Everyone may be talking about the Information Superhighway,
but have you ever tried getting on it? And once there,
were you able to get around or find what you were looking
for? "Roadside Attractions" by Dave Farrell
will help solve that problem by showing you exactly what
buttons to push on your computer to get to interesting
places, find interesting things, and obtain interesting
information.
Sample
Column
ONLINE
POLITICS
The
U.S. presidential race is heating up and the Internet
is the best way to keep up with all the latest election
news, gossip and opinions. True political junkies have
dozens of URLs they visit each day to stay plugged into
the race. Here are a few of my favorites.
There's
no better place to get your morning fix of political news
than The Washington Post. As Washington, D.C.'s hometown
paper, the Post features world-class political coverage.
Its Internet offerings are just as good. You can see for
yourself by visiting the OnPolitics 2000 Elections Page
at: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/elections/2000.
This
is not a simple page devoted to the presidential race.
This is a full-blown political site that covers state
races, keeps track of political ads and follows the contribution
money as it flows into the candidates' campaign chests.
It not only delivers in-depth backgrounders on candidates
and issues, but also allows you to chat with Washington
Post reporters and the politicians they cover. Oh, yeah,
I almost forgot. It streams up-to-the-minute political
news onto the page as well. All in all, this is a great
resource for anyone serious about following U.S. politics.
Two
other encyclopedic political sites you should bookmark
if you're serious about politics are CNN's All Politics
(www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/index.html)
and C-SPAN's Campaign 2000 (www.c-span.org/campaign2000).
These sites are not for political tourists. They are packed
with information and can be used by serious researchers,
political professionals and academics.
One
cool feature on the C-SPAN site is the Campaign Video
search page (www.c-span.org/campaign2000/search).
This page allows you to search through C-SPAN's video
archive of campaign speeches. You can view entire speeches
or even just the snippets you're interested in. A searchable
video library that delivers free content online? Such
a thing was considered science fiction just a few years
ago.
If
you're addicted to breaking news, you'll want to bookmark
Moreover.com's election page (w.moreover.com/election2000/).
I wrote about Moreover.com a few weeks ago, touting it
as one of the most comprehensive breaking news sites I've
found in a while. Moreover's election page is set up to
gather political news from all over the world while you
do other things.
If
you'd like to narrow your search to news about the two
presidential candidates, you can bookmark the Al Gore
page at w.moreover.com/election2000gore/ and the George
W. Bush page at: w.moreover.com/election2000bush/.
For
a different look at the campaign and the history of presidential
politics in the United States, surf over to the Newseum,
the interactive museum of news (www.newseum.org).
The site currently has a very cool feature called Every
Four Years, On the Campaign Trail. This feature takes
you through presidential campaigns during the 20th century
and shows how politics and news coverage of the races
have evolved over the years. You'll find it at: www.newseum.org/everyfouryears/index.htm.
To really experience this site, you should download Shockwave,
a program that allows you to see and hear video and other
multimedia files. You can download a free Shockwave player
at: www.shockwave.com/.
