The Scout Report

May 23, 1997

A Publication of the Internet Scout Project
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.

Scout Toolkit Enhancements
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/toolkit/
Starting today, users of the Scout Toolkit will find this repository of helpful links and information completely redesigned. The tighter, more focused Scout Toolkit is dedicated to giving Internauts the tools they need to locate and make best use of Internet resources for research and education. The Scout Select Bookmarks section gathers in one place the most useful meta-pages for higher education, arranged by discipline for easy access. The new Searching the Internet section offers briefs on the major search engines on the net, as well as subject guides and directories. Familiar tools such as the End User's Corner, the Internet Scout Sidekicks are still available, as are the informational sections on Web Tools and Internet Publications. We hope that the new design and content will make the Scout Toolkit even more valuable to our users. [ML]
[Back to Contents]

OPAC97--British Library
http://opac97.bl.uk/
British Library
http://portico.bl.uk/
The British Library, the United Kingdom's national library, now makes portions of its collections available via an online public access catalog. "Reference collections" included are: Humanities and Social Sciences collection (1975- ), Science, Technology and Business collection (1975- ), Music collection (1980- ),and Older Reference Material collection (to 1975 only). "Document Supply" collections included are: Journals/Serials collection (1700- ), Books and Reports (1980- ), and Conferences collection (1800- ). The more modern subject-oriented collections can be searched separately or in combination, as can the document supply collections. Searching is available on seven bibliographic variables. While this web catalog contains just a portion of the massive collections of the Library, it is a major addition to Internet-based bibliographic research. Note that the catalog is available Monday through Saturday, "04.00-24.00 hours GMT," except for "English public holidays and official holidays." [JS]
[Back to Contents]

DUCKDATA: A Bibliographic Database of North American Waterfowl (Anatidae) and Their Wetland Habitats--NWRC
http://www.nwrc.gov/duckdata/duckdata.html
The National Wetlands Research Center provides this searchable database of over 11,000 citations on North American waterfowl related to "wetlands, ...waterfowl ecology, conservation, and management." Sources are primarily "scientific journals, books, graduate theses, and natural resource agency publications." Coverage is extensive through 1991, and fairly complete through 1994. The database is being updated for 1995-6 at present. Author, title, year, and keyword searching are available, and an inverted index of key words (unfortunately not hypertext linked) can be used to aid searching. The entire database is also available for downloading (in ProCite and comma-delimited ASCII .zip format). [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Performance of Financial Institutions Conference Proceedings--Wharton Financial Institutions Center [.pdf]
http://wrdsenet.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/wfic/papers/0597.html
WFIC Working Paper Library
http://wrdsenet.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/wfic/papers.html
The Wharton Financial Institutions Center at the University of Pennsylvania has made available selected proceedings from a conference on financial institutions held May 8-10, 1997. At present fourteen papers (Adobe Acrobat [.pdf] format only) are available in seven different banking topics, including risk and regulation, structural and managerial explanations, insurance performance, and international performance comparison. The WFIC Working Paper Library contains other selected Wharton conference proceedings, as well as selected working papers back to 1994. Print copies are available for a fee. Links to the Acrobat Reader are also available from this site. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Two from AMA
FREIDA Online--Fellowship and Residency Electronic Interactive Database
http://www.ama-assn.org/cgi-bin/freida/freida.cgi
JAMA Asthma Information Center
http://www.ama-assn.org/special/asthma/asthma.htm
These two resources, provided by the American Medical Association, add to its already formidable arsenal of medical information. FREIDA allows users to query a database of over 7,500 "graduate medical education programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and 200 combined specialty programs." Detailed information is available for selected programs. After completing a short survey, users can query by specialty (over 100), geography, or size of program, as well as several secondary search criteria. Basic program information retrieved includes contact information, and expanded program information can include application information, work schedules, and salary information, among other factors. Note that "all data contained in FREIDA should be verified with the applicable program." JAMA Asthma Information Center is a collection of "peer-reviewed resources for physicians, other health care professionals, and the general public." It includes latest news, abstracts and selected full text from recent literature, clinical guidelines, and patient education material. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

