TOURBUS: Thursday, December 19, 1996

DRIVER: Patrick Crispin

TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP:
POLAR EXPRESS, YAHOO'S NEW SEARCH ENGINE, AND SOME MIDI STUFF


IT'S SNOWING!  IN *ALABAMA*!!  Folks, there is something SERIOUSLY wrong
with this!

Anyway, before we start the latest journey of our little snow-covered bus
of Internet happiness, I want to thank today's TOURBUS sponsor for making
today's TOURBUS post possible:
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NEW URBAN LEGEND: POLAR EXPRESS
You may have recently received a letter telling you that Houghton Mifflin
Publishing Corporation will donate one book to a children's hospital for
every 25 e-mails they receive.  The story is true, but Houghton Mifflin has
reached its goal of 50,000 e-mail letters and their "Polar Express"
campaign is now over.  PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY MORE E-MAIL LETTERS TO
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN (SHARE@HMCO.COM).

You can find more information about the Polar Express campaign on Houghton
Mifflin's Web page at http://www.hmco.com/hmco/trade/hmi/polar/

YAHOO'S NEW SEARCH ENGINE
Yahoo has a new search engine!  To use it, just point your browser to http://search.main.yahoo.com/

or click on the "Try Our New Search" link on Yahoo's main Web page.

Yahoo's new search engine has some pretty cool features:

Yahoo now displays its results in order of relevance rather
        than alphabetically!  This makes finding stuff on Yahoo a
        whole bunch easier.

    
Once you give the search engine a keyword to search for, you
        get a summary page that shows you the best matches in four
        areas: Yahoo Categories, Web Sites, Net Events, and News.  To
        save on screen space, Yahoo only shows you the first five hits
        in the "Yahoo Categories" and "Web sites" areas and the first
        three hits in the "Net Events" and "News" areas, but you can
        always click the "next" link to show you the rest of the hits.
        Oh, and just like the old Yahoo search engine, if there are no
        matches in the four different areas, Yahoo will use Alta Vista
        to help you find what you are looking for.

     
Yahoo now displays Net Events matches.  Yahoo searches a
        comprehensive database of the week's upcoming web events and
        chats from Yahoo's newest web site Yahoo Net Events

     
Yahoo now displays News article matches.  Searchable news is
        updated at least once an hour. Yahoo currently searches the
        following news sources for articles: Reuters General News,
        Reuters Securities News, PR Newswire, Business Wire and UPI.


I really like the organization of Yahoo's new search engine.  I recently
did a search on Yahoo's old search engine for the keyword "MIDI," and got
back a pretty disorganized screenful of links -- some relevant, most not.
The same search using Yahoo's new search engine yielded a much more
organized collection of links, most of which were actually relevant to what
I was looking for!

If you are one of the people who have grown accustomed to Yahoo's old
"alphabetical" search engine -- the one that you access through the text
box on Yahoo's main page -- you really need to check out Yahoo's new search
engine.  Mark my words: it'll change the way you use Yahoo!

SOME SEMI-TECHNICAL STUFF
This probably is only going to appeal to the most technically proficient
people on the bus who have Netscape and who are able to install Netscape
plug-ins, but a beta version of Yamaha's MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital
Interface) plug-in can be downloaded for FREE at http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/xg/html/mplug.html

Once you have downloaded and installed the plug-in (or if your Web browser
is already MIDI-capable) I have two absolutely wonderful MIDI-enhanced Web
pages that you *have* to visit http://www.ualberta.ca/~mkozak/accordion.htm and http://hiwaay.net/~crispen

The first page is downright fun, and the second page (my dad's) has an
INCREDIBLE version of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" (it starts
off pretty slow, but it really takes off about 30 seconds into the song).

You'll have to have a MIDI plug-in to hear the music on both of these pages
(that's why I gave you Yamaha's address), but both pages are well worth the
trouble of downloading and installing the plug-in.

That's it for now.  Have a safe and happy weekend, watch out for drunken,
snow-covered squirrels, and have a WONDERFUL holiday season!  :)
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--------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY
--------------------------------

SKEWS (noun).  An explanation.
Usage:  "You FORGOT why I first wrote to you?  Heck, that's no skews!"

(Special thanks goes to *ME* for today's wurd (with apologies to Michelle
"the hook" Olsen))

YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN WORD
HOMEPAGE AT http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~crispen/word.html