From crispen@INTERNIC.NET Wed Nov 5 19:43:28 1997 Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 15:16:21 -0500 From: crispen@INTERNIC.NET Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: TOURBUS -- 6 NOVEMBER 1997 -- PUSH TECHNOLOGY/CHILDREN'S SOFTWARE REVIEW/CYBER CORNER This post contains inline ASCII graphics which look best in a monospace font like Courier. Text-to-speech readers should turn off punctuation now. ________________________________________________________ ___ _ / / | \ | JOIN LAUGH-A-LOT! THE CLEAN-JOKES-ONLY EMAIL LIST / | \ |_______________________________________________________/ | \ / /______|----\ | Receive a clean joke every morning for free! |//////| | | Just email the message "subscribe" (w/o quotes) to: |//////| | | laughalot-request@graceweb.org |//////| | | |//////| | | Be the 10,000th subscriber and win a free T-Shirt! |//////| | \________________________________________________________|______|____| / \ / \ / \ \___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/ TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S): PUSH TECHNOLOGY/CHILDREN'S SOFTWARE REVIEW/CYBER CORNER TODAY'S ADDRESSES: http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/nicnews/nov97/ http://www.childrenssoftware.com/ http://www2.childrenssoftware.com/childrenssoftware/rating.html http://www.kwtv.com/news/cyber/cyber.htm http://www.kwtv.com/news/bombing/bombingpage.html Last year I privately predicted that Tyco's "Tickle-Me-Elmo" would be _THE_ hot toy of the 1996 U.S. holiday season (for the uninitiated, Tickle-Me-Elmo is a US$30 doll that twitches when you poke it). Well, after the success of my last venture into the field of toy demand prognostication (Hey! I've finally found something that I can do with my pending Economics degree!), your fearless bus driver is going to go out on a limb and make my next prediction publicly: The hot toy of the 1997 U.S. holiday season will be Tyco's Sesame Street "Sing and Snore Ernie." What does this have to do with the Internet? Absolutely nothing ... but isn't that what you love about TOURBUS? :P On a more serious, Net-related note, if you are interested in finding out more about push technology, check out my recent article in the latest edition of Network Solutions' InterNIC news at http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/nicnews/nov97/ The article, titled "PUSH!: Are Your Web Browsing Days Over?", explains what push technology is, how it works, and how it one day may help us all solve our current problem of information overload. +-------------------------- SAVE MONEY -----------------------------+ Refill your inkjet printer. Black ink: $21.95/pint. Color: $23.95/pint. Call 1-888-728-2465 or visit our website +------------- --------------+ CHILDREN'S SOFTWARE REVUE ------------------------- A few weeks ago, the nice folks at Pierian Spring Software (http://www.pierian.com/) pulled together a group of about 20 of the greatest minds in the field of education technology and flew them all to Portland for the first annual Pierian Spring Education Technology Leaders Summit. The group included Bob Pearlman, Bonnie Bracey, Catie and Fred D'Ignazio, Gail Lovely, Sylvia Charp, Merle Marsh, Ted Kahn, and -- for some odd reason that I am sure the folks at Pierian Spring are _still_ regretting -- me. :) I had an absolutely wonderful time at the Summit, and one of the highlights was meeting Warren Buckleitner, the Editor of "Children's Software Revue." Children's Software Revue (CSR) is a self-proclaimed "independent ... newsletter designed to help parents and teachers find quality children's software." Like Consumer Reports, CSR does not accept any outside advertising. Unlike Consumer Reports (and, for that matter, unlike any other newsletter that I know of), CSR is specifically written for parents and teachers of children between the ages of 2 and 14-ish. In fact, all of CSR's software reviews are written by experienced, professional educators who also happen to be parents. Children's Software Revue is currently available in two formats: - As a bi-monthly newsletter. Each issue contains reviews of over 120 of the newest children's software titles. This newsletter is available by subscription for $24 in the US, US$35 in Canada, and US$42 International. - As a _free_ Web site. You can find Children's Software Revue's Web site at http://www.childrenssoftware.com/ The bulk of CSR's homepage is filled with a "Featured Review of the Week," an in-depth look at one of the featured reviews from a previous edition of CSR's newsletter. Each of CSR's reviews shows the software's rating (from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest)); the publisher's name, URL, and phone number; the software's copyright date; its price; the platform(s) that the software runs on; the age group and grade level that the software is written for; and the skills that the software teaches. Right below this information you'll find a short editorial on the software's strengths and weaknesses. While CSR's "Featured Review of the Week" is cool all by itself, CSR's homepage also has a searchable database of over 2,800 children's software reviews. Called the "Children's Software Finder" (there is a link to it at the top of CSR's homepage), this searchable database lets you search for reviews of children's software by title, rating, publisher, copyright date, platform, grade level, and/or the skills that it teaches. You also have the option of browsing through the reviews of all 2,800+ titles (for those of you have nothing better to do for the rest of the month). All of CSR's past reviews can be found