The emergence of the World Wide Web as a mass communications medium has, in a few short years, changed the way we think about publishing, data transmission, and First Amendment freedoms. Interconnected computer networks coupled with the amount of information stored on them has caused software manufacturers to rethink how we will control our computers in the future. Many are creating programs which treat the Internet as a giant, multimedia library we can control from our desktops. In the meantime,
see how these sites have combined all the elements that the Web has to offer to inform and entertain us while advocating the development of this new medium.The web, including computers and the information highway
Canadian Web Search Tools
Altavista.
www.altavista.ca
A powerful Canadian search engine with excellent indexing of Canadian media sites.
CANOE
www.canoe.ca
Canada's online explorer.
Organizations in Canada
Interactive Multimedia Arts and Technologies Association (IMAT)
www.imat.ca
International Telecommunication Union
www.itu.int
The UN agency which coordinates global telecommunication networks.
Life on the Internet
www.screen.com/start
The home page for two cyberculture documentaries.
Network for the Evaluation of Education and Learning Technologies.
socserv2.mcmaster.ca/srnet/evnet.htm
Examines the role of technologies in education and training.
Queen's Bell Instructional Technology Gateway.
bellproject.educ.queensu.ca
Using technology to promote learning.
Webgrrls Toronto
www.TorontoWebgrrls.com
Focussed on women who are interested in the internet and multimedia.
Canadian Information Highway Advisory Council Archive.
strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ih01015e.html
Canadian Computer/Internet Publications
Canada Computes/Toronto Computes
www.canadacomputes.com
Free magazines dealing with computer related topics.
The Computer Paper
www.tcp.ca
A free computer newspaper.
Monitor
www.monitor.ca/monitor
Information Highways Magazine.
www.flexnet.com/~infohiwy
Canadian Telecom Magazine
www.cdntele.com/magazine.htm
Canadian Telecom Magazine deals with the applications of communications technology to business.
American Web Search Tools
AltaVista
http://www.altavista.digital.com/
One of the most powerful keyword search engines because it searches for Web pages or Usenet groups.
Excite
http://www.excite.com/
Excite will perform concept or keyword searches using a natural language approach. You can further tailor a search to find sites that have been reviewed by topical areas, called "Channels."
Galaxy
http://www.einet.net/cgi-bin/wais-text-multi?/
Galaxy is one of the most comprehensive Internet search engines because you can tell it to search for Gopher and telnet sites as well as pages on the Web. If you are not used to using Boolean search tools, you can simply click buttons to refine your search.
Hotbot
http://www.hotbot.com/
This search tool is sponsored by HotWired Magazine. It can do rather impressive searches for multimedia files. It also has built in chat capabilities if you have a JAVA-based browser.
Infoseek
http://www.infoseek.com/
Along with keyword searching functions found on most other search engines, Infoseek features "Quickseek," so that you can customize searching functions on your desktop. MSIE users can also download an ActiveX control that works with 3.02 browser (or higher) to integrate Infoseek search capabilities into your browser toolbar.
Lycos
http://www.lycos.com/
Lycos is the Greek word for "spider." "Spider" is an Internet term for an automated program that scans the Web in order to index sites. Lycos will also enable you to search for sound and picture files. Another fun feature is its mapping function. You can locate your street address on a city map of your community.
Webcrawler
http://www.webcrawler.com/
Developed for America Online, but you don't have to be an AOL subscriber to use it. Check out its statistics about the most commonly accessed URLs on the Net.
Argus Clearinghouse
http://www.clearinghouse.net/
The clearinghouse is a virtual library organized by what it calls "topical guides." These are lists developed by users who have investigated particular subjects.
Yahoo!
http://www.yahoo.com/
One of the best for browsing topical lists of types of sites. It is the most extensively used search engine on the Web. Its main directories are Computers and Internet, Education, Entertainment, Government, Health, Recreation, Reference, Regional, Science, Social Science, and Society and Culture. Each of these branches to more topical subdirectories to browse.
AcqWeb's Directory of Publishers and Vendors
http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/law/acqs/pubr.html
Contains directories of E-mail addresses, and Web and Gopher sites, as well as listings by subject.
Who-Where Yellow Pages
http://www.whowhere.com/business.html
Finds E-mail addresses, personal Web pages and regular phone numbers.
Free Internet Encyclopedia
http://clever.net/cam/encyclopedia.html
Organized by micro and macro reference areas and arranged alphabetically.
Index Encyberpedia
http://www.encyberpedia.com/ency.htm
Funky site that provides links to a range of on-line encyclopedias, from the staid Britannica to some off-the-wall topics.
CIOS Hotlines
http://www.cios.org/www/forums.htm
This list describes a variety of E-mail discussion groups that share information about communication scholarship. An individual or institutional membership is required for access to all of the hotlines. A nonmember may access one hotline.
Blue Ribbon Campaign for Free Speech Online
http://www.eff.org/
The first Internet-wide battle over First Amendment issues started here and continues. One of the most linked sites on the Web.
