TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: RIDER'S REVENGE #26

Hi all... it's time for another Rider's Revenge issue, where I share sites that your fellow Tourbus riders think are useful, fun, cool or otherwise worthy of attention. If you have a favorite site that's of interest to an international audience, send it along for the next Rider's Revenge!

TOURBUS is made possible by the kind support of our sponsors. Please take a moment to visit today's sponsors and thank them for keeping the Bus rolling.

ANOTHER SEARCH OPTION

Paul Bohn from Ohio says:

WebFerret is good for obscure searches and often reveals some fascinating results. There's a free version with a "nag" splash screen on startup as well as a paid version. The free version is quite fast and gives a quick list. I was unable to find any spyware in this product, so feel good about mentioning it.

http://www.ferretsoft.com

(Ed: This is software that you download and install on your Windows PC, not a web-based search engine like Google. It queries multiple search engines and combines the results for you. Personally, I prefer a web solution such as MetaCrawler or DogPile, but lots of TOURBUS riders have told me they love WebFerret. Give it a try and see which works best for you.)

JUST IN CASE...

Barry Wallis, occasionally materializing on the terrestrial plane, quips:

Thanks for keeping the Tourbus going. I've been a reader for many years and find useful info in nearly each issue. Paper CD Case is a site that prints out guides on a sheet of paper that let you make your own origami CD cases with track listing, or print out the jewel case inserts.

http://www.papercdcase.com/index.php

STOP THIS CRAZY THING!

Mark Mallett, presumed in the vicinity of New Hampshire, wrote:

In your article on "Bots and Intelligent Agents" you said: > Remember back when you were a kid, watching The Jetsons and wishing
> someone would invent a robot to do your chores? Decades later, I
> still haven't realized the promise of a machine to run the vacuum

I take it you don't have your Roomba yet :-)

http://www.roombavac.com

(Ed: Wow! A robotic vacuum cleaner for under $200. I may have to give Rosie her walking papers.)

Mark Feldman from Walnut Creek, CA opined thusly:

SegPlay is a fun, free, and challenging interactive artistic experience which allows you to color in detailed patterns of photographs and well known art images, without lifting a paint brush or crayon. It's the largest collection of Paint by Number patterns on the Internet!

http://www.segmation.com/SegPlayChoose.asp

(Ed: My 15-year-old daughter Anna road-tested this one for me and gave it two thumbs up.)

ARE YOUR EARS BURNING?

Kevin Savetz, long-time doer of good cyberdeeds, offers this:

Bob, you may remember many years ago there was a site called Stanford Netnews Filtering Service. It was bought by reference.com, and they eventually killed that very cool service. I kept missing it and finally decided to re-create it.

NetNews Tracker is a new bot that searches Usenet newsgroups twice each day for any phrases that you choose, then delivers any new hits to you via e-mail. You can use it to monitor newsgroups for your name, company, URL, or any other topic of interest, and never miss any discussions on that subject.

http://www.netnewstracker.com

NO STARCH, PLEASE

Jan Itorre, from a freshly swept area of the Internet, says:

This just goes to show that there are people out there with way too much free time on their hands. Extreme Ironing is the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt. Check it out here:

http://www.extremeironing.com/

That's all for now, I'll see you next time! --Bob Rankin