in this database, although the current reviews (the ones in the current issue of the Children's Software Revue newsletter) are only available to CSR's subscribers. Oh, and if you are an educator or librarian who is responsible for conducting your own software evaluations, you really should check out CSR's "Software Evaluation Form." The form is a 50 item check-list that helps you grade a particular software title's educational value; its ease of use; the quality of its content, graphics, sounds; how fun it is to use; and its overall value. CSR's Software Evaluation Form can be found on the Web at http://www2.childrenssoftware.com/childrenssoftware/rating.html Cool, huh? If you are looking for an independent resource that will give you unbiased reviews about thousands of children's software titles, you really should check out Warren Buckleitner's "Children's Software Revue." Oh, and while you are there, check out the featured article titled "I Wanna Tamagotchi!" (there is a link to this article on CSR's main Web page). I promise you that Buckleitner's article will teach you two simple, but very important, lessons about kids and technology. CYBER CORNER ------------ Last week, I wrote "The WIRE" Web site also doesn't seem to include Oscar Wells Gabriel's "CyberCorner" column, an absolutely wonderful Internet- related AP feature that too few news organizations reprint [By the way, if you know of an AP member organization that reprints CyberCorner online, let me know]. Well, thanks to the help of alert TOURBUS rider Michael Tillapaugh who "did a little search on 'Gabriel' and 'CyberCorner' using 'Dogpile'" (now why didn't _I_ think of doing that?!), I am proud to announce that you can find Oscar Wells Gabriel's "Cyber Corner" column on the Web at http://www.kwtv.com/news/cyber/cyber.htm Cyber Corner is the Associated Press' daily technology column. It is kind of a combination of the Morning section of Good Morning Silicon Valley (http://www.sjmercury.com/gmsv/), Yahoo's Net Events page (http://events.yahoo.com/picks.html), and Entertainment Weekly's "Cybertalk" section (whose URL is so unbelievably long that its just better if we pretend that you can't find it online). Cyber Corner is updated each weekday morning, and is a quick summary of the latest in cyberspace news, Web page announcements, online happenings, and software releases. While not as in-depth as Good Morning Silicon Valley (which is now in a tie with Dogpile as my favorite Web page), Cyber Corner's coverage of the online world is still pretty impressive. That's about it for this week! There is one last thing that I want to mention, and then I'll bring today's tour to a close: our TOURBUS riders in central Oklahoma will probably recognize that Cyber Corner's web host (http://www.kwtv.com/) is KWTV Channel 9, the CBS television network affiliate in Oklahoma City. The reason why I mention this is that if you are looking for a pretty good Web site where you can find the latest news and information about the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing and its related trials, you really should check out KWTV's bombing page at http://www.kwtv.com/news/bombing/bombingpage.html This page includes copies of the indictments, a history and time line of the bombing, and the complete trial transcripts from both U.S. vs. McVeigh and U.S. vs. Terry Nichols (new transcripts from the Nichols trial, which is currently underway, are posted at 4:00 PM and 9:00 PM CST). TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S): PUSH TECHNOLOGY/CHILDREN'S SOFTWARE REVIEW/CYBER CORNER TODAY'S ADDRESS: http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/nicnews/nov97/ http://www.childrenssoftware.com/ http://www2.childrenssoftware.com/childrenssoftware/rating.html http://www.kwtv.com/news/cyber/cyber.htm http://www.kwtv.com/news/bombing/bombingpage.html -------------------------------- TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY -------------------------------- MILL (noun). Food consumed during a certain time period. Usage: "Bubba, turn off Hee-Haw and eat yur mill!" (Special thanks to Sara Mack for today's wurd) YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE _NEW_ SOUTHERN WORD HOMEPAGE AT http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/word.html =--------------------------------------------------------------------= For info on my book "Atlas for the Information Superhighway" Visit http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/atlas.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- =====================[ TOURBUS Rider Information ]=================== The Internet TOURBUS - U.S. Library of Congress ISSN #1094-2238 Copyright 1995-97, Rankin & Crispen - All rights reserved Archives on the Web at http://www.TOURBUS.com Join: Send SUBSCRIBE TOURBUS Your Name to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Leave: Send SIGNOFF TOURBUS to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM PROMOTE your business on the Internet TOURBUS. Reach over 80,000 people in a Net-friendly way. Our sponsors say "It works!" Make it work for you - contact BobRankin@MHV.net for details. Editors: Reprint TOURBUS in your publication for free - Ask me how. Send this copy to 3 friends and tell them to hop on the Bus! ===================================================================== .~~~. )) (\__/) .' ) )) Patrick Douglas Crispen /o o \/ .~ Network Solutions Inc. / The InterNIC {o_, \ { Business E-mail: crispen@internic.net / , , ) \ Personal E-mail: crispen@brigadoon.com `~ '-' \ } )) http://www.brigadoon.com/~crispen/ _( ( )_.' '---..{____} Warning: squirrels.