From crispen@CAMPUS.MCI.NET Thu Apr 10 13:52:30 1997
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 1997 12:49:12 -0700
From: Patrick Douglas Crispen 
Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: TOURBUS -- 10 APRIL 1997 -- !SDRAWKCAB / THE 15 MINUTE SERIES

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    \___/  \___/  T h e   I n t e r n e t   T o u r B u s    \___/

TODAY'S STOPS:     !SDRAWKCAB / THE 15 MINUTE SERIES
TODAY'S ADDRESSES: http://smeg.com/backwards/
                   http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/

Hi, kids.  :)

For those of you who will be in Macon next week for the Georgia Educational
Technology Conference, make sure to stop by one of my program sessions and
say "hi!"  You can't miss me -- I'll be the extremely tall person who has
lost his voice (I'm presenting programs in concurrent sessions 3, 6, 7,
152, 153, 269, *and* 270 ... whew!).  :)

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And now, let's start the latest journey of our little bus of Internet
happiness ...

!SDRAWKCAB
----------

In light of our recent stops at the "Text Borkifier" (the tool that turns
plain text into Muppet Show Swedish Chef-speak) and the Anagram Genius
server, I am happy to report that I have found yet another Internet tool
that serves no other real purpose than to amuse.

The Backwards! (actually, the real name is "!sdrawkcaB") page can be found
on the Web at

     http://smeg.com/backwards/

Backwards! asks you to type in the URL of *ANY* Web page, and then
Backwards! loads that page *BACKWARDS*!  In other words, the Backwards!
page flips all of the graphics, text, links, and everything else on a
particular page 180 degrees on a vertical center line.

Confused?  Load the Backwards! page and give it a try ... you'll see what I
am talking about.

Wait!  It gets better!  If you click on any of the links on a page that
Backwards! has flipped, the page that that link loads will *ALSO* be
backwards!  Believe me, folks, sites like Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com/) are
especially fun and entertaining in reverse.  :)

The only bad thing that I can say about the Backwards! site is that it
stops reversing images when the load on the Backwards! server gets too
high.  Unfortunately, this makes the flipped pages much less humorous.  If
Backwards! sends you a page with "un-flipped" graphics, try again later in
the day.  It is worth the wait.

By the way, to stop the backwards-ifing just load a normal site from your
booklist or type a regular URL -- like http://www.yahoo.com/ -- in your
browser's location window.

As I said, the Backwards! page serves no other purpose than to amuse.
However, since I work at a help desk staffed with people who love to play
practical jokes on one another, I have particularly enjoyed flipping pages
and then asking my fellow help desk colleagues to figure out what is wrong
with my Web browser (a hint from personal experience: this trick works MUCH
better if you turn of the "show location" box in your browser).

THE 15-MINUTE SERIES
--------------------

Since a good number of our fellow bus riders are educators or Internet
trainers, I think that our next stop will probably be appreciated.  The
nice folks at the Internet Network Information Center (the InterNIC) in
Herndon, Virginia, have created a WONDERFUL Internet resource called the
"15 Minute Series."  According to the InterNIC,

     The 15 Minute Series is a collection of Internet training
     materials provided as a service to the research and education
     community by the InterNIC and the Library and Information
     Technology Association (LITA), a division of the American Library
     Association (ALA) ... Each of the 15 Minute Series modules is
     structured as a mini-slide presentation and is designed to answer
     a specific Internet-related question. These questions can be very
     narrow (e.g. What is Rich Text Format?) or very broad (e.g. What
     is the Internet?) and may address varying levels of expertise.
     Asking questions such as "What is...?" or "How do I...?", each
     module attempts to provide a clear and concise answer to the
     specified question.

     [Quoted from http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/intro.html]

You can find the 15 Minute Series on the Web at

     http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/

What is cool about the 15 Minute Series is that each of the series'
presentations is available in both HTML (Web Page) and Microsoft PowerPoint
format, and you are free to

     [Q]uote, copy, or otherwise reproduce the materials in the 15
     Minute Series, provided that appropriate credit is given and the
     copyright notice is retained. The 15 Minute Series modules and
     their contents may not be sold for profit or incorporated without
     the written permission of the copyright holder.

The InterNIC currently has about 50 presentations in the series, and each
presentation is classified in one of 9-ish different categories:

     - Internet History                - The Basics
     - Electronic Mail                 - Tools
     - Indexing and Search Services    - Technology
     - World Wide Web                  - The Future
     - Internet Organizations

Let's take a look at what one of the series' presentations actually looks
like.  Point your web browser to

     http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/

and then click on the words "The Basics" in the right-hand column of the
training categories listing.  Doing this loads a page that tells you more
about the subjects discussed in The Basics category of the 15 Minute
Series.  It is possible for you to search through all of the series'
presentations for a particular author or title, but for now let's just
click on the "View Index" button at the bottom of this new page.

The next thing that should appear on your screen is a list of the different
presentations in the basics category.  Let's take a look at the first
presentation, "What is Electronic Mail?"

You have three ways that you can view this presentation:

     1. You can preview it online in your Web browser;
     2. You can download a PowerPoint version of the presentation; or
     3. You can download an HTML version of the presentation that you
        can save on your Web server.

For now, let's just preview the presentation online.  If you click on the
button "Preview Module Now," you will be able to flip through all of the
"slides" in the presentation with your Web browser.  The first slide tells
you the topics that the presentation covers, the "next" button takes you to
the next slide, and the last slide is a summary of what is covered in the
presentation.  Best of all, each presentation is only about 8 slides long
(hence the name "15 Minute Series").

Take some time to explore all 9-ish categories at

     http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/

I think you'll find at least one presentation that will fit your needs.  :)

By the way, before you try to download either the PowerPoint or HTML
versions of a presentation, make sure that you carefully read the 15 Minute
Series' help page at

     http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/help.html

All of the presentations are compressed (for example, the HTML
presentations are both tarred and gnu-zipped), so you will need to read the
help page carefully to fully understand how to get the presentations to
work on your machine.

As I said, the InterNIC has about 50 presentations available right now, and
I have it on good authority that many more presentations will be available
in the near future.  :)

That's it for this week.  Have a safe and happy weekend!

TODAY'S STOPS:     !SDRAWKCAB / THE 15 MINUTE SERIES
TODAY'S ADDRESSES: http://smeg.com/backwards/
                   http://rs.internic.net/nic-support/15min/

--------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY
--------------------------------

BALD (adjective/verb).  Cooked in very hot water.
Usage: "Bring me some bald shrimp and another moon pah!"

(Special thanks to MANY, MANY riders for today's word.)  :)

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

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   (\__/)  .~    ~. ))
   /O O  ./      .'             Patrick Douglas Crispen
  {O__,   \    {               The University of Alabama
    / .  . )    \                crispen@campus.mci.net
    |-| '-' \    }           http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~crispen/
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