BEST OF THE WEB
![[No.1]](square1.gif){kind=small} InfoSeek Professional |
InfoSeek Professional offers a variety of useful informational databases unavailable elsewhere on the Internet. InfoSeek Professional offers databases of entertainment reviews, wire service news, computer periodicals, health & medicin
e, and Hoover company profiles. Of course, InfoSeek also offers thorough databases of the World Wide Web and recent Usenet postings.
InfoSeek's intuitive interface, breadth of databases (including market research reports, back issues of InfoWorld magazine, and even biomedical information,) and speedy searches all bring it to the head of the pack. In addition, the service offers a gr oovy Personal Newswire, which you can use to quickly search for recent news on your choice of topics. The newswire only shows you news that you haven't seen yet, and sorts the stories by their relevance.
Alas, unlike the rest of the winners in this category, InfoSeek Professional is not free. However, the prices are very reasonable-the Light Use plan costs a paltry $1.95 a month, which includes 10 searches. Additional searches are 15 cents each. (The S tandard plan, with 100 searches per month, is cheaper still.) InfoSeek Professional is one case in which you really do get what you pay for.
![[No.2]](square2.gif){kind=small} Internet Starter Kit |
The Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh and Internet Starter Kit for Windows are among the finest Internet books for beginners, and now they are available online in their entirety. The Web editions contain all the text, all the graphic
s, everything from the most recent editions of the printed books. These books are excellent on paper. On the Web, complete with hypertext links, clean presentation, and easy navigation, they're fantastic.
The books are written by Adam Engst, editor of the online magazine TidBITS and all-around Internet maven. I'm not sure how he convinced his publisher to take a chance and put two whole books online, but I'm glad he did. The books cover everything you m ight need to know about the Net, from how it works, to picking the best type of connection for your needs, to detailed descriptions of the various choices for client software. Both books contain detailed glossaries, too. The site's server can be on the sl ow side, and the longer chapters can take a while to download, but they're worth the wait.
| (tie) Internet Mall |
Whether you're sick of hearing about commerce on the Internet, or you buy all your groceries online, you have to admit that shopping on the Internet is here to stay. Folks on the Net are hawking everything from sardines to sex toys, b
ut if you're window shopping on the Web, it can be hard to find what you're looking for. The Internet Mall does a fantastic job of organizing the mayhem of Internet commerce: the Mall is a comprehensive index of more than 6500 Internet cybershops. Organiz
ed like a shopping mall, the Internet Mall's tasteful graphics and quick access make it much easier to navigate than the Galleria's parking lot.
If you're just browsing, you can click on the Personal Gifts & Services floor for gift ideas; head to the Food Court for drinks and sweets; or go to the Garage for automotive supplies. If you know just what you need, a handy search tool will find it fo r you. On the other hand, if you have no idea what you want, the site's Rand-O-Mall feature will randomly select several shops.
![[Best of the Rest]](bestrest.gif){kind=small}
| 4. Excite |
A relative newcomer to the myriad of Internet search tools available, Excite offers indexes of the Web and Usenet news groups. Its interface is unique, and its speedy searches and up-to-date databases make it easy to find just about anything on the Net .
| 4.(tie) InfoSeek Guide |
The free cousin to InfoSeek Professional, the InfoSeek Guide offers searchable databases of Web pages, newsgroup postings and FAQ lists. It contains brief descriptions of many sites, but does not limit searching to those sites. The interface is slick a nd fast, the server is often busy.
| 4.(tie) Inktomi |
Another in a dazzling array of excellent Internet search tools, Inktomi is a fast and large database of Web sites. Inktomi claims to index some 1.3 million Web pages. Despite its size, searches are wicked fast. Inktomi only indexes the Web, but at that it does a fine job.
| 4.(tie) Yahoo! |
Everyone's heard of Yahoo!, and it comes as no surprise that it ranks among the top Internet searching tools. Yahoo is well organized, fast, and offers an effective combination of keyword searching and topic-based menus of Internet resources.
| 8. Netscape Communications Home Page |
Probably the most visited site on the Web, Netscape's home page offers a wealth of information for Web travelers, from handy pointers to Internet search tools, to a dandy collection of how-to-do HTML references. Its Internet Headlines feature will keep you updated about what's new and notable on the Net.
| 8.(tie) Starting Point |
Starting Point contains an impressive collection of well-organized pointers to Web resources in 16 categories. The site is meant to be your launching pad onto the Web. It is easy on the eyes, fast, and doesn�t substitute quantity for quality.
| 8.(tie) Point Communications |
If you've seen its Best 5% of the Web logos scattered across the Internet, you're already familiar with Point Communications. It's own site contains a plethora of good stuff all Web surfers. The site features thousands of reviews and ratings of Web sit es, a pleasing graphical layout, and a free e-mail service that announces new sites in your areas of interest.
