art, not just their interest as photos from space; there are
cloud formations, rivers, islands, mountains, and much more. Select a
continent and scroll through thumbnail photos, or select the Image Index
to see thumbnails of all the images. Besides viewing the images, you can
also order professional prints of each image.
Hotlink for 18 to 25 August, 2002
F-Secure
F-Secure used to be called Datafellows.com -- here, you will find one
of the Web's largest sources of virus and hoax information, including
detailed histories of each virus and each hoax. There are also downloads
and "fix" tips. I was told about this site by someone who makes their
living from recovery. As the prophet once might have said, "A byte of
prevention is worth a gig of cure!" Check the "information center" for
the most recent security threats, and the section called "security
solutions" for answers to all your questions about file encryption
security, network security, and everything else. A marvelous site, a
really worthwhile service.
Hotlink for 25 August to 1 September, 2002
Great Buildings
Great Buildings is a huge database of information about architects
and their buildings. 800+ Buildings are featured from 40 countries. There
aren't images of every building, but many buildings shown have multiple
views. Virtual Reality (VR) versions of some building are available, and
can be viewed after downloading the free "Design Workshop" software, which
allows you to move around the building, view it from all kinds of
interesting angles, and remove layers. You can search by building name,
architect's name, or by location -- for example, finding all the buildings
they have archived in Rome or Venice or Honolulu. Fascinating.
Hotlink for 1 to 8 September, 2002
National Severe Storms Lab
The National Severe Storms Laboratory is a division of NOAA, with the
mission of studying and providing information on all kinds of severe
weather. Learn everything about tornadoes, typhoons and hurricanes,
lightning, thunderstorms. Check out the resources that teachers can
download and print for weather education.
Hotlink for 8 to 15 September, 2002
Web Geological
Time Machine
The University of California Museum of Paleontology, at Berkeley,
sponsors and maintains this amazing website. The top page lists
geological periods very neatly, with eons, eras, and periods visible and
selectable. Link to a time of interest, and read about it, including its
particular divisions: for example, in the Phanerozoic Eon, and the
Paleozoic Era, select the Devonian Period, and you get photos and
explanations of the highlights of the Devonian, with links to all kinds of
details. There are also four navigation buttons: stratigraphy, ancient
life, localities, and tetonics, that give you lots of specific
information. A vast and well-organized storehouse of information.
Hotlink for 15 to 22 September, 2002
RefDesk
The Internet Reference Desk -- an amazing resource. The number of
links on the home page can be daunting, but don't be dismayed, as it is
really very well organized, and incredibly useful.
Hotlink for 22 to 29 September, 2002
A handful of sites that post a new picture every day. "Astronomy
Picture of the Day" is a NASA site with a vast archive; "Earth Science
Picture of the Day" comes from a combined space research consortium of
universities; in "Science Daily" the picture of the day ranges widely
around the sciences, while NOAA's Albatross IV posts pictures of its
catches and of other fisheries assessment work. "Weather Picture of the
Day" has an archive of past pictures too, so if you're looking for a
tornado or hurricane photo, for example, here's a place to look.
Hotlink for 29 September to 6 October, 2002
Gabriel -- Gateway to Europe's
National Libraries
A very interesting effort by the Conference of European National
Librarians to provide a link to all the national libraries, to their
services, and to their online exhibitions -- both individual exhibitions
and joint ones. Clicking on "online exhibitions" leads to a virtual
exhibit called "Treasures for Europe's National Libraries", and more;
"Bibliotheca Universalis" is an effort to put major cultural and
scientific works on line.
Hotlink for 6 to 13 October, 2002
Aneki.com Country
Information
This site attempts to provide country information, and regional and
world rankings on a variety of topics. The site is nicely designed and
easy to navigate, making it easy to find their tables of statistical facts
and figures taken from the CIA World Factbook and a variety of other
resourecs. But BEWARE! The data is not always
completely accurate or up-to-date. In mid-September, with the US Census
Bureau reporting the US population at 288,000,000, this site reported it
at 278,000,000. So, for general trends and ideas, this is definitely a
good place to look; for accurate numbers, try government resources.
Hotlink for 13 to 20 October, 2002
Renaissance
Secrets
A joint offering of the BBC and the Open University. This website
helps visitors explore four Renaissance mysteries from a historian's point
of view: the city of Venice, Italian medicine, conspiracy against Queen
Elizabeth 1 in 1594, and Gutenberg's invention. Each topic is divided
into subsections, and each subsection includes detailed information and
evidence, and help for students in "thinking about history". A link to
"Series One" leads to an earlier series of episodes, and three other
"mysteries".
Hotlink for 20 to 27 October, 2002
Best Of History Sites
Best of History Web Sites is a dandy little portal, with a vast
number of sites linked and rated for usefulness and accuracy. There is a
top-level navigation menu that includes Prehistory, Ancient/Biblical,
Medieval, US History, Early-Modern European, 20th Century, World War II,
Art History, General Resources, and Maps. You can also navigate by Lesson
Plans/Activities, Multimedia, and Research Sites, or use a pull-down jump
menu that breaks each of the top-level topics into component parts.
