spam reporting service will help you report
spam quickly and accurately. You can choose from a variety of filtering
options ranging from the easiest web-mail account to advanced network-wide
spam blocking.
Schoolzmail
is Internet based, all you need to use it is Internet access and a
browser (explorer or Netscape), no need for hardware or software updates.
It is multilingual, allowing partnerships with other schools worldwide
and giving eligibility for Comenius funding. The school has complete
control over the level of monitoring & filtering for all students
& within all areas. These can be changed as required during the
year. The account price includes full e-community building tools such
as chat, discussion and file sharing across the school, and even with
other schools where required. Again the school itself decides whether
these are set up and how to monitor them.
IncrediMail:
Have you ever found that the common task of sending and receiving
emails is dull, redundant and tedious? Ever wanted to send emails
that look livelier than standard emails? Would you like to add some
thrill and experience to your email, a message that goes beyond text?
IncrediMail will easily give you all that and much more and it's free
and can be downloaded from its website.
ASRG:
The Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) focuses on the problem of unwanted
email messages, loosely referred to as spam. The scale, growth, and
effect of spam on the Internet have generated considerable interest
in addressing this problem. Once considered a nuisance, spam has grown
to account for a large percentage of the mail volume on the Internet.
This unwanted traffic stands to affect local networks, the infrastructure,
and the way that people use email. The purpose of the ASRG is to understand
the problem and collectively propose and evaluate solutions to the
problem. The work of the ASRG will also include investigating techniques
to evaluate the usefulness and cost of proposed solutions. Usefulness
is described by the effectiveness, accuracy, and incentive structure
of the system. The cost of the system refers to the burden imposed
on users and operators of the communications system. These costs include
any changes to the normal use of the system or actual changes in the
monetary costs of using the system. The group will investigate evaluation
infrastructures such as public trace data archives and research tools
to measure and analyze the problem and the solutions.
CorpusMail:
A web-based email service enables you read off the Web, using Internet
browsers like Netscape or Internet Explorer. You can read your e-mail
anywhere in the world, for example in airports, or in public libraries,
any where you can access the Internet. You do not need to own a connection
to the Internet to have a web-based e-mail, and there's no software
to download, install or configure. This free service provides filters
where unwanted or important e-mail messages can sent to a specific
folder, to the trash or to a different address.
Yahoo
Email: With Yahoo! Mail, you have access to your email from any
Internet-connected computer in the world. Whether you are at a cafe,
in a library, at work or at home, with Yahoo! Mail, your email address
is the same and your account is accessible from all locations. In
addition, you can use your Yahoo! Mail account to access mail sent
to your other email accounts (such as a work or home account) by using
our External Mail feature. Spamguard is a proprietary system is intended
to radically reduce the amount of spam you receive in your inbox.
Spamguard is designed to direct most spam to your Bulk Mail folder,
to help you better manage your mail.
Mailwhiper:
It is estimated that
70 percent of all e-mail today can be classified as junk mail or "spam",
according to research firm eMarketer. The problem is that it's a huge
waste of your time, it's an invasion of your privacy, and worse, some
junk mail is plain disgusting and ugly. MailWiper carefully checks
your incoming mail before it reaches your email program. MailWiper
knows who your friends are and what mail you do want, by utilizing
a highly sophisticated matrix of intelligent stealth email id's that
cannot be processed by email servers or computers. All of this takes
place in the transparent MailWiper software engine, so you don't have
to lift a finger.
Singlefin:
Founded in March of 2001, Singlefin is a leading provider of e-mail
protection services. Singlefin offers state of the art services that
block spam and viruses as well as protect an organization's entire
e-mail infrastructure. The company has a 98% efficiency rate to block
spam and 100% when companies opt to utilize their permission based
e-mail system. Viruses are blocked at the gateway and junk mail is
held offsite as to not affect the client's critical networks.
Colours
on the Web: Knowing the names of the most common colours can be
very useful, especially if you do web design more professionally.
Clients usually do not tell you what colours they want as a hex or
as a pantone (though sometimes the latter happens) but they give you
names such as plum, tan or lavender. And though you think you know
what those colours look like, you might find it hard to define them
as an exact colour on a computer screen. This list is dynamic, and
is updated constantly by users. If you wish to add your own definition
to a colour, simply click on the 'add definition' button, and follow
the instructions.
SUNET:
The main goal of this website is to encourage the use of net-based
meetings (simultaneous communication between two or more participants
over an IP-based network). Created by the Swedish University Computer
Network (SUNET) its aim is to enable people to use net-based meeting
solutions (typically, but not exclusively video conferencing) as easily
as possible. Much of what is presented is specific in nature, and
applies to the SUNET environment.
Computer
Viruses: This useful article by Graham Davies of Camsoft provides
an introduction to the essential security measures you need to take
in order to protect your computer against viruses and other intrusions.
There are sections on Antivirus Software, Hoax Viruses, Attachments,
Holes in Windows, Firewall Software, Antivirus Software, Known Viruses,
Recent Virus Threats, Spam, Adware and Spyware. There is also information
on useful articles on Internet security.
Gmail:
As part of Google's mission to organize the world's information and
make it universally accessible and useful, it is testing an email
service called Gmail. Gmail is a free, search-based webmail service
that includes 1,000 megabytes (1 gigabyte) of storage. The backbone
of Gmail is a powerful Google search engine that quickly recalls any
message an account owner has ever sent or received. That means there's
no need to file messages in order to find them again. When
Gmail displays an email, it automatically shows all the replies to
that email as well, so users can view a message in the context of
a conversation. There are no pop-ups or banner ads in Gmail, which
places relevant text ads and links to related web pages adjacent to
email messages.
Applications
Ask
Jeeves Mini Searchbar: Ask Jeeves is one of the most popular search
engines on the Web. Recently it launched its Mini Jeeves Searchbar.
It claims it "is the fastest and easiest way to get the information
you want, when you want it, from anywhere on the Web". The Mini
Jeeves Searchbar is free to download and appears every time you open
a new Internet Explorer window. The toolbar also includes a very good
dictionary and thesaurus.
Google
Toolbar: The new Google Toolbar increases your ability to find
information from anywhere on the web and takes only seconds to install.
When the Google Toolbar is installed, it automatically appears along
with the Internet Explorer toolbar. This means you can quickly and
easily use Google to search from any website location, without returning
to the Google home page to begin another search. The Google Toolbar
is available free of charge and includes several great features: Google
Search (access Google's search technology from any web page); Search
Site (search only the pages of the site you're visiting); PageRank
(see Google's ranking of the current page) Page Info (access more
information about a page including similar pages, pages that link
back to that page, as well as a cached snapshot); Word Find: (find
your search terms wherever they appear on the page).
