sree.net > tips > newsletters > November 2001
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Sree Tips
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From Sreenath Sreenivasan
Columbia University journalism professor
WABC-TV's "Tech Guru" on Thursday mornings in NYC area
[ Tech Guru text archives at http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/technology/ ]

http://www.sree.net/ * sreetipsreax@sree.net

Sree Tips Newsletter
November 2001: http://www.sree.net/tips/2001nov.html

Sree Tips

A free monthly newsletter of tips and tricks about useful and/or fun Web sites.
Archive: http://www.sree.net/tips

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o o o o o

St. Petersburg, Florida, Nov. 29 -- Greetings from the Poynter Institute, home of http://www.poynter.org, where I have been co-teaching a class of online reporters and producers this week. Welcome to the November issue of the "Sree Tips" newsletter. As you may know, this newsletter started as an offshoot of the "Smarter Surfing: Better Use of Your Web Time" workshops I teach around the U.S. and abroad: http://www.sree.net/web

As always, I look forward to YOUR tips, feedback and suggestions: sreetipsreax@sree.net. This month's tipsters include: Tara Calishain, Betty Medsger, Andrea Panciera, Al Tompkins and Deborah Wassertzug.

Why wait a month for the next newsletter? Visit the constantly updated "Smarter Surfing" links at http://www.sree.net/tips/web.html
Also see new "Web Tips" published every Tuesday on Poynter.org: http://www.poynter.org/web/Archive2001.htm

{Cheers, Sree}

New-ish USEFUL SITES
(sites I find useful in some way)

Flight Trackers -- keep track of airline flights
http://www.FlightView.com
http://www.trip.com/trs/trip/flighttracker/flight_tracker_home.xsl
Given all the confusion about U.S. flights these days, many consumers are turning to flight-tracking Web sites to find out what is happening to flights with friends and family on them. There are several flight trackers which get their data from the Federal Aviation Administration. Some, like FlightView, have no delays -- according to Jim Steinberg, co-owner of the site's parent company, RLM Software -- while others have about a 15-20 minute delay. Trip.com's flight tracker offers a graphical version that has a picture of a little airplane that you can watch as it moves across the map. FlightView and Trip.com track all commercial flights that go into, out of and over the United States and Canada -- so you will not be able to find, say, flights within China. FlightView also has a page that allows you to get a snapshot of all the commercial flights airborne over North America at any one time. The page changes every 15 minutes and highlights flights into a different airport each time. And, in case you are wondering, flights that crash or have accidents are immediately removed from the system, so if you tried to see what happened to a downed flight, it would come back with an error message.

The Economist Style Guide -- online guide to English
http://www.economist.com/library/styleGuide/
At a time when many features and services on the Web have died dot-com deaths or have disappeared into subscription-land, I am happy to report a resurrection. One of my favorite magazines (the editors call it a newspaper), The Economist, used to offer its stylebook on its site. Then, sadly, it was taken down as part of a revamping process. But now it is back and more useful than ever -- and still free. Written by foreign editor John Grimond, the guide is as useful for browsing when you have some downtime as it is for looking up specifics. Since I discovered the site was back online, I have been using it daily. The introduction alone is worth printing out and framing. Here's how it starts. "Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. So think what you want to say, then say it as simply as possible." It goes on to quote from George Orwell's six elementary rules of writing from 1946. Here are two: Never use a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out. The guide is broken up into handy sections that include short words, unnecessary words, jargon, journalese and slang, some dos and don'ts and comon spelling problems. Each is written in an easy-to-understand style, with everyday examples.

WBUR's Special Coverage: Al-Jazeera -- monitoring the Arabic network
http://www.wbur.org/special/specialcoverage/feature_aljaz.asp
AlJazeera.net, site of Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite television network, is written only in Arabic, making it inaccessible to non-Arabic speakers. But the site of "Special Coverage," a daily news program out of at Boston public radio station WBUR, runs an exclusive daily text summary of what Al-Jazeera is reporting. The items, which are written by WBUR "Al-Jazeera analyst" Ahmed Ahmed, consist of several headlines, followed by a detailed description of what was reported that day on Al-Jazeera's newscast. Ahmed, a student and native Arabic speaker, watches about six hours of the network each day and works with WBUR's veteran producer Ian Docherty on his summaries. Ahmed updates the site each day around 7 p.m. Eastern time. Of course, these are reports about the reporting -- no one is verifying the accuracy of the Al-Jazeera stories.
If you are looking for an Arabic to English Web translation service, read my recent piece about Ajeeb.com: http://www.poynter.org/web/103001Sree.htm

Some Site Suggestions -- journalists suggest useful/fun Web sites
http://www.sree.net/tips/sites.html
As part of my Smarter Surfing workshops, I often ask participants for their suggestions of useful and fun sites. This page, which we launched this week with suggestions from online journalists visiting Poynter, will continue to grow as more suggestions come in. I don't vouch for them, of course, and they are in no particular order. But it's a fun way to find out what others find useful.

