Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 00:09:35 -0600
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Sender: The Internet TourBus - A virtual tour of cyberspace
Comments: Resent-From: crispen@netsquirrel.com
Comments: Originally-From: Patrick Douglas Crispen
From: Patrick Douglas Crispen
Subject: TOURBUS -- 30 MAR 00 -- SODA CONSTRUCTOR / HOT KEY HELP
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TOURBUS Volume 5, Number 80 -- 30 March 2000
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Free Greeting Cards, Polls and more fun at http://www.TOURBUS.com !
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Soda Constructor / Hot Key Help
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://www.soda.co.uk/soda/constructor/
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q126/4/49.asp
http://www.apple.com/macos/start/stKB.htm
http://www.commandcorp.com/cci/keystrok.html
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/guide/w95keybd.htm
Howdy, y'all, and greetings once again from sunny Tuscaloosa, vacation
capitol of West Central Alabama! :)
I goofed. Last week, your fearless bus driver was in Washington, DC,
for some meetings at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (that's why Bob wrote last
Thursday's post). Well, my meetings at PwC ended a little early, so I
decided to walk around Washington. In fact, I walked from the
Smithsonian to the Washington Monument ... to the Vietnam Memorial ...
to the Lincoln Memorial ... to the Korean Memorial ... to the FDR
memorial ... to the Jefferson Memorial [or is it the Jefferson
Monument -- I forget] ... back to the Smithsonian.
Where did I goof? Well, while visiting all of the monuments was great
(and the cherry blossoms were beautiful), no one bothered to tell me
that the 'great monument circle walk' is, and I swear I am not making
this up, about TWELVE THOUSAND MILES LONG! The FDR Memorial? It's
really in WINNIPEG! No one bothers to tell you this. My legs are
STILL hurting!
TOURBUS is made possible by the kind support of our sponsors. I thank
the folks at "PetFoodDirect.com," "Handtech.com," and "Hoover's
Online" for making today's post possible. As always, please visit our
wonderful sponsors and thank them for keeping the bus rolling!
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On with the show ...
----------------
Soda Constructor
----------------
My friend Wolfe Kincaid (half of the world-famous "Lee and Wolfe"
radio show) recently showed me the weirdest and most engaging Web
site I have seen in a LONG time: Soda's Constructor at
http://www.soda.co.uk/soda/constructor/ .
Created by Ed Head, Constructor is a wonderful, Java-enabled Web tool
that "animates and edits two dimensional models made out of masses and
springs." This sounds dreadfully boring, but the joy of Constructor
is that you can also play around with these moving models. For
example, you can pick up a model (with your mouse) by clicking and
dragging on any part of it. This, you will discover, is an
extraordinary amount of fun. Constructor even lets you play God,
changing the gravity, friction, and strength laws that govern your
poor, defenseless crawly thingy. [One word of warning: don't be
drinking any liquids when you start playing around with the gravity.
I very nearly sprayed Coke all over my laptop because I was laughing
so hard at the effects my gravity changes were having on a particular
model.]
If you get tired of the pre-built models, you can construct ones of
your own -- although you can't save your models (yet). For
instructions on how to build a model, animate it, and use muscles,
scroll down the Constructor page. The instructions are pretty easy.
The hardest thing to understand is how the wave form works.
Anyway, if you are looking for one of the most charming, engaging, and
just plain fun sites on the Net, look no further. Soda's Constructor
provides you with hours of productivity-killing fun! :)
------------
Hot Key Help
------------
Two weeks ago, I asked
Does anyone know of a good site that lists most of the universal
hot key combinations (like Ctrl + C to copy, or Alt + Tab to
switch applications)? I was planning to talk about this in
today's post, but I am having problems finding a COMPLETE
listing.
It is a well-known fact that TOURBUS riders are both smarter and
significantly better looking than other Internet users, so it should
come as a surprise to no one that your fellow TOURBUS riders
recommended a whole mess of hot key resources.
Why talk about hot keys in the first place? Well, they make you more
efficient. You'd be hard pressed to find a Microsoft Word or Corel
WordPerfect expert -- or, for that matter, a TOURBUS rider -- who
doesn't know about and regularly use Ctrl + C (copy), Ctrl + V (paste
or, as I like to call it, "Velcro"), Ctrl + X (cut), and especially
Ctrl + Z (undo -- I use Ctrl + Z at least a hundred times a day!).
But there are more hot key combinations than these! One of the best
hot key guides -- the one recommended by DOZENS of your fellow TOURBUS
riders -- is Microsoft's "Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows" page at
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q126/4/49.asp .
If you have a Mac, don't panic -- many of Windows' keyboard shortcuts
work perfectly well on Macs too! Of course, if you are a Mac user and
would rather eat worms than visit any Web page created by the boys and
girls in Redmond, Apple has created its own keyboard shortcut page at
http://www.apple.com/macos/start/stKB.htm .
[Special thanks go to "Kelly" for recommending this site.]
Will Stuivenga recommends two additional resources:
http://www.commandcorp.com/cci/keystrok.html
and
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/guide/w95keybd.htm .
The commandcorp.com page was also recommended by several other TOURBUS
riders, including "Lynch" and "Martin Katz."
I want to thank everyone who suggested these and other sites. Your
fearless bus driver still has a few more sites to check out, so be
looking for one or two more hot key resources in the weeks to come!
That's it for this week. Have a safe and happy weekend, and we'll
talk again next week! :)
TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP(S):
Soda Constructor / Hot Key Help
TODAY'S TOURBUS ADDRESS(ES):
http://www.soda.co.uk/soda/constructor/
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q126/4/49.asp
http://www.apple.com/macos/start/stKB.htm
http://www.commandcorp.com/cci/keystrok.html
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/guide/w95keybd.htm
---------------------------------
TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE WEEK
---------------------------------
SOH-WUR (adjective). Painfully sensitive.
Usage: "Mercy, my muscles are soh-wur"
[Special thanks go to Becky Florence for today's word]
You can find all of the old Southern Words of the day at
http://netsquirrel.com/crispen/word.html
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