GoToMyPC:
Expertcity is a leading provider of Web-based remote-access and customer-support
technologies. Expertcity's remote-access solution, GoToMyPC™,
enables both consumers and enterprises to remotely access and work
on their PCs from any Internet location. GoToMyPC is a consumer service
that gives individuals unlimited access to their computers from any
Web browser anywhere and enables them to conveniently and securely
access email, files, programs and network resources from home or the
road.
Sygate
Personal Firewall: A firewall is a piece of software that monitors
all incoming network traffic and allows in only the connections that
are known and trusted. Without a firewall, your computer is operating
under an "open door" policy. Port 80 is open so that you
can browse web pages, port 1863 allows you to engage in instant messaging
with friends whereas port 443 gives access to secure web pages used
by online merchants to encrypt purchases. Sygate Personal Firewall
is software that provides a multi-layered shield of network, content,
application, and operating system security. There is a free version
available from its website.
Zone
Alarm is probably the most popular free firewall on the Internet.
Bank account information, passwords, credit card numbers and documents
are all available to anyone with bad intentions and basic computer
skills. Hackers can get in, take what they want, and even leave open
a "back door" so they can turn your computer into a "zombie"
and use it to attack other computers. Every minute that your computer
is connected to the Internet, either through a dial-up (modem) connection
or through a broadband (DSL or cable) service, it is at risk.
Security
Scan: The BlackCode Security Scan is an online tool which makes
an exhaustive test on your computer or firewall searching for open
ports. After completing
the well known port numbers scan, the BlackCode Security Scan will
proceed to scan your system for possible trojan infections. This scan
is made using a Trojan database with more that 1500 different trojans
and worms.
Cleanfeed
is a high-quality, pre-filtered broadband Internet connection. It
eliminates the problems associated with delivering the Internet to
vulnerable users and public environments, such as schools, libraries
and the workplace. Features include fast Internet, download at speeds
up to 40 times faster than a modem; high-quality web content classification
and blocking, built-in web page and download accelerator, core network
technology - centrally hosted and managed, zero administrative overhead,
delegated responsibility for web filtering, instant site updates and
does not rely on periodic database synchronization.
Google
Catalogs: Google has made it a lot easier to find the perfect
present from mail-order catalogs that are
not available online anywhere else. Google Catalog Search includes
the full contents of hundreds of catalogs selling everything from
industrial adhesives to clothing and home furnishings. Whether you're
looking to buy for yourself, your business, or that special someone
in your life, Google Catalog Search can help.
InternetSeer
is the largest free website monitoring company in the world. It currently
provides free website monitoring to over 1 million users worldwide.
As part of your free web site monitoring service, webmasters receive
immediate notifications when InternetSeer encounters problems accessing
your website. It also provides weekly performance reports.
POP
Peeper is a free utility that runs in your Windows task bar and
alerts you when you have new email on any of your POP3, Hotmail, MSN
or Yahoo accounts. You can also use POP Peeper to read and delete
your email. POP Peeper supports HTML email, so you can see your email
the same way as you would in your email client.
Web
Ferret: The latest
version of this popular software is designed to assist users in finding
the information they need by utilizing several search engines. Helpful
features include the ability to query a number of different search
engines, along with the ability to validate selected results, save
search histories, and filter out pornography and inappropriate language.
Google
Monitor is a simple application that allows you to find and track
the ranking of your website or any given URL in Google search results.
It offers two modes of operation: you can enter a URL and a keyword
to find the top results and where your site ranks among them, or select
a URL and find its ranking for several keywords at once. You may store
statistics for all URLs and keywords, and keep notes to further track
search trends and the performance of your website.
Blogger:
Blogger is a web-based tool that helps you publish to the web instantly
- whenever the urge strikes. Blogger is the leading tool in the rapidly
growing area of web publishing known as weblogs, or "blogs."
A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated
posts that are arranged chronologically - like a what's new page or
a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly - from
links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea,
to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction.
Blogger gives you a way to automate (and greatly accelerate) the blog
publishing process without writing any code or worrying about installing
any sort of server software or scripts.
Dave's
Quick Search Deskbar is a tiny textbox that Dave Bau designed
for search hounds with weary mouse-fingers. Unlike the Google Toolbar,
this little deskbar lets you launch searches without starting a web
browser first, directly from your Windows Explorer Taskbar. You type
your search and hit Enter for a regular Google search. Now you can
do searches no matter what you are doing (email, word processing,
programming, etc.). With this quick search bar you're not a captive
to Google. Do Yahoo searches, get Merriam-Webster definitions, get
Bloomberg stock quotes and find Switchboard phone numbers. There is
also a built in calculator. Click the button on the search bar or
press F1 and a menu shows you all your choices.
Googlebar:
The Google Toolbar was produced for Internet Explorer? The Googlebar
project was initially created to address the widespread desire in
the Mozilla community for the Google toolbar to support Netscape 7,
since many users of mozilla enjoy having all of Google's specialty
searches in one convenient location. The current release of Googlebar,
produced by Jonathan Mendelson, emulates all of the basic search functionality
of the toolbar, allowing users to easily access a number of specialty
searches from their browser, including: basic web search, site search,
the "I'm Feeling Lucky" search, groups, directory, image
search, and restricted searches in BSD, Linux, Mac, Microsoft, catalog,
news, and US government sites. Future plans call for the addition
of support for highlighting all keywords, uninstall, and preference
panel configurability for keyboard modifiers on a search.
Web
Online Surveys is an all-in-one service which is especially designed
for people who aren't computer experts and have the need to conduct
web surveys or questionnaires by themselves. Its particular good because
you don't need any special downloads or products to install as it
all works via the web. You create your survey - enter the email addresses
of people you want to invite and then click send. Once your email
or web survey has finished you pick up your results from an easy to
use report section - it even has the ability to download results into
Excel for further analysis.
The system doesn't have to be used only for surveys - you could create
online web exams or even student checklist for the hockey team - the
possibilities are endless.
Groowe
Toolbar: This toolbar that gives you easy access to searching
Google and many other search engines, as well. With a click, you can
query Yahoo, Teoma, AllTheWeb, AltaVista, MSN Search and others. In
addition, it makes it easy to perform specialized searches with many
of the search engines it supports.
