The Scout Report, a weekly publication put out by the University of Wisconsin-Madisons Net Scout, is designed to keep Internauts (primarily of the research and education persuasion) informed of valuable resources on the Internet. Scout Toolkit, also provided by Net Scout, brings you even more Net-related information, with a focus on tools and technology that make researching easier. The site provides a host of engines: indexes, catalogs, subject guides, and directories. It also offers browser overviews, plug-ins, Web authoring tools, and more. You can learn how to surf smarter or get a glimpse of where the highways headed. Read about the tools, download them, learn how they work, and contemplate the futureall at one site! - Emily Soares
PlanetAll is a free private service that wants to hook you up with new or old friends and contacts in affinity groups, which cover everything from the schools youve attended to the places youve worked to clubs you currently belong to. Using such goofy expressions as build community in a highly fragmented world, PlanetAll outlines how it will ensure your privacy: you choose what (if any) information you want other PlanetAll members to be able to access. Whats the catch? I couldn't find one, except that if youre like me youre already in touch with everyone you want to be, especially those from your past. - Dorrit Tulane Walsh
Back up files, run a disk doctor program often, and keep alternative startup disks on hand. Now you know the basics of Macintosh Crash Tips. Sure, this page offers many verbose tips and tricks for keeping that Mac happy face smiling. But most of it can be boiled down to one of the three above-mentioned suggestions. Other offerings include advice on messing around with internal memory and expansion slots (don't do it) and the basics of rebuilding the desktop or turning extensions off. The best thing about the page is its numerous links to utilities, extension updates, helpful shareware, and other troubleshooting sites. - Robert Capps
As an organizing body for links to desktop publishing sites, tools, and information on the Web, desktopPublishing.com performs with style. As a content-bearing entity in its own right, it's a little disappointing. Undoubtedly, the logo-intense site looks good, but due to less-than-astute organization it just doesn't navigate that well. Most of the information, including news, design tips, and available clip art, is provided through links to sites that have actually taken the time to amass those things. The site does have a few in-house offerings, such as Web backgrounds, various media templates, and message boards on design-related topics; but its hardly the level of goodies you'd expect from such a professional-looking, advertising-saturated site. - Robert Capps
While the stated mission of this site is to help new Webmasters avoid some of the pitfalls of page design, most people slinging media across cyberspace could benefit from following these simple, clearly stated guidelines. Web Design Tips preaches originality, accessibility, and the fundamental rule that sometimes less is more. Practical tips include simple design basics (readability, flow), ways to maximize image-loading speed while maintaining quality, and Web cliches to avoid, such as under construction signs and page counters. There isn't anything to come back to once digested, but it remains an elegant, worthwhile site nonetheless. - Robert Capps
The CERT Coordination Center explores the exciting world of "vulnerabilities in network systems that intruders can exploithacking to you and me. Based at Carnegie Mellon University, the CERT program wants to make servers, systems, and the Internet free of trespassers and thieves. The jargon-packed site reads like government rhetoric, full of talk about information survivability and the separate and equally important survivability of information systems ... uh huh. Anyway, CERT puts out advisories on newly discovered hacking methods, mostly through Usenet. The archives can be accessed here, but be prepared for self-important, highly technical prose. CERT isn't addressing the layman. - Robert Capps
This site is bureaucracy in action. The President's Information Infrastructure Task Force works "to articulate and implement the National Information Infrastructure. Information Infrastructure is the replacement government nomenclature for the stale "information superhighway. Here at work is the government rapidly trying to understand and control the Internet. Its official goals include promoting private investment and development, protecting intellectual property, developing information security, and ensuring network reliability. To meet these goals the task force listens to testimony, does research, holds forums, and writes reportsall of which can be accessed here. The site offers a wealth of information on current government information policies and the next ways we'll see Washington try to subjugate our computers. - Robert Capps
You might think the star attraction at a site such as this is the great downloadable software: Digital Equipment Corp.s new voice plug-in lets you talk directly onto your Web page, send voice mail over the Internet as easily as you send e-mail, and complete other absurdly fantastic feats of the modern age with ease. Youd be wrong. While all this is impressive and should not be missed (its free, after all, if youve got all the equipment), the reason this site is so irresistible is the links to photos of the engineers that made this magic possible. If youve never seen a real live genius-level computer engineer, youre in for a treat. They have names, including Weikhart, Glickman, and Van Thong; theyre exquisitely pale; and, depending on the quality of your monitor, you can almost see their brains teeming with ideas ready to break though the skin. These are the apostles of post-modernity, the people who make the implausible a reality. Study them. - Daniel Alarcon
The FezGuys wear many hats. Thats a pathetic pun, I know, but its true. Theyre musicians, computer programmers, Web junkies, and members and vice-presidents of organizations Ive never heard of. But the main item of interest here is their dedication to improving sound quality on the Web. These two kids write a monthly column on the ins and outs of getting sound on your Web site, downloading better quality audio from other sites, using that confusing new audio software, and so on. And of course theyve got audio clips of their own with which to impress you. Audiophiles on the Web must check out the FezGuys. - Daniel Alarcon
For all the wealth of information, helpful tips, how-to demonstrations, extravagant downloads, and links available at Creating Killer Web Sites, dont bother visiting without a little background. Im guessing the site and the book of the same title work in tandem, with the book may fill in some of the blank spots, but I distinctly got the feeling I wasnt coming in on the ground floor. Then again, Web sites arent easy, and it would hardly be worth your time to tour a site that assumed no knowledge of anything. So dont get discouraged just because I didn't know what they were talking about. If you speak the language or own the book, everything here will enrich your Web site. And if you dont have the book, theres an online remedy for that as well. - Daniel Alarcon