The Scout Report - August 15,1997
Computer Science Department, University of Wisconsin
A Project of the InterNIC
The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators, the InterNIC's primary audience. However, everyone is welcome to subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML). Subscription instructions are included at the end of each report.
ESRI-USC
ABZU: Guide to Resources for the Study of the Ancient Near East
Farm Service Agency
Quantitative Macroeconomics and Real Business Cycle Home Page
The Elements of Style Online
AFLIB-L African Libraries Listserv
ENN (Environmental News Network) Online
The Weekly Defense Monitor
EU What's New
Pier Walk '97
CBC4kids
HoverBar - Keep Icons and Clipboard Data Conveniently Accessible
c|net's Get Animated -- Create an Animated GIF in 7 easy steps
Volume 1, Number 16: The Scout Report for August 12, 1994
http://www.esri.sc.edu/data/lib-main.htm
A catalog of geological data from the Earth Sciences and Resources Institute at the University of South Carolina is now available on-line. Users can search for data held at ESRI relating to petroleum and environmental geology research projects from the past 25 years. Areas for which data is available include articles, ESRI reports, maps, seismic data, theses/dissertations, and well log information. Searches are performed via geographic region or subject/title. Data can then be obtained in hard copy form for the price of reproduction or acquisition (maps, seismic sections, and well logs). Help topics are not yet activated, but the catalog is self-explanatory for those with knowledge of geologic terminology. [KH]
[Back to Contents]
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/DEPT/RA/ABZU/ABZU.HTML
Charles E. Jones of the Research Archives of the Oriental Institute, Chicago, maintains this excellent collection of resources for the study and public presentation of the Ancient Near East. The links are organized into two groups of indexes, primary and secondary. The primary indexes are divided by project or institutional affiliation and by author. The secondary indexes contain directories, online journals and library catalogs, museum collections, regional and subject indexes, and publishers. More indexes are under development, including book reviews. Users can also access the Research Archives as well as Oriental Institute announcements and information on its public programs. [MD]
http://www.fsa.usda.gov/pas/default.asp
The FSA and USDA have created a site that anyone involved in American agriculture will find useful. The site provides easy access to information on a number of programs, including Farm Loans, Conservation, Acreage Reduction, and FSA Civil Rights. The Newsroom offers the latest news releases and media advisories issued by FSA and USDA, and Commodity Information allows users to view up to the minute commodity information or review commodity reports online. Other features include Site Search, What's New, and an FSA office locator. [MD]
http://ideas.uqam.ca/QMRBC/index.html
Christian Zimmerman of University of Quebec at Montreal has put together a set of links to web resources related to quantitative macroeconomics and real business cycle theory. Researchers will find links to collections of papers and data, notices of forthcoming conferences, a bibliography, software and software codes, and information on related books and journals. There is also a link to EDIRC (Economics Departments, Institutes and Research Centers in the World) which lists web pages for over 2200 economic departments and research institutions around the world. [THN]
http://www.bartleby.com
William Strunk's timeless guide to using the English language has been electronically published by the Bartelby Project. Strunk's work includes sections on Elementary Rules of Usage, Elementary Rules of Composition, A Few Matters of Form, Words and Expressions Commonly Misused, and Words Commonly Misspelled. Although written with educators and students in mind, this guide will benefit anyone who wishes to write with clarity and precision. [MD]
AFLIB-L is a new, lightly moderated, discussion list that aims to provide a forum for libraries in Africa and "encourage contact and communication between and among professionals on the continent." The Primary language will be English, but they soon hope to support French and Portuguese as well. Anticipated themes for discussion include professional problems and issues, the application of technology, and notices of major projects. [MD]
To subscribe send email message to (leave subject line blank):
AFLIB-L@statelib.pwv.gov.za
In the body of the message type:
subscribe your name and e-mail address
http://www.enn.com/
ENN Online, provided by Environmental News Network Inc., offers a number of different services which deliver environmental information and resources. One such service is Planet ENN, a free online magazine published weekly. It includes articles covering various environmental topics. This weeks' Planet ENN includes articles on wildlife filmmaking, poaching in Russia, and earth-friendly living. ENN Newswire, updated daily, is a great way to keep up to date on the latest environmental news (subscribers of ENN Daily News can obtain more in depth news for $49.95 a year). ENN Newswire can also be delivered directly via email. Other services include Factoids, This Week in History, Web Site of the Week,and CyberHiker - Stories from the Web. [TB]
http://www.cdi.org/weekly/
This new free electronic publication by the Center for Defense Information will bring readers a few short articles on various military and foreign affairs issues each week. Recent topics included an arms trade code of conduct introduced in the Senate, US base closures and the military force structure, and the cost of defending Western Europe. [MD]
majordomo@cdi.org
subscribe weekly your email address
http://www.vivid-edge.co.uk/vivid-edge/euwn/