UCmore:
This tool provided by UCmore installs into your browser and then shows
information related to the page you are viewing. You don't search
using it, but you may discover new sites related to those you like.
UCmore sends you ideas for where to go next, wherever you are on the
web. Its producers claim that "it is based on the way real people
surf". It does this by organizing related sites into categories
on your menu bar.
Movable
Type is powerful, customizable publishing system which installs
on web servers to enable individuals or organizations to manage and
update weblogs, journals, and frequently-updated website content.
Movable Type is widely recognized as the premiere choice for power
users of weblogs, as well as organizations interested in nanopublishing,
intranet knowledge management, and marketing or communications through
weblogs. Movable Type's architecture is extremely flexible, allowing
it to run on any major web server platform and to work with most common
databases. In addition, its customizable code and the extensive library
of third-party applications which extend and interface with the system
mean that Movable Type can accommodate almost any custom requirement.
Microsoft
Update: A number of security issues have been identified in Microsoft®
Internet Explorer that could allow an attacker to compromise your
Microsoft Windows®-based systems and then take a variety of actions.
For example, an attacker could run programs on a computer used to
view the attacker's Web site. This vulnerability affects computers
that have Microsoft® Internet Explorer installed. (You do not
have to be using Internet Explorer as your Web browser to be affected
by this issue.)
Proxomitron:
Do you dislike pop-up ads when you are surfing the web? This website
allows you to download Proxomitron, a free piece of software that
allows you to block pop-up ads, Macromedia Flash ads, banner ads,
sound files, on websites.
Doxdesk:
A large number of PCs now have unknown programs that have either been
installed from a website or included with file-sharing software. Andrew
Clover's Doxdesk website provides information on how to block or remove
programs that have been installed without your consent.
Google
Toolbar: Google has just released a beta version of its next generation
Google Toolbar - a free browser tool that enables users to search
with Google no matter where they are on the Internet. New features
in this latest version of the Google Toolbar include a pop-up blocker:
You can now turn off distracting pop-up ads from web pages you visit
and let through only those pop-ups you want to see. Other features
include AutoFill, a facility where you can complete web forms quickly
and easily with information that's saved securely on your own computer.
Technorati:
You can now get the Technorati Link Cosmos of any site, article, or
blog with a single click! The Technorati Anywhere! Bookmarklet will
open a new window or tab in your browser with the list of links to
that URL. It is a whole new way of instantly checking sources and
finding out the credibility of the page you're currently viewing.
To install it, simply right click on this Technorati Anywhere! link
and select "Add bookmark" (or Add to Favorites) to install
it in your browser.
Eureka
Toolbar: This new toolbar allows you to search throughout 40 different
search engines at once. General tools include Web Catalog, Latest
News, Spam Remover, Links Manager, Applications Manager, Language
Translator, Dictionary, Clipboard History, Agenda with World Clock,
Currency Converter, Quotes, SMS, Password Keeper, Password Revealer,
Weather Forecast, Memory Defragmenter, Backup Utility, Popup Killer,
Fill Form, Horoscope, Love Calculator, Dating Calculator and Games.
Cache
Problems: Your ISP's network might intercept all attempts you
make to connect to the web and route your request through a transparent
web proxy cache, technically known as an interception proxy. For example,
NTLworld uses Inktomi Traffic Servers. Your ISP does this in order
to reduce the traffic on their backbone, and to reduce the traffic
they exchange with other operators' networks. If a proxy cache works
well, it can also improve performance for the customer, by supplying
locally cached copies of web pages and graphics much more quickly
than by fetching them from the remote original web server. You can
often make it fetch a new version by Pressing Ctrl-F5. Robin Walker's
useful website provides a guide to cache problems.
Watch
That Page: This service enables you to automatically collect new
information from your favorite pages on the Internet. You select which
pages to monitor, and Watch That Page will find which pages have changed,
and collect all the new content for you. The new information is presented
to you in an email and/or a personal web page. You can specify when
the changes will be collected, so they are fresh when you want to
read them.
OPEUS
is a web-based content management system designed to give your school
an anywhere/anytime learning facility accessible from home or school.
OPEUS is used to create "e-portfolios" and dynamic websites
based on content authored by students and teachers. The webpage editor
is based on Microsoft Word and is extremely quick and simple to use.
Using this software teachers
are able to manage, develop and authorise the work of students to
secure, individual e-portfolios in a streamlined and efficient way.
Vmyths:
Established in 2000, the main objective of Vmyths is the eradication
of computer virus hysteria. From this website you can learn about
computer virus myths, hoaxes, urban legends, hysteria, and the implications
if you believe in them. You can also search a list of computer virus
hoaxes & virus hysteria.
SupaNames
is an award winning business & consumer web host with over 17,000
active users from many countries around the world making us one of
the largest independent web hosts based in the UK. Since being the
first company in the UK to introduce low cost professional web hosting
& domain packages in 1999 SupaNames has come a long way and is
now a multi-million pound service provider.
Yahoo
Companion Toolbar: This latest edition of the Companion Toolbar
provides some new features and resolves some previous performance
issues. The Toolbar functions with Internet Explorer and allows users
to check their Yahoo mail account, access a variety of news sources,
and store additional bookmarks. The Toolbar is compatible with all
versions of Windows 95 and above.
Hot
Lingo features a 75,000 word English dictionary, comprised of
both American and British variants. Version 2.0 is even more user-configurable:
including a customizable user dictionary that can now contain up to
32,000 user-defined words. Hot Lingo has applet support for Lotus
iNotes, and Microsoft Exchange Server Outlook Web Access (OWA) 5.x
and 2000 - the two most popular remote messaging products available
today. Hot Lingo is compatible with all of the Windows operating systems.
HouseCall:
Trend Micro is a global leader in antivirus and content security software
and services. This free service allows you to give your PC a check-up
while you surf the web. HouseCall is a real-life demonstration of
the power of the web-based technologies that Trend is developing to
make deployment and management of virus protection in corporate settings
fast and easy. If this is your first time using HouseCall, expect
to wait several minutes while the scanner prepares to check for viruses.
This time will vary depending on your modem speed and current Internet
traffic, and will be shorter the next time you visit.
Toolbars:
Search engines have tripped over each other this past year in offering
up toolbars. While the Google toolbar may be the best known - it was
introduced at the end of 2000 - other companies had launched various
toolbars even earlier. Google upgraded its toolbar last year, while
AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, Teoma, Dogpile, HotBot, Lycos, and many others
hit the market. These toolbars are free to download and install. They
become embedded in the browser or the Windows taskbar and offer quick
access to the search box, along with other helpful features such as
highlighting search terms and blocking pop-up ads. In this article,
Greg R. Notess looks at the advantages and disadvantages of using
a toolbar.
