tumbledry

Stuff from February, 2000

This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on February, 2000.

The Lord of the Rings

The Source for everything related to this book is at theonering.com

While reading in a magazine, I found the URL to this wonderful Lord of the Rings site. The Lord of the Rings is a very famous fantasy trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien. When a recent fantasy book is very well written, it is sometimes compared to the quality of The Lord of the Rings. Usually whenever a website is listed in a printed source, that website is very well done; theonering.com is definitely not the exception to that rule. This site is very professional and well kept up; it almost looks like an official site. There will be a feature film coming out in about a year and a half from now that will cover the whole book; this website already has information about that movie. Insider informaion like where shooting is taking place, who is in what role, what producer is upset, problems the filming crew has been having, even some hints as to the script! New information updates occur anywhere from daily to weekly depending on the amount of news. There are many opinion articles about different parts of the book and there are even sections that cover specifically the dates that certain events in the book occurred. All this is enough to keep ven the most rabid fan busy for hours. For those of us who haven’t read the book, there is art inspired by the book that will give anyone a good idea of some of the secenes. If you are the kind of person who likes to chat about this topic, that option is also available on this website. So, if you are looking for the definitive LOTR source, look no more!

So you think your area gets a lot of snow?

Find out how much a lot of snow really is!

An article in the newspaper gave the address to a nifty site about snow fall around the world. The Discovery Online Extreme Snow Page has tons of information on snow. Find out about the 90 some feet of snow that fell in Washington state in the 1998 to 1999 winter year. This site is chock full of information. It has history about the amount of snow that fell in ancient times, a snow quiz, and also has information about the snowiest place on earth. Go to the site to find out what it is. The Extreme Snow page also has a link to “Earth Alert” where surfers can view tons of weather information from around the globe. In addition to the cool facts, the pictures are awesome, too. The photo gallery contains many interesting snow pictures. This site isn’t just about snow, you can learn about any kind of Extreme Weather from the link off of the Extreme Snow page. Because this site is part of the Discovery Channel’s website, it has a vast amount of references. Overall, I am very impressed with the design, information, and especially the cool little quiz!

Skin Your Internet Explorer Browser!

Don’t know what a “skin” is? Read on to find out!

hotbar.com is a great idea. The program on this site puts a “skin” on your browser. “Skins” are pictures that fit onto the window of a program. The navigation bar of your browser has things like “Stop” “Home”, etc. This program will put a skin of your choice behind these buttons and make your browser look pretty! Installation on the site is easy and fast. In addition to this, if you don’t like the program, it can be easily uninstalled using the “Add-Remove Programs” option in the Control Panel in Windows. I tried out the program and the skin browser offered on the site and both worked flawlessly. The program installed online and I was then directed to an area of the site where I could browse the skin’s themselves. The program is very professional and product support on the website is excellent. The skins are cool, too. There are many skins to choose from: everything from nature to sports to user contributions. The user is shown previews of the skins, and you simply click on the skin and it is downloaded and installed to your browser. If you are tired of skins, one click will restore your browser to its original appearance. hotbar.com doesn’t only have the skin option, it installs some useful features right into your browser. These features take up space and I didn’t examine them to see what they did because they were so annoying. Some surfers may find these features conveinent, though, so I would recommend going to the site and finding our for yourself today!

The Operating Systems War

Ask a Windows user if they like Macs, chances are they will say “No way!”; ask a Mac user if they like Windows and you will get the exact same reply. Why are people so narrow minded? It doesn’t make so much sense to be so attached to software. The situation is, essentially, one group is attached to one arrangement of 0s and 1s, the other group is attached to a different, but similar, group of 0s and 1s. Of course there is the third group who is loyal to Linux, but that is a completely different story. How can you be loyal to bits and bytes? Lets take a look at where the rift began.

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Optical Illusions on the Internet

Find the best at illusionworks.com

I checked out a cool site today; I was really suprised at the amount of awards it had won. Omnivision Winner, EDUnet Choice Award, Editors Choice from Bonus.com, Cool site from Exploratorium, and the Parent Soup Souper site award. After a little investigation, I can see how this site got so many awards. The amount of information is amazing! Just listen how the authors describe it:

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Do You Like Roller Coasters?

The Best Roller Coaster Site out there is at rollercoaster.com

Some people think the web has everything you would want to know. I would disagree; but the web does have a site about roller coasters; rollercoaster.com. This is probably the premier resource about roller coasters on the internet. The site lists the Top 10 Coasters and the Top Ten Parks; statistics determined by this site’s many visitors. Some of the many sections include Park Reviews, a Photo Gallery, Roller Coaster History, Upcoming Events, Record Holders, Designer’s Corner, Clubs and Organizations, Games and Quizes, Forums, and I can honestly say there is much more in addition to that! The coverage is all encompasing with pop up definitions for roller coaster jargon and even a getting started page. According to this site, Cedar Point in Ohio is the best coaster park with 14 rides! There are even multiple pictures of each coaster. In addition to all of this the forum allows you to interact with other coaster enthusiasts. There are a bumch of comment boards where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about the subject of roller coasters. My personal experience with forum like this has been great. The user can post a question and get an answer from a well informed person within days. Anybody interested in roller coasters would find this site an excellent resource.

Global Warming

The state of Minnesota is stereotypically known for getting a lot of snow. But, in the past five years, that has changed. We just don’t get the amount of snow we used to. The last real blizzard we had was about 6 years ago.

Some say it is just a weather cycle, which could be the case, others cite El Niño and its sister La Niña which are out of season increases in ocean temperature. Of course there is also the possiblity of our sun being the factor that is causing the average snow to diminish. The sun goes in 11 year cycles where the surface activities ebb and flow. These cycles effect the amount of energy that reaches Earth. This, in turn, can change the average seasonal temperature and determine if there is rain, snow, or no precipitation. There is a possiblity of one of these concepts being the reason for less snow, but another very convincing possiblity is global warming.

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