Art Wolinsky
Art Wolinsky's Resources
- Southern Regional High School Search Page
[http://dune.srhs.k12.nj.us/WWW/search.htm]
Probably the page that I use the most is the Southern Regional search page. A
great deal of my time revolves around locating information. I need to search
quickly and efficiently. By creating my own search page I cut out the middle man
in searches and don't have to wait for annoying graphics and banners to load.
- HotBot
[http://www.hotbot.com]
As far as search engines go, my mainstay is HotBot. If you are a novice searcher
you will retrieve thousands of irrelevant hits, but the relevant ones still seem
to come up near the top of the list. If you can create good search phrases you
can hit gold consistently.
- C/Net Software
[http://search.shareware.com/]
If I'm looking for software my first stop is c/net's software.com. It's a great
place to find shareware and freeware programs.
- Customized News and Weather Page
[http://live.excite.com/]
Of course I get all my news and weather everytime I log in. This is a customized
page that is offered to me by my service provider, through Excite. It allows me
pick and choose what I want to see in the world of information. For instance I
see links to the current headlines in world and local news, business news,
technology news, odd news. The stories come from over 300 newspapers and
magazines and they are updates twice daily. I even have the local weather right
there.
- CNN
[http://www.cnn.com]
USA Today
[http://www.usatoday.com/]
MSNBC
[http://www.msnbc.com/]
Of course I get all my news and weather everytime I log in. This is a customized
page that is offered to me by my service provider, through Excite. It allows me
pick and choose what I want to see in the world of information. For instance I
see links to the current headlines in world and local news, business news,
technology news, odd news. The stories come from over 300 newspapers and
magazines and they are updates twice daily. I even have the local weather right
there.
- GifWizard
[http://192.216.191.21:80/WestHollywood/4395/gifwizard.html]
One other page that I visit frequently is part of the Raspberry Hill Publishing site
[http://www.raspberryhill.com/] and it's called GifWizard. If you create your own
web pages this one is a MUST and one that you have to pass on to the people doing
your graphics. You supply it with the URL of any image and it will retrieve it,
analyze it, and optimize it so that it will display as fast as possible. For
example, the LetsNet logo at http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/letsnet/Pix/splash3_0.GIF
can load 34% faster if you use GifWizard to remove duplicate colors and change
the palette to the actual 96 colors used in the picture. That reduces the size of
the file from 38,076 bytes to 25,060 bytes. If you choose a version that combines
close colors you can reduce it to 18,351 and have it load TWICE as fast. The 34%
reduction is identical to the original and the 50% reduction can only be
distinguished if the two images are side by side.
- Two final pages that I access on an almost daily basis I can't provide URLs
for. No, they aren't THAT kind of site. They are Intranet pages that are not open
to the public. Intranets are becoming more common. They are ways of
collaborating, sharing information, and problem solving that are very powerful
tools. These two Intranets are devoted to discussions and problem solving
concerning the training of teachers around the country and they use of Internet
in schools.
LETSNet is © Michigan State University College of
Education and Ameritech