Vivisimo
ToolBar: Vivisimo was last year's Search Engine Watch winner for
Best Meta Search Engine. You can now download the Vivísimo
toolbar to get organized search results from many of the top search
engines. It's simple to install, it's free to use, and the on-the-fly
categories will make your life easier. The Vivísimo Toolbar
is dynamically upgradeable - whenever new features are available they
will be automatically added as options to your search bar. One useful
feature is that it blocks annoying popup ads.
Digital
Publishing: You've sweated for a long time over your book, it
should be easy for you to see it published. Now, using the latest
in digital print on demand book production and distribution technologies,
there's a genuine alternative to traditional or subsidy publishing.
Do it yourself publishing. On this website PABD provides a series
of tools to help you create, publish and sell your book. The tools
are provided free of charge and include your own personal on-line
book store, a wide selection of professionally designed covers for
you to choose from and the ability to set your own selling price,
making royalties a thing of the past.
TrustToolbar:
This plug-in is a free browser enhancement that integrates seamlessly
into Internet Explorer. It provides you with a trusted, safe and easier
way to surf the web. It provides you with realtime visual identity
assurance of who your current website really is! Let's you surf to
the website you want simply by entering their brand, company or product
names - remembering complex URLs is a thing of the past! Let's you
search for specific products and services offered within the validated
and Trusted Commercial Web containing millions of companies selling
the product or service you want! It also brings you the power of your
favourite search engines right to your fingertips - simply search
directly from TrustToolbar.
Alexa:
This website allows you to discover details about any website. Type
in the URL and it will tell you the site's world ranking, how many
page impressions the website gets, total number of users, and the
length of time visitors stay on the site. It also provides a traffic
history graph of the site. Another useful feature is that you can
compare the records of any two sites. You can also provide reviews
of websites (placed on the Amazon site).
Advice
Ask
Jack: Past editions of the Guardian's impressive computer supplement,
Online, can now be found on its Net News website. As well as the latest
computer stories that have appeared in the newspaper you can also
access Web Watch, Weblog and the excellent Ask Jack column. If you
have any questions or comments about previous answers given by Jack
Schofield, send an email to Jack.Schofield@guardian.co.uk.
DLL
Files: Have you ever installed some software but when you try
to run it you get a message that a particular DLL file cannot be found?
If so, it is worth visiting this Swedish website that contains a multitude
of DLL files to download. Each file download comes with a Readme text,
which states the proper place to install the file.
My
Account: As an additional service to its catalogue of thousands
of high quality social science Internet resources, SOSIG, the Social
Science Information Gateway, now offers My Account. My Account is
a feature that enables you to customise SOSIG to create your own,
tailored SOSIG information services. This free registration service
can help you to keep up-to-date with events in your areas of interest,
develop your career through contact with like-minded colleagues and
publicise your conferences and events. Specific features of the service
allow you to receive weekly email notification of new Internet sites
and to set up your own Web page on SOSIG that displays Internet channels
of your choosing.
edu@guardian:
Richard Doughty's edu@guardian is always full of useful information
for teachers. In the edition published yesterday, John Davitt provides
some advice on how to stop students from copying work from the Internet
and handling it in as their own. As well as making use of the autocommand
in Word (tools menu) Davitt suggests asking the students to turn the
text into a one-minute talk. The Guardian supplement also includes
articles on digital video, ICT and exam results, virtual learning
in Scotland and tablet computers.
Ask
an Expert: Each month the Ask an Expert section features a different
theme. This month, you will have the opportunity to ask questions
on the ICT resources that are suitable for the Foundation Stage. This
stage is about developing the key skills of speaking, listening, collaborating,
concentrating, persisting and about developing the literacy and numeracy
skills that will prepare children for Key Stage One. From programmable
robots to interactive whiteboards, from the Internet to CD-ROMs, this
month's Ask an Expert feature aims to inform practitioners of the
ICT resources that are suitable for the Foundation Stage. It also
suggests ways in which these resources can best be used to meet the
needs of the children and the requirements of the Early Learning Goals.
Windows
Protection Errors can occur due to many different causes, including:
virtual driver (VxD) problems, conflicts between real-mode and protected-mode
drivers, a damaged Registry; a virus; Plug-and-Play malfunction; and
hardware problems, including a malfunctioning cache, malfunctioning
RAM, or a damaged motherboard. The articles on this website should
be quite helpful in identifying and resolving these problems.
Hoaxbusters:
Interspersed among the junk mail and spam that fills our Internet
e-mail boxes are dire warnings about devastating new viruses, Trojans
that eat the heart out of your system, and malicious software that
can steal the computer right off your desk. Added to that are messages
about free money, children in trouble, and other items designed to
grab you and get you to forward the message to everyone you know.
Most all of these messages are hoaxes or chain letters. While hoaxes
do not automatically infect systems like a virus or Trojan, they are
still time consuming and costly to remove from all the systems where
they exist. At CIAC, we find that we spend much more time de-bunking
hoaxes than handling real virus and Trojan incidents. These pages
describe some of the warnings, offers, and pleas for help that are
filling our mailboxes, clogging our mailservers, and that generally
do not have any basis in fact.
Purportal:
Internet hoaxes and chain letters are e-mail messages written with
one purpose; to be sent to everyone you know. The messages they contain
are usually untrue. A few of the sympathy messages do describe a real
situation but that situation was resolved years ago so the message
is not valid and has not been valid for many years. Hoax messages
try to get you to pass them on to everyone you know using several
different methods of social engineering. Most of the hoax messages
play on your need to help other people. Who wouldn't want to warn
their friends about some terrible virus that is destroying people's
systems? Or, how could you not want to help this poor little girl
who is about to die from cancer? This website enables you to check
whether a message is a hoax or not.
Browser
Hijacking: There is a despicable trend that is becoming more and
more common where the browser settings of web surfers are being forcibly
hijacked by malicious web sites and software which modifies your default
start and search pages. Sometimes Internet shortcuts will be added
to your favorites folder without asking you. The purpose of this is
force you to visit a web site of the hijacker's choice so that they
can artificially inflate their web site's traffic for higher advertising
revenues. In some cases, these changes are reversible simply by going
into Internet options and switching them back. Not always however.