DejaNews
http://www.dejanews.com
Newsgroups turn over quickly and older messages are dumped from Usenet regularly. DejaNews keeps them available while sorting out the spam. Best way to search the newsgroups.
Home Gopher
gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu/
The venerable Gopher is slowing losing ground to the Web as more servers convert to the flashier medium. Gopher remains , however, a viable way to keep text and files available for quick download.
E-mail Discussion and Newsgroups for Scholars
http://n2h2.com/KOVACS/
This list is a searchable directory to find scholarly sources for numerous academic disciplines.
Scholarly Journals Distributed Via the World Wide Web
http://info.lib.uh.edu/wj/
This directory provides links to established Web-based scholarly journals that offer access to English language article files without requiring user registration or fees.
Adobe Systems
http://www.adobe.com/It's Photoshop is the standard in the field. Another useful product is Adobe's PDF, (Portable Document Format) for converting a variety of types of multimedia file formats for use on HTML pages.
Astound, Inc.
http://www.astoundinc.com/
Astound is one of the most useful software packages for creating presentations for public speaking. From this page, you can download free trial versions of Astound or StudioM. If you use Astound or Studio M, Astound, Inc. also offers a free encoder that converts your presentation to a Web document and the Astound WebMotion program that works with JAVA equipped browsers.
CUSeeMe
http://www.wpine.com/
This is the home page for White Pine, which produces the CUSeeMe technology for doing interactive video conferencing.
Corel Home Page
http://www.corel.com/
Check out this page for information about Corel products.
DSP
http://www.dspg.com/player/main.htmPut sound files on your Web page compressed with True Speech. The DSP page offers a free download of the software you need.
Microsoft Downloads
http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/
For users of Windows, this is a great source for downloading free software. A number of multimedia tools used for Web viewing are available, including the Microsoft Internet Explorer, the PowerPoint Animation viewer, the PowerPoint
Viewer, ActiveX Controls, Microsoft's VRML Viewer, and Web authoring tools
that work with the various components of the Microsoft Office. This page
also links you to product information about PowerPoint, the component of
the Microsoft Office most useful to public speakers for creating presentations.
JASC
http://www.jasc.com/index.html
JASC is the producer of Paint Shop Pro, one of the most versatile graphics programs for manipulating bitmap images.
Netscape
http://home.netscape.com/
Download the latest version of Netscape, one of the premier Web page browsers.
Progressive Networks-The Home of RealAudio
http://www.realaudio.com/
Go here to download a copy of the RealAudio software.
Lycos Pictures and Sounds
http://www.lycos.com/lycosmedia.html
Try out this function of Lycos to locate images and sound files that it has indexed.
TUCOWS - The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software
http://www.tucows.com/
If you are looking for software, you will find it here.
Stroud's Consummate Internet Apps List
http://cws.iworld.com/
Search through its list of 16 and 32 bit shareware options to find software for your multimedia computer.
Windows Magazine On-line Shareware
http://www.winmag.com/software/sharec.htm/
Search and then link to the places to download shareware products.
Winfo On-line
http://www.winmag.com/winfo/
Use this page provided by Windows Magazine to search for places to download multimedia plug-ins for your browser. You can also find product reviews that Windows has done.
World Wide Web Virtual Library for Audio
http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/audio.html
This WWW3 library provides links to live radio programming around the world. This site also has some useful links for finding sound archives, Usenet groups dealing with audio, and locating software for sound. Listen to it all . . . from bird songs at the Australian Botanical Gardens to tunes from the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.
Capitol On-line Speakers Bureau
http://www.cosb.com/
The speakers bureau features commentary by Fred Barnes and Eleanor Clift each week. Click in "Inside Washington" for the editorial pieces. When you go to the "Live Chat" area, you can use ichat to participate in live interaction.
Propaganda Public Forum
http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/intermediate.htmlThis bulletin board features discussion of persuasion and propaganda on the Net. Its main page, http://carmen.artsci.washington.edu/propaganda/contents.htm, features tutorials on propaganda techniques.
Think Tank Live Chat
http://www.libertynation.com
This site uses Web page based JAVA chat. To take part you need to have a JAVA-equipped browser. The space is sponsored by Right on the Web, a conservative political forum.
WebChat Broadcasting System
http://www.wbs.net/webchat3.so?i=1/
This on-line forum hosts a number of "hubs" for ongoing conversation. For public speaking topics, the "Current Events" hub includes political and social topics.
WiredSide Chat
http://www.talk.com/talk/wiredside/
This page is a feature of HotWired, the on-line version of Wired. Check it from time to time to see when live chat is available. You must register at HotWired to participate.
AudioNet
http://www.audionet.com/
This page provides a daily update of scheduled live events you can tune into using RealAudio.
C-SPAN On-line (RealAudio)
http://www.broadcast.com/television/c-span/
Listen to sessions of the House and Senate and find a directory of what is going on the Hill.
Noise on Netizen
http://www.netizen.com/netizen/netizenaudio/
A feature of Hotwired Magazine, this page provides speeches and interviews with newsmakers and social commentators.