New-ish FUN SITES
(proof "fun" is a subjective word)

Predict Time's Person of the Year -- contest to predict the this year's winner
http://www.sree.net/contest
I have been a fan of Time's "Man of the Year" issues (renamed "Person of the Year" of late) since grade school -- even though I have rarely agreed with the choices. So in 1999, I launched an informal little contest to see if my friends could predict who would be the "Person of the Century." 73 people from six countries entered that year. The contest is back and it's your chance to predict who Time magazine editors will pick as the 2001 "Person of the Year." Not who you WANT it to be, who it WILL be. Stop by and let me know. Please ignore if you hate lists, contests or Time's "Person of the Year." We may all have thoughts on who we would LIKE each year's winner to be, but that doesn't mean our choice SHOULD, or more importantly, WILL, be chosen. So let's put your prognosticating skills to the test. Note: this contest has NOTHING to do with Time Inc. Deadline: Friday, Dec. 7, 2001.

Drew's Script-o-Rama -- access film and TV scripts
http://www.script-o-rama.com/oldindex.shtml
Want to waste hours of your time? Here's one way to do it. This site has collected hundreds of scripts from Hollywood films and TV shows. From "The Abyss" to "Gandhi" to "Zulu Nation" -- you will find movies in full script, shooting script and director's script formats. They are easy to navigate and can be downloaded on to your computer.

ENCORE: Last month's NEW-ISH USEFUL SITES
from http://www.sree.net/tips/2001oct.html

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MY DEFAULT SUCH & SUCH...
(my starting points for various things; may change monthly)

Search Engine:
Google
http://www.google.com/
The best search engine out there. 'Nuff said. But here's Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal on Google: "...simply the best search site I've ever used." If you know Walt's work -- and you should be following it religiously at http://ptech.wsj.com/ -- you know that he doesn't hand out such praise often. Be sure to download the free Google toolbar; it will change the way you search: http://toolbar.google.com/ (no Mac version right now)

Reference Site:
Refdesk
http://www.refdesk.com/
Excellent reference site. Don't just take my word for it. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told The New York Times this is his favorite Web site. Run by Bob Drudge, Matt's dad (though Refdesk doesn't run rumors).

Encyclopedia:
Britannica.com
http://www.britannica.com/
The Encyclopedia Britannica on the Web -- basic info free of charge (the full-access version, which used to be free, now costs $5 a month, or $50 a year). I also use, to a lesser extent, Encarta.com from Microsoft (many free articles, pay for others).

Dictionary:
Merriam-Webster
http://www.m-w.com/
In offices, dictionaries grow legs and walk. Hence an online dictionary is a must. This one addresses a major problem I have had with traditional dictionaries: You need to know how to spell a word before you look it up. Not here. Just punch in an approximation, and it will give you a suggested list. And nice etymology. Also see the new button for your browser; once you download it, you don't need to go to the site itself in order to lookup a word. You can do it right from whatever site you are in.

Atlas:
National Geographic's Map Machine
http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/
Leave it to National Geographic to make the best online atlas with these dynamic maps that will take you to any spot you choose and allow you to change what kind of map you see, on the fly. I had no idea there are three towns named Santa Claus in the U.S. or that my grandfather's village in India is an easy find.

Driving Directions:
MapQuest
http://www.mapquest.com/
For U.S. driving directions, MapQuest remains the best site. But I also like the new "straight-line" maps from MapBlast <http://www.mapblast.com>

World Time:
TimeAndDate.com
http://www.timeanddate.com/
The best set of world clocks and calendars. I like the personal world clock, which allows you to set and track time in up to 16 cities at one glance.

Media Goings-on:
Jim Romenesko's Media News
http://www.medianews.org/
Hosted by Poynter.org, this is news-junkie heaven. I read it more often and more closely than any other site.

o o o o o

SELF PROMOTION...

Must-Sree TV
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/technology/
My "Tech Guru" segments on WABC-7 in the New York City area run every Thursday morning on channel 7 at 6:45 (yes, that's the a.m.). This is a link to archived Web versions of my segments.

"Smarter Surfing" Workshops
http://www.sree.net/web
Smarter surfing for people of all skill levels. Interested in scheduling a class for you and your colleagues? Learn more.

"Smarter Surfing" Links: Better Use of Your Web Time
http://www.sree.net/tips/web.html
Links for various categories of sites, annotated for your surfing pleasure.

Sree Tips -- the Web page
http://www.sree.net/tips
Links to my tips and thoughts on various items, including laptops, digital cameras, freelance writing, Web production and more.

Poynter.org's Web Tips
http://www.poynter.org/web/Archive2001.htm
Every Tuesday, I write short Web tip for Poynter.org; Detroit Free Press columnist Mike Wendland writes one every Friday.

Sree Talks
http://www.sree.net/talks
List of forthcoming talks and presentations in various cities.

Content is Still King: Lesson from the Online Journalism Awards
http://www.sree.net/talks/c&w.html
A keynote speech I gave at the "Computers & Writing" conference in May 2001 at Ball State University.

Info Overload & Moi
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/columnists/mediasavvy/savvy1.htm
An essay for USAToday.com on handling information overload (yes, I am a major info polluter).

[Reprint requests: reprints@sree.net]

That's it for now.

Remember, you can track my "Smarter Surfing" links at http://www.sree.net/tips/web.html

See you (your inbox, actually) next month.

Cheers, Sree
http://www.sree.net/

o o o o o

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Copyright 2001 Sree.net

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sree.net > tips > newsletters > November 2001



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