Sometimes it's necessary to edit the windows registry to undo the
changes made. Sometimes there is even a combination of registry setting
and files clandestinely placed on your hard drive that redo your settings
every time you reboot the computer. No matter how often you change
your settings back, they are changed again the next time you restart.
This website will tell you how to solve the problem.
Dutch
Lottery Scam: The emails arrive with the subject line "Our
Lucky Winner!!!" or similar and purport to be from a Dutch Lottery
on which you have won a substantial prize. The email may give you
a reference number to quote and a phone number to call, the supposedly
unique reference number is in fact often identical in every email
sent! Research done on this suggests that the perpetrators are the
same people who carry out the "Nigerian" 419 fraud and that
you will be asked for your bank account details and/or an advance
fee to facilitate the transfer. Either way you are likely to be ripped
off.
Webber:
Anti-virus vendors are warning of the mass mailing of a new Trojan
program Webber which is capable of turning infected PCs into spam
propagating zombies. Webber is the latest in a series of malicious
programs that turn innocent computers into spam machines. It installs
a proxy server at the command of the attacker. Once run, Webber clandestinely
downloads its additional components from a remote Web-server and installs
them on the now infected computer. Collateral damage attributed to
this Trojan includes the sending of a list of passwords dug out of
a victim machines in the form of URL requests to the Web site of the
Trojan's presumed creator.
Spyware
Guide: This website
was created to provide an all inclusive and updated resource on spy
ware applications, what they do and how they’re used. These resources
include: which software applications can detect and defeat spyware,
an extensive database of all known spy software and adware applications
and contact information as well as other privacy related products.
As the spy versus spy battle rages on we have decided not to take
sides, but to merely document the battlefield.
Crimes
of Persuasion: In-depth fraud coverage of computer crimes such
as pyramid schemes make this crime library of internet crimes the
cyber crime location for the schemes and scams that con artists perpetrate.
White collar crimes such as prime bank fraud, pyramid scams, Internet
fraud, phone scams, chain letters, modeling agency and Nigerian scams,
computer fraud as well as telemarketing fraud are fully explained.
This crime report on organized crime topics include credit card fraud,
check kiting, tax fraud, money laundering, mail fraud, counterfeit
money orders, check fraud and other who's who true crimes of persuasion.
W32/Sobig.f@MM
is a High Risk mass-mailing worm. It arrives as an email attachment
with a .pif or .scr extension. When run, it infects the host computer,
then emails itself (using its own SMTP engine) to harvested email
addresses from the victim's machine. In addition, when it propagates,
the worm "spoofs" the "from: field", using one
of the harvested email addresses. Sobig can also open up a user's
computer port, making it vulnerable to hackers, who can plant dangerous
Trojans. These malicious programs often let unauthorized users remotely
take over a system, steal personal information or use the infected
PC to send spam. Common subject lines, attachment names and message
content associated with W32/Sobig.f@MM emails include: Your details,
Thank you!, Re: Thank you!, Re: Details, Re: Approved, Re: That movie,
Re: Your application and Re: Wicked screensaver.
Browser
Hijacking: There is a despicable trend that is becoming more and
more common where the browser settings of web surfers are being forcibly
hijacked by malicious web sites and software which modifies your default
start and search pages. The purpose of this is force you to visit
a web site of the hijacker's choice so that they can artificially
inflate their web site's traffic for higher advertising revenues.
Once hijacked, there is no simple answer because several different
techniques are used. However, this website provides comprehensive
advice on how to completely remove most hijackers.
Newsletters
Scout
Report: Published every Friday, continuously since 1994, the Scout
Report is one of the Internet's oldest and most respected publications.
It offers a selection of new and newly discovered online resources
of interest to researchers, educators, and anyone else with an interest
in high-quality online material. Every
day professional librarians, educators, and content specialists filter
hundreds of announcements looking for the most valuable and authoritative
resources available online. Information about the best of what we've
found is then summarized, organized, and provided to the Internet
community in various formats, including email and the Web. The Internet
Scout Project is located in the Department of Computer Sciences at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is sponsored by the National
Science Foundation.
Lockergnome
Newsletters: Lockergnome provides free technology newsletters.
Titles include Windows Daily (PC tips & tricks, critical updates,
jargon definitions and industry news); Tech Specialist (reviews for
Windows and Linux users, troubleshooting resources, IT job assistance);
Digital Media (MP3s, streaming audio and video destinations, online
radio stations, DVD reviews); Penguin Shell (latest from the Linux
community, open source projects, distribution news, cross-platform
tools) and Apple Core (dedicated to the world of Macintosh products).
European
Schoolnet eLearning News: The European Schoolnet's News site is
for everyone working in education in Europe. The website will keep
you up to date on events, research, practice, collaborative projects
and more. If you have a newsworthy tip about eLearning, don't hesitate
to get in touch with Alexa Joyce at news@eun.org.
Search
Engine Watch provides up-to-date information on all the major
search-engines. A recent report published by Forrester Research argued
that search engines are the leading way people locate websites. Google
currently carries out 130 million searches a day. Other important
players include Inktomi (80 million), Alta Vista (50 million), Direct
Hit (20 million), Fast (12 million), GoTo (5 million) and Ask Jeeves
(4 million). Google
also has the largest database of web pages indexed (2000 million).
Others include Fast (625 million), Alta Vista (550 million), Inktomi
(500 million), Excite (380 million) and Northern Light (390 million).
The
Register: According to Hitwise the Register is the UK's No.1 UK
IT Media website. Hitwise monitors the daily Internet usage of more
than 7.6 million UK internet users to provide website rankings in
over 150 industry categories. Q4 2002 figures from industry monitors
Hitwise confirm that the Register had the lion's share of UK readers
in this category between October and December 2002.
Stephen's
Web is the online home of Stephen Downes, a writer and researcher
in the field of online learning, online communities and knowledge
management. OLDaily is a free daily email newsletter based on the
site's constantly expanding knowledge base of research and information
related to online learning (a weekly version is also available). A
former philosophy instructor, instructional designer and information
architect, Downes is now employed by Canada's National Research Council
as a senior researcher in e-learning. Stephen's Web contains some
important essays in the field, including 'The Future of Online Learning'
(1998) and 'Learning Objects' (2000). Of most use, perhaps, is the
knowledge base, a searchable collection of almost three thousand items
culled from Downes's research in the field of online learning over
the last three years. Because the purpose of OLDaily and the knowledge
base is to spot trends and to assess the importance of news in and
around the field, news items are listed with some commentary about
the event's significance or its place in the wider picture. The reporting
on OLDaily not unbiased and value-neutral. Each development is assessed,
commentary is added and opinions voiced. Press releases and media
spin are not given a free ride on OLDaily.