| 8.(tie) RFC Database |
This is where you go to get domain-name registration information, a domain name directory, and InterNIC news. The site is simply, but effectively done.
| 12. Homepage Creation Center |
If you're ready to make your own personal mark on the World Wide Web, the Homepage Creation Center is one-stop shopping for everything you might need. The site features pointers to and information about everything from Web servers to HTML editors, from CGI programming resources to graphics tools.
| 13. FAQs at Oxford University |
Frequently asked questions lists are truly useful resources, and Oxford's archive of FAQs makes them easy to find and read. This site contains an archive of all FAQs posted to Usenet, sorted by category or by news group, and formatted into HTML. A hand y search feature makes finding the right FAQ even easier.
| 13.(tie) DejaNews |
DejaNews is a tool that sifts through Usenet postings and culls out the information you want. Just enter a few search words, and articles about that topic will be listed on-screen in a flash, no matter what news groups they appear in. Most news groups are archived for a month, and some are archived for an entire year.
| 13.(tie) SIFT |
SIFT is a personalized Net information filtering service. Every day, SIFT gathers tens of thousands of new articles appearing in Usenet news groups, filters them against topics specified by you, and prepares all hits into a single Web page for you. SIF T�s simple interface makes it simple to track topics on Usenet on an ongoing basis.
| 13.(tie) ZDNet Computing TrailBlazer |
If you're searching for computer information, start with the Computing TrailBlazer. This site offers reviews of hundreds of computer-oriented Web sites, organized in topics like multimedia, operating systems, and Windows 95. Although not the most compr ehensive index, TrailBlazer is updated regularly and only offers pointers to good stuff. [Ed. note: Both the evaluator and editor of this publication have contributed to the Computing Trailblazer in the past.]
| 13.(tie) Meta-Index for Non-Profit Organizations |
Not the most aesthetic site on the Web, the Meta-Index for Non-Profit Organizations provides a list of non-profits on the Web. Whether you're searching for a directory of prison and criminal justice sites, or you want a comprehensive listing of all env ironmental organizations on the Internet, this index will help.
| 13.(tie) Peeping Tom Homepage |
Perhaps there's a little voyeur in all of us, and that's what makes the Peeping Tom Homepage so interesting. This is a index of every video-grabber and spy-cam on the Web. If you want to see a panoramic live image of the Space Needle in Seattle, or che ck in on Steve's Ant Farm, Peeping Tom will point the way.
| 13.(tie) SavvySearch |
SavvySearch lets you search everything on the Web in one fell swoop. The creators call it a "parallel Internet query engine," which means that you can describe the information you're looking for, and SavvySearch will contact multiple Internet search en gines and return information from each one. SavvySearch can access Lycos, InfoSeek, Roget's Thesaurus, the Internet Movie Database and many other search tools. Unfortunately, Savvy's searching can be brutally slow.
| 13.(tie) What's New Too |
If you like to explore new stuff on the Web, this should be your first stop. What's New Too claims to add over 500 new documents and sites per day. The site administrators promise to post any new listing they receive within 36 hours.
| 13.(tie) Research-IT! |
If the Internet had an electronic reference librarian, he or she would be named Research-IT! This site links to more than 30 online research sites, like the CIA World FactBook and map archives. You can query searchable sites like Bartlett's Quotations and the Computing Dictionary from this page. You can also get French verb conjugation, track parcels, and look up a zip code, right from this well-designed interface.
| 13.(tie) Lycos |
One of the most popular Web indexes, Lycos' depth is unparalleled. Lycos is updated on an obsessive basis, and claims to catalog 91 percent of the Web. If size matters, Lycos is the hands-down winner. But it's interface could use improvement, and the o nline ads (which I normally don't mind) get in the way.
| 23. OpenText Web Index |
This little-known Web searching tool provides frightfully fast keyword searches of Web information. It offers basic search, powerful Boolean search, and weighted search methods. The interface is clean, making even complex searches simple.
| 24. Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists |
This resource indexes and describes hundreds of electronic mailing lists available on the Internet. It's not a comprehensive list, but it's as close as you could hope for.
| 24.(tie) U.S. Federal Government Agencies |
The Internet -- oops, I mean the National Information Infrastructure -- is home to countless government resources. This index catalogs all Federal agencies on the Net, from the CIA to the Bureau of Public Debt. It neatly categorizes agencies by branch, and even lists independent and quasi-official agencies. If the government itself were only this organized.
| 24.(tie) Aether Madness |
This is the Web version of the book, Aether Madness: An Offbeat Guide to the Online World, by Gary Wolf and Michael Stein. You can search for odd and wacky stuff by category, or randomly link to the sites listed.
| 24.(tie) Useless WWW Pages |
This site catalogs pages that have no discernible reason to exist, except to amuse. Sites are broken down by category, and you can discuss them with other surfers in a chat area.
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