WW2010: The Weatherworld 2010 Project--University of Illinois
http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/home.rxml
WW2010, provided by the University of Illinois Department of Atmospheric Sciences, is designed as a "framework for integrating current and archived weather data with multimedia instructional resources using new and innovative technologies." A work in progress, it contains guides to meteorology and remote sensors, as well as archived case studies of memorable weather events (three at present). It also contains (under Guides) student projects and activities from the Collaborative Visualization (CoVis) project (discussed in the September 29, 1995 issue of the Scout Report). WW2010 is a concise, beautifully illustrated introduction to meteorological concepts for secondary school students and beginning undergraduates. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Douglass: Archives of American Public Address
http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/
Students and teachers of rhetoric, particularly the politically inflected variety, will find the resources of Douglass to be a valuable addition to their own curriculum. An archive of speech texts forms the primary attraction here; speeches may be browsed by date, title, speaker, and by "controversy or movement"; the archive is also full-text searchable. Sponsored by the Northwestern University School of Speech - Department of Communication Studies, the speech archive aims to be a permanent repository of both American rhetoric and resources for its study. The Speech Guides and Research Notes section links to a wide variety of web discourse on featured themes; currently, "Flag-Waving Rhetoric" is the focus on the homepage; other topics include presidential inaugural addresses and animal rights position papers. In the future, the organizers of the site plan to add student-contributed papers to the supporting material. [ML]
[Back to Contents]

Lawsrc-L--Internet legal resource list
http://mailmunch.law.cornell.edu/mhonarc/LAWSRC/maillist.html
Lawsrc-L is an Internet legal resource list for the exchange of information about Internet legal resources. Over 1,000 attorneys, law firms, law libraries, and law schools in all 50 states with an interest in legal resources on the Internet currently subscribe to Lawsrc-L. Attorneys and others with an interest in legal resources on the Internet are encouraged to subscribe to this list, which brings them free information on the latest changes in information on the Internet that are important to modern law practice. [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
listserv@listserv.law.cornell.edu
In the body of the message type:
subscribe lawsrc-l FirstName LastName
[Back to Contents]

The Quadrennial Defense Review
http://www.defenselink.mil/topstory/quad.html
On May 19, 1997, as mandated by the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996, US Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen presented the Quadrennial Defense Review to Congress. This site contains the May 19 Defense Department news release and briefing (along with slides), the text of the report, and the legislation mandating it. The report is composed of ten sections ranging from "The Global Security Environment" to "Force Readiness" to "Achieving a 21st Century Defense Infrastructure." However, its thrust can be ascertained from a single statement by the Secretary: "The strategy devised through the QDR can be summed up in three words: shape, respond, and prepare." [JS]
[Back to Contents]

1997 Canadian Elections
Elections Canada Online
http://www.elections.ca/
Canada's 36th federal general election takes place June 2, and Elections Canada, "the non-partisan agency responsible for the conduct of federal elections and referendums" provides complete riding and candidate information, information on voter registration for eligible voters who are away from their districts, and 1st Source 1997, current vote results that will be made available immediately after the polls close.[JS]
[Back to Contents]

Money Talks [RealAudio]
http://www.talks.com/
No-frames version:
http://www.talks.com/mtmain.html
Are you a "serious individual investor"? Then Money Talks, a publication of PR Newswire (discussed in the February 7, 1997 Scout Report), may be of interest to you. Updated frequently, its articles concentrate on "mutual funds, personal finance, the equities marketplace, the retail industry, interactive technology and the economy." One of the highlights of the site is Money-Go-Round (under features), a new weekly round table discussion (in RealAudio format) of Money Talks columnists. It airs each Wednesday, and previous programs are archived. Money Talks authors include Robert Metz, Nancy Dunnan, and John Tompkins, among others. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

Bliss!--Wedding planning e-zine
http://www.blissezine.com/home.htm
Sporting a suitably nuptial color scheme, the premier issue of Studio 80's Bliss! e-zine is now available. If you're looking for page after page of wedding gowns, this is not the site for you; the articles here are pithy and in-depth, and offer substantial content of interest to the betrothed. In addition to feature articles, there are categories of information tastefully arranged along the left side of the screen; on topics from fashion trends to wedding planning software, Bliss!'s staff of professional freelance writers offer concise advice. Aside from an eye-straining propensity toward the small-font HTML tag, the site offers good advice in an inviting, often humorous style. [ML]
[Back to Contents]