Search-Engines
and Directories
Ask
Jeeves: Ask Jeeves Incorporated is a leading provider of world-class
information retrieval technologies, brands and services that are available
to consumers across a range of platforms including destination websites,
downloadable search-based applications and portals. In addition, Ask
Jeeves syndicates its search technology and advertising units to a
network of affiliate partners. Research firm Nielsen/NetRatings last
month said that Ask Jeeves is the ninth most visited site in the United
States, with more than 32 million unique users.
Google:
In 1937 H. G. Wells travelled around the world promoting his World
Brain scheme. His plan was to create a vast repository that contained
every piece of knowledge in the world. He argued that the World Brain
would be freely available to everyone and would therefore eliminate
the ignorance that sustained tyranny. His scheme never got off the
ground but some observers have claimed that Google is on the way to
becoming this World Brain. A recent report by OneStat reveals that
Google now carries out 53.2 per cent of all web searches. Yahoo!,
the second largest, has only 20.4 per cent. This is followed by MSN
Search (9.1), Terra Lycos (3.7), AOL Search (2.9), Altavista (2.8)
and Ixquick (2.2).
Google-Watch:
Daniel Brandt is founder and president of Public Information Research
(PIR) and programmer and webmaster for the organization's several
sites including Google-Watch, a website that monitors the activities
of Google. Brandt argues that Google's "crawlers" (software
which creeps daily through the web to monitor and catalogue new and
changing websites) are prejudiced in favour of larger and older websites.
Brandt suggests that Google is now so powerful that it should be registered
like a public utility company.
Scout
Report: Published every Friday, continuously since 1994, the Scout
Report is one of the Internet's oldest and most respected publications.
It offers a selection of new and newly discovered online resources
of interest to researchers, educators, and anyone else with an interest
in high-quality online material. Every
day professional librarians, educators, and content specialists filter
hundreds of announcements looking for the most valuable and authoritative
resources available online. Information about the best of what we've
found is then summarized, organized, and provided to the Internet
community in various formats, including email and the Web. The Internet
Scout Project is located in the Department of Computer Sciences at
the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is sponsored by the National
Science Foundation.
Open
Directory: The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive
human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained
by a vast, global community of volunteer editors and is the most widely
distributed data base of web content classified by humans. The Open
Directory provides the means for the Internet to organize itself.
The plan is for well-informed individuals to organize a small portion
of the web and present it back to the rest of the population, culling
out the bad and useless and keeping only the best content.
Education
Index Web: This website, created by Hobsons, an international
college and career publisher, claims to provides a guide to "the
most useful education-related sites on the Web." The website
can be browsed by subject or by lifestage, from prenatal and infant
all the way to college and continuing education. Since it went online
in September 1996, the Education Index has grown to more than 3,000
sites in 66 different categories.
Google
News Portal: A recent addition to the Google website is a news
portal that will serious challenge market leaders News Now and Moreover.
Everyday it groups together the interesting stories that are developing
and then links you to the best news sites for those particular stories.
At the moment the site searches 4,000 news sources but this will increase
rapidly over the next few months.
NewsSeer:
NewsSeer is both a straightforward news search engine and an adaptive
tool that's constantly learning your interests to deliver personalized
news tailored to your own needs. In addition to its search capabilities,
NewsSeer will attempt to learn your interests by using several criteria
from the material you select to view. This includes article selection,
the text of the article, how long you looked at a story, the source
of the material and the age of the story. This process is automatic.
However, you can also choose to assist NewsSeer by rating your interest
in the story.
Top9:
This is the Internet's first Search Directory to use consumer intelligence
to comprehensively rank the most popular websites by industry category
on a monthly basis. The rankings are compiled by PC Data Online and
are based on surveys with over 120,000 home users on the Internet.
Currently in the Education Resources section the top nine are Spark
Notes (2,647 unique users), Thinkquest (1,852), Pink Monkey (706),
Blackboard (680), School Notes (457), Grade Saver (402), UMI (328),
Educate (317) and Planet Papers (238).
Web
100: With reviews
of sites and ratings by users, Web 100 makes it easy to locate the
Internet's top sites. Rather than overwhelming you with listings of
hundreds of thousands of Web pages, the Web 100 provides an easily
accessible selection of 100 sites in areas such as education. Web
100 compile ratings and rank the sites from 1 to 100. The programs
also select a featured site each hour and provide a tally of statistics,
such as the sites getting the most votes and those moving up and down
in the rankings.
Stephen's
Web is the online home of Stephen Downes, a writer and researcher
in the field of online learning, online communities and knowledge
management. OLDaily is a free daily email newsletter based on the
site's constantly expanding knowledge base of research and information
related to online learning (a weekly version is also available). A
former philosophy instructor, instructional designer and information
architect, Downes is now employed by Canada's National Research Council
as a senior researcher in e-learning. Stephen's Web contains some
important essays in the field, including 'The Future of Online Learning'
(1998) and 'Learning Objects' (2000). Of most use, perhaps, is the
knowledge base, a searchable collection of almost three thousand items
culled from Downes's research in the field of online learning over
the last three years. Because the purpose of OLDaily and the knowledge
base is to spot trends and to assess the importance of news in and
around the field, news items are listed with some commentary about
the event's significance or its place in the wider picture. The reporting
on OLDaily not unbiased and value-neutral. Each development is assessed,
commentary is added and opinions voiced. Press releases and media
spin are not given a free ride on OLDaily.
The
Internet Public Library (IPL): One of the most popular library
sites on the Internet. IPL visitors can read online books, magazines,
or newspapers; browse links to carefully selected websites for children
and teens; and receive personalized assistance from an award-winning
team of volunteer librarians. The website is operated by the School
of Information at the University of Michigan.
WelshQuest:
This search engine helps you find documents on this website and related
sites (BritQuest, ScottishQuest, IrishQuest). You tell the search
service what you're looking for by typing in keywords, phrases, or
questions in the search box. The search service responds by giving
you a list of all the webpages in our index relating to those topics.
The most relevant content will appear at the top of your results.
Schoolzone
School Search: Schoolzone claims that this is the UK's only complete
listing of schools, colleges and LEAs (these organisations can amend
or add to their details using a PIN). The Schoolzone website also
has a collection of 40,000 educational websites, all hand picked for
suitability and reviewed and categorised by UK teachers.