Hotlink for 27 October to 3 November, 2002
Bartleby
Bartleby is a site we've mentioned before in our "hot links", but
it's worth mentioning again and again. It is a vast compilation of
reference books, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including the famous
5-foot shelf of "Harvard Classics", plus the Columbia Encyclopedia, the
American Heritage Dictionary, Strunk and White's Elements of Style,
Stearn's Encyclopedia of World History, Roget, Bartlett and other
quotation books, Gray's Anatomy, Robert's Rules of Order, the whole Oxford
Book of English Verse, the King James Bible, and much more.
Hotlink for 3 to 10 November, 2002
Internet Picture Dictionary
Nothing too complex here, but great fun and very informative. Pick a
language and a category, and review the items in that category in the
language of your choice. Or find a picture in your own language, and see
what that word is in the other languages. Language choices include
English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and categories include
vegetables, transportation, tools, numbers, fruits, kitchen, apparel,
animals, colors, and more. Test your knowledge of words in other
languages by using the flashcards, fill-in-the-blanks, word scrambles, and
misspelled words. There is also a link to "other picture dictionaries
online".
Hotlink for 10 to 17 November, 2002
Today's Front Pages
A section of the "newseum" website, this link will take you to a page
from which you can access the front pages of hundreds of today's
newspapers from all over the world. The majority of them are in North
America, but even so there are front pages to read from every region of
the world. If you want to see how the rest of the world is covering an
event that is making headlines here, this is a good place to begin. Click
on a region to see the list ov available papers, then click on a paper to
see its front page. You are also given options such as "see this paper's
website".
Hotlink for 17 to 24 November, 2002
A Gallery Of Map Projections
Paul B. Anderson, at Illinois State University, has put together this
amazing archive. At the time this "hotlink" was posted, there were 306
different world map projections available at this site -- sorted by type
(Azimuthal, Conics, Cylindrical, Polyconics, Pseudoconics, and
Pseudoculindricals as well as "miscellaneous"). These are world map
projections, all stored in .pdf format, which you can open from your
browser and then print locally for use in classrooms. There are also two
very useful references -- a bibliography on map projection by John P.
Snyder, and an article on nomenclature and classification, by Lee, written
in 1944 but still the basic reference on the topic. Everything you ever
wanted to know about map projections, and then some.
Hotlink for 24 November to 1 December, 2002
Google Language Tools
Google offers a very interesting array of language "tools". In the
first part of the page, you can search google's index by specific
language or specific country. Then you can translate: type (or
paste) a phrase in the to "translate text" box, and trasnlate it between
German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and English, or type the URL
of a web page into the "translate a web page" box, and it will return the
entire web page translated into the chosen language. Then you can use the
google interface in your chosen language (there are dozens of real
languages to choose from, and a few just for fun such as 'pig latin',
'hacker', and 'Elmer Fudd'. And finally, you can select Google's site in
a specific country -- there are 36 to choose from.
Hotlink for 1 December to 8 December, 2002
The Name Of The Highest Mountain In The World? Authorities accept
many different names for the world's highest mountain; the name Everest
was given to the mountain in 1865 by the British, in honour of Sir George
Everest who was then Surveyor-General in the Survey of India. He mapped
and measured the peak in 1852. But China claims the peak was first mapped
in 1717 by Tibetan officials during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the
Qing Dynasty. In those early records, the mountain was called Qomolangma
(pron. Chomolungma), its Tibetan name. Here are links to various
authorities. You can use this link to google.com
to find out more.
Hotlink for 8 to 15 December, 2002
Exploring the
States with NASA
Exploring the States implements multi-disciplinary teaching approaches
using NASA technologies to enhance existing curriculum. Exploring the
States uses images from NASA Landsat satellites and AVHRR to explore all
50 states with pictures and math. Simple instructions (switches and
buttons) guide students through three sections; Exploring the States,
Naming the States and Traveling the States. The satellite images offer a
unique way to capture students interest in a very basic subject matter .
The goal is to provide children the opportunity to learn about Earth
through observations and to be shown the benefits of space exploration.
Hotlink for 15 to 22 December, 2002
The EmTech Map Page
EmTech, a consulting practice based in Alabama, has a phenomenal
collection of web resources on every imaginable topic. This is their list
of web resources about maps -- maps on the fly, archives of maps, map
projections, ancient maps, regional maps, topographical maps, and on and
on. It's sorted alphabetically, rather than by theme, so it can be hard
to find exactly what you want -- but you can be sure it's here somewhere.
Hotlink for 22 to 29 December, 2002
Blue
Marble Updated
To mark the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 17 mission and the famous
"Blue Marble" full Earth image, Goddard Space Flight Center's
Visualization and Analysis Lab has rendered a new visualization inspired
by the mission. There is a .jpg version, a 48 MB mpg version, and 4
different .mov versions, including one that is 928 MB in size (better have
a lot of bandwidth to download this one!). The mpg and mov files produce
a film that is 21 seconds long, beginning with a launch at the Kennedy
Space Center, and ending with the Earth Rise and the moon in view below
you.
Hotlink for 29 December, 2002 to 5 January, 2003
Neighborhood Knowledge -
California
A new community mapping web site freely accessible to anyone who
wishes to take a close look at any neighborhood in the state of
California. The site contains unique web-based mapping tools and even
allows users to upload their own data from personal files. The "point and
click" functionality of the site is designed for the "non-expert." NKCA
makes available a wide variety of public and private data for groups
working to preserve and expand opportunities for home ownership through
fair housing and lending research, education and policy development.
For more information, please
