sree.net > tips > newsletter may 2001

From Sreenath Sreenivasan
Columbia University journalism professor
http://www.sree.net * sreetipsreax@sree.net

Sree Tips Newsletter
May 2001

A free monthly newsletter of tips and tricks about useful and/or fun Web sites.
Archive: http://www.sree.net/tips

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Greetings, and welcome to the latest issue of the "Sree Tips" newsletter. As you may know, the newsletter started as an offshoot of the "Smarter Surfing: Better Use of Your Web Time" workshops I teach around the U.S. and abroad: http://www.sree.net/web

Browse the links and tips below. As always, I look forward to YOUR tips, feedback and suggestions: sreetipsreax@sree.net [Thanks to this month's tipsters: Nancy Beth Jackson, Mindy McAdams, Al Tompkins, Deborah Wassertzug]

Why wait a month for the next newsletter? Visit the constantly updated "Smarter Surfing" links at http://www.sree.net/tips/web.html

Two events I am helping to organize that you may want to check out:

  1. The second annual Online Journalism Awards contest has just been launched, a contest open to English-language sites around the world. Deadline for entries: July 16, 2001. See last year's winners and learn more at http://www.onlinejournalismawards.org
  2. The annual convention of the South Asian Journalists Association is June 22-24 (Fri-Sun) in NYC. Plenty of workshops, panels and internationally known speakers. You don't need to be South Asian or a journalist to attend. Learn more at http://www.saja.org/convention

//Cheers, Sree//

NEW-ISH USEFUL SITES...
(sites I find useful in some way)

Online Conversion -- calculators galore
http://www.onlineconversion.com
Here's a site that's both fun and useful. Nothing to do with religious conversion -- this is a site that has more than 8,000 calculators of various kinds. From the basics (miles to kilometers, world time) to the more complicated (paycheck estimator, radiation residue) -- and everything in between. I especially liked the section called "fun stuff." After using the retirement calculator, I was particularly disturbed to learn I still have 8,000+ more work days until I can retire.

WorldSkip -- quick country information
http://www.worldskip.com
I use this site when I need instant access to information about a country I know nothing about. Instead of visiting a search engine, I go to WorldSkip and choose the country from a convenient pull-down menu. The site provides links to news, business, government, transportation, etc, for 220 countries. The pull-down menus allow you to skip from one country to another quickly, hence the name.

Consumer World -- consumer resources
http://www.consumerworld.org
Consumer World is a free guide to more than 2,000 handy consumer resources. At a time when we are bombarded with so much consumer information from many directions, this site helps you sort through it all and know what's worth checking. There are links to good deals as well as to scam alerts.

Landings -- aviation portal
http://www.landings.com
A site dedicated to aviation; the best starting point to learn more about airplanes and even accidents. Among its vast databases: airplane safety records, pilot histories and more. The directory of aviation links is particularly helpful to explore almost any aspect of flight.

ENCORE: Last month's NEW-ISH USEFUL SITES
from http://www.sree.net/tips/2001april.html

o o o o o

NEW-ISH FUN sites...
(proof "fun" is a subjective word)

FindSame -- plagiarism finder
http://www.findsame.com
This site, run by California-based Digital Integrity, can help you find content similar to the kind you enter in its search box by scouring the Web. Unlike other search engines which work on keywords, FindSame looks for duplications from entire documents. So, if you typed in -- or uploaded a Microsoft Word file -- say, a poem, it will look through the Web and tell you if anything longer than a line of text is duplicated anywhere else among the sites it covers.

New York Time Exchange -- Time as a commodity in New York City
http://time.nyc24.com
This site, built by my students in the advanced New Media Workshop at Columbia University, is a look at time and how it works differently in NYC. Like all valuable commodities in the financial capital of the world, time is traded, bought and sold here. This is part of NYC24.com, the students' semester-long Web journalism project that has been visited by people in 40 countries.

Wordsmith.org -- English language resources
http://www.wordsmith.org
This site is home of the free "A Word A Day" mailing list. Join 400,000 linguaphiles around the world who receive one e-mail each day describing a word and its etymology. A nice little vocabulary builder. Wordsmith Anu Garg also runs the "Internet Anagram Server" off this site. Enter a word, name, or phrase and see what kind of anagram (rearranged words) comes out of it. My favorite: Clint Eastwood = old west action.

ENCORE: Last month's NEW-ISH FUN SITES
from http://www.sree.net/tips/2001april.html

o o o o o

MY DEFAULT SUCH & SUCH...
(my starting points for various things; may change monthly)

Search Engine:
Google
http://www.google.com
The best search engine out there. 'Nuff said. But here's Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal on Google: "...simply the best search site I've ever used." If you know Walt's work -- and you should be following it religiously at http://ptech.wsj.com -- you know that he doesn't hand out such praise often. Be sure to download the free Google toolbar; it will change the way you search: http://toolbar.google.com

Reference Site:
Refdesk
http://www.refdesk.com
Excellent reference site. Don't just take my word for it. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told The New York Times this is his favorite Web site. Run by Bob Drudge, Matt's dad (though Refdesk doesn't run rumors).

Encyclopedia:
Britannica.com
http://www.britannica.com
Yep, the Encyclopedia Britannica on the Web (as well as selected articles from 70 major magazines), free of charge. For now.

Atlas:
National Geographic's Map Machine
http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/
Leave it to National Geographic to make the best online atlas with these dynamic maps that will take you to any spot you choose and allow you to change what kind of map you see, on the fly. Did you know there are three towns named Santa Claus in the U.S. or that my grandfather's village in India is an easy find? (For U.S. driving directions, MapQuest <http://www.mapquest.com> remains the best site.)

Dictionary:
Merriam-Webster
http://www.m-w.com
In offices, dictionaries grow legs and walk. Hence an online dictionary is a must. This one addresses a major problem I have had with traditional dictionaries: You need to know how to spell a word before you look it up. Not here. Just punch in an approximation, and it will give you a suggested list. And nice etymology.

Media Goings-on:
Jim Romenesko's Media News
http://www.medianews.org
Hosted by Poynter.org, this is news-junkie heaven. I read it more often and more closely than any other site. Period.

o o o o o

SELF-PROMOTION...

Must-Sree TV
http://www.7online.com/technology
My "Tech Guru" segments on WABC-7 in the New York City area run every Thursday morning on Channel 7 at 6:45 (yes, that's the a.m.). This is a link to archived Web versions of my segments, and includes various "sites of the week."

Sree Tips -- the Web page
http://www.sree.net/tips
Links to my tips and thoughts on various items, including digital cameras, Web production and more.

"Smarter Surfing" Workshops
http://www.sree.net/web
Smarter surfing for people of all skill levels. Interested in scheduling a class for you and your colleagues? Learn more.

Sree Talks
http://www.sree.net/talks
List of forthcoming talks and presentations in various cities.

Info Overload & Moi
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/columnists/mediasavvy/savvy1.htm
An essay for USAToday.com on dealing with information overload (yes, I am a major info polluter).

[Syndication requests: syndication@sree.net]

That's it for now.

Remember, you can track my "Smarter Surfing" links at http://www.sree.net/tips/web.html

See you (your inbox, actually) next month.

Cheers, Sree
www.sree.net

o o o o o

Sree Tips List
Copyright 2001 Sree.net

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sree.net > tips > newsletter may 2001