Cybercafe
Search Engine: This website provides listings for more than 6,300
verified cybercafes, public Internet access points and kiosks in 169
countries. Results list the address of each cybercafe, and web site
URL and email address, if available. Also offers specialized search
function that let you limit results to public Internet kiosks, and
terminals cybercafes on cruise ships. Just select the search field
and then enter the name of the city or the state or country in which
you wish to locate.
Singingfish:
Looking for audio or video files from across the web? Singingfish
is a multimedia search engine that helps you find audio or video files
from across the web. The company recently signed a deal to power audio-visual
searching in Microsoft's Windows Media Player client. The deal means
that Singingfish now provides the multimedia searching capabilities
for two of the web's largest digital media players and give the company
a dominance as a multimedia search provider.
School
History Internet Links: This site offers comprehensive Internet
links for history teachers and students. It includes reviews of over
1,000 websites. The material is organized
under the following categories: Primary, Year 7, Year 8, Year 9, GCSE
Modern World, Depth Studies and Additional Studies. A new post 16
section is currently being developed.
Searchuno
is based on the Open Directory which has been modified and enhanced
by Park Royal Media. Searchuno has come about as a result of the lack
of a UK-focused web directory. Over the years, the number of web directories
has shrunk from over a dozen to just a handful and of those left,
search results given are populated with all manner of advertising
before users can get the results they need. Another issue that Searchuno
seeks to address is smaller sites that are unable to afford to pay
to get their site into other web directories. With Searchuno there
is no cost to add your website and in most cases the websites submitted
are added within 48 hours if they meet the criteria for inclusion.
Colleges
Directory: This website provides links to colleges in the USA
and Canada. Several of these colleges are online colleges, which means
that regardless of where you live, you can study at one of these colleges
through the Internet. The colleges listed at CollegesDirectory.com
are categorized by subject and location. You can easily find which
colleges in your state or country offer degrees in the subjects you're
looking for.
Info
Search Engine: Info.com is a powerful meta-search engine that
saves you time by displaying results with one search request from
12 search engines such as Google, About, Ask Jeeves, Teoma and Looksmart.
Search engines display results from their own databases - which tend
to be fully updated from the World Wide Web about once a month. This
means that only a selection of results from the entire Web are available
at any one time, and even then many could be out of date. By displaying
results taken from 12 different search engines Info.com is far more
likely to bring you results that have been more recently updated than
by using one search engine alone. Info.com will also include results
that some search engines have missed because each one has different
criteria for displaying results.
Weblogs:
Google is to create a search tool specifically for weblogs, most likely
giving material generated by the self-publishing tools its own tab.
It isn't clear if weblogs will be removed from the main search results,
but precedent suggests they will be. Bloggers are likely to welcome
their very own tab as a legitimization of the publishing format. But
many others will breathe a sigh of relief as blogs disappear from
the main index. Google has strived in vain to maintain the quality
of its search results in the face of a blizzard of links generated
by a small number of sources. Google currently searches over 3,083,324,600
pages. Assuming there are one million bloggers, and generously assuming
they have a hundred pages each, that amounts to 0.032 per cent of
web content indexed by Google.
Daypop
Search Engine: Daypop is a current events search engine. Daypop
crawls the living web at least once a day to bring you the latest
information relevant to your searches. Daypop specializes in accumulating
information from sites that update on a daily basis: newspapers, online
magazines, and weblogs. Currently, Daypop indexes over 35000 of the
best news sites and weblogs on the net every day.
Wondir:
The premise behind Wondir is that there are thousands of organizations,
corporations and service providers, and millions of individuals throughout
the world who want to help others by providing information, guidance
and expertise. The Wondir information service strives to be a simple
yet effective way for people with an information need to ask a question
and get a good answer from those sources who are out there, ready
to help. Since a primary goal of Wondir is to open up the gifts of
knowledge to people with fewer advantages, the service is free.
Turbo10
Search Engine: Traditional crawler-based search engines (e.g.,
altavista, google) only search static web pages - the 'Surface Web'.
But the Surface Web represents only a small percentage of the available
information on the Internet. A plethora of high quality information
is found in dynamic pages that are inaccessible to crawler-based search
engines. This vast ocean of mostly untapped information has been called
the 'invisible web'. Turbo10 searches the invisible web by connecting
to a multitude of specialist databases in all topic categories and
languages.
OffRamp.US:
Search engines can be a never ending battle for placement to a business
because of their search criteria and algorithms in which search results
are formulated. Key words and key phrases are only a small part of
the battle to have your site listed among the hundreds of thousands
of other web sites in the same business as yours. Then the never ending
battle to keep placement for your site can be a full time job in itself.
OffRamp.US has developed a search engine directory with a criteria
and layout so that the most novice of users can locate any business
online in their area within just a few short clicks of the mouse.
Searches can be done on all category listings from A-Z, not just the
popular ones. You may also enter other criteria such as zip code,
area code, and mileage search area.
Blogging
Headline: More
than 500,000 people add one or more posts to a blog, or weblog, each
day and this number is growing. There is simply a goldmine of information
out there! For you to locate the best of the best, it would take you
hours each day.Daily, BHN collects from across the Internet 20,000
posts, sorts them, sifts them and then presents to its human editors
the robot's best guess. Then human editors work through the posts
and pick the best of the best to serve up in Bloggers Headline News.
Best
of History Web Sites is an award-winning portal created for students,
history educators, and general history enthusiasts. Best of History
Web Sites contains annotated links to over 900 history-related web
sites that have been reviewed for quality, accuracy, and usefulness.
Site content is well organized into thirteen categories, including:
Prehistory, Ancient/Biblical, Medieval, U.S. History, Early Modern
European, 20th Century, World War II, Art History, General Resources,
Maps, Lesson Plans/Activities, Multimedia, and Research. Best of History
Web Sites features annotated links to hundreds of history lesson plans,
teacher guides, activities, games, quizzes, and more throughout its
pages. There is also a special section on Teaching with Technology
that features articles, tips, and links to current research and practice
in classroom technology. Best of History Web Sites is the creation
of Thomas Daccord, a history teacher and instructional technology
consultant who has taught in North America and Europe.
Educationalists:
The Educationalists website provides a contact database of educational
resources, advice, consultancy and support organisations. The site
is organised into over 1600 subjects, broken down where appropriate
by key stage or category so that teachers can quickly get to the relevant
information and contacts. Individual contributors self manage their
listing and can also supply articles and event notifications.
UK
Phone Book: This week the government privatised directory inquiries.
Instead of paying 48p to BT you can now go to different companies,
all charging different amounts, all applying different conditions.
