Zipping along the Web Trail

Computer Life column for March 14, 1998
by
Richard Gordon

It's been a while since we've taken a frolic about the Web. Let's start by looking for something useful.

This week, I had the misfortune to get the zipper stuck on my all-purpose jacket. So, like any alleged Internet addict, I sought help at my favorite Web search engine (www.dogpile.com) by typing

My +zipper is +stuck.

I found lots of irrelevant things, including plot summaries of Laverne and Shirley (www.avimall.com/entertain/LaverneAndShirley76.txt)--Shirley had a stuck zipper in episode 8 in 1976. I also found several articles about the history of the zipper, including one at the "Useless Pages" (home.nycap.rr.com/useless/zippers/zippers.html).

My zipper remains stuck, but now I know that B.F. Goodrich named the device after the noise it makes when you zip it up.

Just for fun

In addition to his regular movie reviews, Roger Ebert has begun a series of columns about "The Great Movies" (www.suntimes.com/ebert/old_movies/old_movies.html). Here, Ebert writes about well-known and lesser-known of the films he considers classics, in the hopes that he can inspire people to see some of these movies for the first time.

I work in a part of New Castle County that natives call "Radio-Free Newark"--where the buildings, wires, and geography all conspire to make it very difficult to pick up any radio stations. For some time, I've used Real Networks' (www.real.com) audio and video players to peek at the world. Last week, I found a possible competitor: the ImagineRadio tuner (www.imagineradio.com).

You have a wider selection of programming with RealAudio, but ImagineRadio has a cool selection of 20 "stations" to choose from, and has some interesting features. For example, you can rate musical selections while they are playing.

March Madness

The NCAA basketball tournaments for men and women are in full swing. You're too late to enter most of the on-line tournament pools; however, CBS Sportsline has a variety of contests that you can still join (ww3.sportsline.com/u/contests/madness).

Speaking of sports, don't forget the Iditarod dogsled race. Those of us in the lower 48 can follow the mushers' progress on the Web, thanks to ABCNews, Starwave, Internet Alaska, and the race organizers.

The ABCNews site (www.abcnews.com/sections/sports/Iditarod/Iditarod_intro.html) is probably the easiest to find. It presents a competent summary of what's happening and a collection of multi-media features.

Starwave's site (outside.starwave.com/events/iditarod98/index.html) is more in-depth and glitzier. But it still presents the information a bit behind the events.

Internet Alaska's "The Iditarod SuperSite" (www.dogsled.com) and the official Iditarod Web site (www.iditarod.com) are the least fancy of these sites. But both have the most detailed and timely race information as well as plenty of feature stories on the race, the mushers, and the trail.

Family values

Having just stood in line to register my son for summer day camp at the Western YMCA, I was interested to find a good article about summer camps at IVillage's Parent Soup Web site (www.parentsoup.com). The site also includes a chat area about parents' experiences dealing with camps and their kids' camping experiences and a link to Frost Publication's camp--finding service.

And, finally, I ran across a site called bolt (www.bolt.com) aimed at the 14-19 year-olds in our audience. It includes lots of places for high schoolers to have fun on line and to find information about and discuss serious issues like college choices, drug problems, and myths about sex. It also contains a section called the "bolt reporter" that allows students to submit articles for "America's Online High School Newspaper."

I'd better go. I want to check one more time to see if Rick Swenson and Martin Buser have passed DeeDee Jonrowe somewhere on the frozen trail.

Copyright © 1998, The News Journal Company

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