EU What's New is a free service provided by Vivid Edge Ltd. that finds new quality sites in Europe and notifies subscribers by e-mail "(almost) every day." Recent selections include a site on fractal and chaos theory, one on traveling Europe by rail, a listing of cyber cafes in Europe, and a site featuring on-line chess games. [MD]
http://www.pierwalk.com/
Pier Walk, hosted by the Navy Pier in Chicago, is the world's largest outdoor sculpture exhibition, showcasing the talents of 110 artists from 7 countries. This site offers a virtual tour in two formats: a text based index, essentially a slide show in five parts, and a pictorial index with thumbnails and some basic information about each artist. There is also a pop-up shortcut Java menu without text. Another feature is a modest collection of links to other sculpture sites, a nice resource as paintings seem to dominate the current world of virtual exhibitions. [MD]
http://www.cbc4kids.ca/
CBC4Kids is a content-rich, well-organized site produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Users can choose from seven major sections on the main page: What's New, The Lab, Words, Music, Time, Kids Club and Guest Book. Each section features a variety of fun and intresting items, including instructions on how to make a killer airplane, examples of radio dramas created by kids, and an explanation of why chocolate might be the next great health food, and a daily news item. Some of the CBC4Kids interactive choices include the option to take a current events quiz, submit an original radio-drama script, and post a tune to the HumLine for other visitors to identify. [JR]
http://www.hooked.net/~hedgeboy/hoverbar.html
HoverBar, authored by Guy Fullerton of Mountain View, California, is a great little shareware for the Mac (System Software 7.5 or later). HoverBar creates customized palettes and icon and clip bars which hover over all other windows on your desktop. Anything can be put into these bars: applications, documents, graphics, etc. Applications can then be easily switched and/or launched. It also supports drag and drop. Beware that there is a mention of a bug due to jGNEFilter, which is often used by floating windows to find clicks. When this product was tested at Internet Scout the "Missing Clicks" bug was not an issue. But if it is encountered, "TSM Fix" (an extension which fixes the system bug) is provided to solve the problem. A copy of HoverBar can be downloaded at the above URL. If you decide to keep it, the cost is just $5. [TB]
http://builder.cnet.com/Graphics/Webanim/ss02.html
GIF animation resources:
GIFmation:
http://www.boxtopsoft.com/GIFmation/index.html
Cecilia Farell, a Web designer and freelance writer based in Toronto, has put together a great online tutorial/informational resource for c|net on "how to make your GIFs dance" in as few as 7 simple steps. All the tools necessary to animate as well as additional resources are provided at the site. The tutorial is open to those with Windows 3.x/95/NT, Macintosh, or UNIX, but it is specific to GIF Construction Set, one of the animation tools listed for Windows 95/NT. If you choose another tool much of the tutorial may not apply to you, but it still offers some general information on animation from which anyone can benefit. The Internet Scout Project used the 90 day evaluation version of GIFmation, a $49 product of BoxTop Software, Inc. Working with this tool was very easy: import the images, press play, and voila, you have your first animation. Saving the animation was also as easy as using the "Export Optimized ..." feature (note: the demo version will not save GIFs with more than 3 frames). If the GIF doesn't appear to be animated when viewed in your browser, go back to GIFmation, increase the amount of loops, and re-save it. Since the default play time is very fast, it probably completed its loop before it was visible in the browser. The documentation, which must be downloaded separately, is also quite helpful. Another nice feature is that animations created with this or any of the tools listed on the resource page of Get Animated do not require a browser plug-in. The tutorial ends with some useful advice on animation, tools, and resources, so be sure to check them out as well. [TB]
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/archive/8-12-94.html
The Internet Scout (Susan Calcari) left the virtual world for the real world to take a vacation the week of August 12, 1994. Before she did, however, she provided some interesting numbers regarding Scout Report subscribers. The Scout Report was received by 8,000 subscribers at that time. Today it has 36,000 direct subscribers. It was distributed to 4,000 via Gleason Sackman's Net-Happenings mailing list. Today, that same list reaches almost 10,000 people, and the Scout Report is posted to the Net-Happenings web site, which is visited about 15,000 times a day. It is also posted on Gleason's NEWSLTR mailing list ( discussed in the November 29, 1996 Scout Report), which has nearly 1,000 subscribers. In August of 1994 the report was linked to from 89 other web sites. Today, the report is linked to from nearly 1,000 sites around the world. The August 12, 1994 issue was the 20th of the Scout Report and the 150th issue will be mailed on September 5, 1997. [JS]
Copyright Susan Calcari, 1994-1997. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the Scout Report provided the copyright notice and this paragraph is preserved on all copies. The InterNIC provides information about the Internet to the US research and education community under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation: NCR-9218742. The Government has certain rights in this material.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the National Science Foundation, AT&T, or Network Solutions, Inc.
The Scout Report (ISSN 1092-3861) is published weekly by Internet Scout
Susan Calcari
Jack Solock
Jeannine Ramsey
Teri Boomsma
Michael de Nie
Aimee D. Glassel
Kathryn Harris
Matthew Livesey
Thiam Hee Ng
Amy Tracy Wells
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