Why bother when you can get the person's number free at the UK Phone
Book website. It will also supply the full address and a map of the
area.
NewsSeer:
NewsSeer is both a straightforward news search engine and an adaptive
tool that's constantly learning your interests to deliver personalized
news tailored to your own needs. In addition to its search capabilities,
NewsSeer will attempt to learn your interests by using several criteria
from the material you select to view. This includes article selection,
the text of the article, how long you looked at a story, the source
of the material and the age of the story. This process is automatic.
However, you can also choose to assist NewsSeer by rating your interest
in the story.
Cybercafe
Search Engine: This website provides listings for more than 6,300
verified cybercafes, public Internet access points and kiosks in 169
countries. Results list the address of each cybercafe, and web site
URL and email address, if available. Also offers specialized search
function that let you limit results to public Internet kiosks, and
terminals cybercafes on cruise ships. Just select the search field
and then enter the name of the city or the state or country in which
you wish to locate.
BrainBoost
is a question answering search engine. It was specifically designed
to answer questions, asked in plain English. BrainBoost queries multiple
search engines to retrieve potentially relevant documents related
to the question. It then downloads each document and analyzes its
sentence structure, looking for the very best sentence(s) that answer
the original question. BrainBoost outputs actual sentences extracted
from web pages. The BrainBoost engine determines that these sentences
are potential answers to the original question.
Nutch:
Web search is a basic requirement for internet navigation, yet the
number of web search engines is decreasing. Today's oligopoly could
soon be a monopoly, with a single company controlling nearly all web
search for its commercial gain. That would not be good for users of
the InternetNutch provides a transparent alternative to commercial
web search engines. Only open source search results can be fully trusted
to be without bias. (Or at least their bias is public.) All existing
major search engines have proprietary ranking formulas, and will not
explain why a given page ranks as it does. Additionally, some search
engines determine which sites to index based on payments, rather than
on the merits of the sites themselves. Nutch, on the other hand, has
nothing to hide and no motive to bias its results or its crawler in
any way other than to try to give each user the best results possible.
WhittleBit:
Have you ever searched for something and wished you could tell the
search engine that it was totally on the wrong track and it should
try again? Well now you can! WhittleBit works much like most other
search engines, except it can help you to refine your searches by
allowing you to give positive or negative feedback on each search
result. Simply rate the search results by clicking on one of the buttons
provided then click on Whittle to get a refined set of search results
based on your feedback.
Webcactus
is the first search engine with previews of all its search results.
Webcactus believes that a multi-media approach would be a better way
for a browser to find the most relevant website for their search.
Webcactus began development in the second half of 2000. Refinement
after refinement of previewing capabilities give it the high quality
thumbnails it has today. In 2002 webcactus began a test launch to
determine public perception of its approach to searching, which is
basically search results matched by their thumbnails. At the time
the technology was called SETS or Search Enhancement Thru Screenshots,
it is now known as PlusPreview, which is a clearer, more descriptive
name for the technology.
Froogle
is Google's product search service and offers a great way to find
information about things for sale online - especially now that it
includes a way to sort your search results by price. Other enhancements
to Froogle include the new "grid view" option, which enables
you to view 20 product thumbnail images on each results page. Froogle
is still in the development (beta) stage, so please send us your thoughts
on how we can make getting information about products faster and easier.
Ezilon:
This search engine was founded to allow individuals and companies
around the world to easily access information with emphasis on Western
Europe. Ezilon combines the power of search engine and directory that
allow quick access to relevant information at the time needed. Its
main focus on quality rather than quantity. The search engine only
accepts website submission from the European Union Member countries
and from any other websites around the world with information pertaining
to Western European interests.
Schools
Website Directory: This directory was first published on the web
in 1996 under the SchoolNet UK banner. Later it became part of BT's
Campus World website, and then part of Anglia Multimedia's AngliaCampus.
Recently the directory has been re-engineered as a web enabled database
and all data has been re-verified In the last two months, all 3644
school websites have been visited and catalogued. All English, Scottish,
Welsh and Northern Irish state secondary schools which have a website,
have now been included in the database. The directory currently contains
5469 UK school websites.
Website
of the Day: Miles Mendoza reviews websites for Steve Wright's
BBC Radio 2's afternoon show. The websites are archived and appear
under the categories: Computing, Lifestyle, Useful, Music, Nostalgia,
Children, Entertainment & Celebrities, Fun, and Webcams. The computing
section is particularly useful and includes advice on email, spam,
firewalls, viruses and online security.
netTrekker
is the award-winning trusted search engine for schools that saves
educators' and students' time. Specifically designed for school use,
netTrekker provides fast and easy access to over 180,000 relevant
educator-selected online resources that enhance teaching and learning.
netTrekker delivers results across the curriculum, and features an
interactive timeline, famous person list generator, and easy-to-use
collaboration tools. netTrekker integrates technology and standards-based
curriculum resources into the classroom and daily education experience.
Un-Google:
Some people believe that Google has been the victim of being spammed
by commercial websites and fake pages that its search-results are
no longer reliable. Un-Google (formerly known as PlanetSearch) attempts
to solve the problem by metasearching multiple search engines including
Google, AltaVista, FindWhat, Lycos, Yahoo, MSN and Dmoz. However,
I am not convinced and Google is still my first choice search engine.
Seekscan:
Another metasearch engine that fetches results from dozens of search
sites, including Google, All the Web, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, AOL,
HotBot, Teoma, Excite, GigaBlast, LookSmart, WiseNut, Alexa, Lycos,
Yahoo, MSN and Dmoz. Putting it through a couple of test runs the
vast majority of these search engines come up with results very similar
to Google. The exception to this are the sites that charge for websites
to be listed and are therefore totally unreliable as search engines.
Google:
Google, like all search engines, uses a system called an algorithm
to rank the web pages it knows about. All search engines make periodic
changes to their ranking algorithms in an effort to improve the results
they show searchers. These changes can cause pages to rise or fall
in rank. Small changes may produce little ranking differences, while
large changes may have a dramatic impact. Google recently made a change
to its algorithm. The change has caused many people to report that
some of their pages fell in ranking. These pages no longer please
Google's algorithm as much as in the past. Some feel Google has dropped
their sites to make them buy ads. In the short term, purchasing ads
will be the only way they can be found. For some, it may even be the
only long-term solution. In either case, it means more money for Google.
Do you
want to have your website listed in our web directory? If so, send
a brief description (about 150 words) and the URL to spartacus@pavilion.co.uk.