License Plates of the World
http://danshiki.oit.gatech.edu/~iadt3mk/index.html
Whether you're interested in collecting license plates, or are just moving to Andorra and wonder what your car will be wearing when it gets there, this site provided by collector Michael Kustermann can be a handy reference. A winner in the "labor of love" website category, this frames-based directory contains pictures of and descriptive information about a dizzying range of automobile license plates, arranged geographically. Special issue and commemorative plates are also covered, as well as links to collector's clubs and a bibliography about the art and science of license plate hunting and gathering. You'll never look at bumpers quite the same way. [ML]
[Back to Contents]

homehearth-food--Old fashioned home cooking mailing list
Home Hearth Food is primarily for people who grow or raise their own foods, depending on prepackaged and/or convenience foods as little as possible. Topics include butchering, preserving, smoking, culinary herbs, sausage, household formulas, homemade soda pop and other beverages, baking, equipment and supplies, solutions to food allergies, and allowable foods for those with other illnesses, intertwined with family chit-chat. Religious and political discussions are considered off-topic unless directly food-related in a preparatory, historical, or cultural sense. [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
homehearth-food-request@majordomo.esosoft.com
In the body of the message type:
subscribe
end
[Back to Contents]

WWW 4Teachers
http://www.4teachers.org/home/index.shtml
South Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium
http://scrtec.org/
This new publication, provided by the South Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium, is designed to allow teachers and others interested in K-12 education to learn more about the role of technology in education. Sections include Teacher Testimony (case studies of technology in the classroom), keynotes (featuring an interview with Allan Weis, founder of ThinkQuest (discussed in the November 29, 1996 Scout Report), a section on kids' use of technology written by kids, and a section containing web-based lessons (eight at present). The SCRTEC site contains information on creating class web pages, lesson oriented sites, and educational resources such as instructional software, lab activities and lesson plans. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

ServerWatch
http://serverwatch.internet.com/
No-frames version:
http://serverwatch.internet.com/about.shtml
ServerWatch, provided by Mecklermedia, provides information on "web server technology and supporting tools." It contains information on development tools (audio/video, firewalls, and site monitoring, among others), and comprehensive information (including ratings) of the most popular web servers. However, the highlight of the site lies buried under the "And other..." web servers; a comparison chart of over 100 web servers that includes operating systems and price range. Also included are features tables for seven different variables. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

BBEdit Remote Link Checker
http://rhino.harvard.edu/dan/LinkChecker.html
BBEdit Remote Link Checker version 1.1 is a shareware BBEdit extension created by Dan Crevier, a biophysics graduate student at Harvard University. It checks all remote http and ftp links in an HTML document. After analysis is completed, an error browser displays the bad links. The extension is compatible with BBEdit 3.5 or later and BBEdit Lite. BBEdit Remote Link Checker is an efficient, inexpensive way to perform this routine web maintenance function. [TB]
[Back to Contents]

Volume 1, Number 4: The Scout Report for May 20, 1994
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/archive/5-20-94.html
Social Security Administration
http://www.ssa.gov/SSA_Home.html
SSA Announcement of Suspension of PEBES
http://www.ssa.gov/press/onlinepebes.html
The May 20, 1994 Scout report featured an announcement of the Social Security Administration web site. Recently the SSA website became noteworthy in that it made available, and then suspended access to, its Personal Earnings and Benefit Estimate Statement (PEBES) database. This feature allowed interested users access to their earnings records, "Social Security taxes paid, and an estimate of future retirement and disability benefits, as well as potential survivor benefits should the individual die." The database had come under attack with respect to privacy and security issues. PEBES is presently available by mail (see the link on the SSA home page), via a form available only to SSL (secure sockets layer) enabled browsers. [JS]
[Back to Contents]

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
Matthew Livesey
Teri Boomsma
Aimee D. Glassel
Amy Tracy Wells
--
--
--
--
--
--
Managing Editor
Editor
Production Editor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor

Scout Report and Scout Report HTML Subscription Instructions

To receive the electronic mail version of the Scout Report each week, join the scout-report mailing list at the InterNIC Web Site. This is the only mail you will receive from this list. Unsubscribing from the scout-report list can also be done at this site.
http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/lwgate/SCOUT-REPORT/
To receive the Scout Report in HTML format for local viewing and posting, subscribe to the scout-report-html mailing list at the InterNIC Web Site, used exclusively to distribute the Scout Report in HTML format once a week. Unsubscribing from the scout-report list can also be done at this site.
http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/lwgate/SCOUT-REPORT-HTML/

The Scout Report's Web page:

http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/

Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) versions of the Scout Report:

http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/pdf/

A Publication of the Internet Scout Project

Comments, Suggestions, Feedback
Use our feedback form or send email to scout@cs.wisc.edu.

The Scout Report - May 23, 1997

The Scout Report

May 23, 1997

New From Internet Scout

Research and Education

General Interest

Network Tools

Where Are They Now

Scout Report and Scout Report HTML Subscription Instructions

The Scout Report's Web page:

Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) versions of the Scout Report: