All the News You Can Use
Top 20 List Not to Miss
News Junkies Rejoice!
News on the Home Front
It's All in Your Mind
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All the News You Can Use
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Staying informed about current events is important. One way to do that is to read the newspaper. Luckily, there are Web sites that provide links to newspapers and other forms of media so that you stay informed. Two specific sites that offer links to U.S. and international newspapers are OnlineNewspapers.com, and NewsDirectory.com.
- Onlinenewspapers
Offering newspapers from around the world, this site organizes countries into discreet and understandable drop-down region lists. The regions available include North America (including and excluding the U.S.), Europe, United Kingdom, Asia, Asia Pacific, South East Asia, South Pacific, Africa, Central America, South America, West Indies, and the Middle East. Under each region heading, you can select the country you want from the drop-down menu. Do not worry if you are unsure about a certain country’s location because you can search alphabetically.
- Newsdirectory
Newsdirectory gives you access to more than just newspapers. Here you will find links to other media such as radio, magazines, and television. Not just limited to the U.S., the media comes from all over the world. Search options include subject, region, type of media, or U.S. area code. Although this site covers more types of media, it is not as comprehensive as the previous site. The way countries and regions are organized may also be confusing for visitors. For example, I found the heading of "Oceania" unclear and wondered why Yemen and the United Arab Emirates were located in the Asia section.
Reading newspapers, whether paper or electronic, gives you up-to-date information about breaking stories and events. Web sites that organize and link to newspapers give you all the news you can use in one convenient place.
Evie Kalnins
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A Top 20 List Not to Miss!
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SANS Institute / FBI Internet Security Vulnerabilities List
Site-tation visited this site last year and we are including an update because it is such a valuable resource. The SANS Institute and the FBI have updated their top 20 Internet security risks list. It is a valuable checklist for any organization that has computers connected to the Internet. Split between Windows and Unix, it identifieds vulnerabilities to Web servers, Web browsers, and other software you are likely to run on your computers.
A few years ago, an Internet security list might not have been an important resource for the legal profession. As the number of lawyers connected permanently to the Internet - through a T1 or other broadband connection - grows, the security risks posed to law firms has never been greater. It is important to keep in mind that if you are running Windows 2000 on a server, you are vulnerable to the security threats whether or not you are using the Microsoft Internet Information Server Web server. IIS is installed by default, and turned on, on most Windows 2000 servers. Even if you are not using a particular computer as a Web server, it may still be acting as one if you have not turned off the default settings. While many of the problems highlighted by last year's list have dropped off, there are still plenty of items - relating to passwords, network shared folders and resources, and browsers - to warrant a review of your systems.
This list is especially valuable because it takes you through the specific fixes for the problems you might have. It links to the relevant documents on Microsoft's Knowledge base, patches, and other software that can fix the problems on the list. The same goes for Unix systems. You will find links to the Apache Web server site for fixes and information, as well as many other resources to help you identify and solve the particular issues that exist in your environment. At the end of the list you can also find information about making your network less accessible to Internet attacks, by blocking ports. Appendix A outlines the most commonly accessed "ports" - doorways into your network and computers, some of which are left open by default - and the need to secure them both on your network hardware (routers, etc.) and on the individual computers on your network. Any open door, anywhere on your network, can be exploited.
David Whelan
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News Junkies Rejoice!
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It's a surprise to few that Internet news content has become increasingly fee-based. Popular web sites like Salon.com and Television Without Pity have struggled to provide free content, while meeting their bandwidth and administrative expenses. Lexis-Nexis and Factiva have become necessities in many office settings. In this difficult economy, it is still possible to enjoy quality news stories for free or at a minimal cost. Google News and Northern Light are havens for the penny pinching information seeker.
- Google News
Google News is well designed, fun, and quite addicting. Google News is not the product of a dedicated staff but a computer algorithm. It is compiled from over 4,000 news outlets, primarily foreign and domestic newspapers. Searches on Google News are conducted similarly to those on the Google Search page. Results are sorted by either relevance or date. Dead links are commonplace on Google News, as many newspapers remove their stories seven to fourteen days after publication.
- Northern Light
Northern Light was long the favorite search engine of information professionals, in the pre Google era. Now owned by divine, Inc., Northern Light has gotten out the search business and now provides full text information for a nominal fee. Most individual articles cost around $3. It has access to a staggering amount (7,100) of magazine and journals, dating back to 1995. Northern Light boasts a straight-forward, crisp design and a straight forward search feature. Result pages contain a left sidebar listing many related topics. The service provided by Northern Light more than justifies its minor price tag.
News seekers need to be savvy Internet searchers. These web sites can be wonderful research tools. If you are on the hunt for news articles, determine your search terms, your internet destinations, and a budget (if any). Enjoy getting a lot of news for very little cost!
Molly Kilmer Flood
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News on the Home Front
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NewspaperLinks.com
Whether you’ve set up permanent residence miles away from your roots, or
taken to the road for a few short weeks or months, it’s only natural to look
back from time to time, wondering what’s going on back home.
Even if you’ve been away so long you can’t remember the name of the local newspapers,
NewpaperLinks.com can lead you back to the neighborhood rag. Just find
your state on the U.S. map, click, and behold the names and origins of
any number of local newspapers. Clicking on your newspaper of choice
delivers you to the home page, where you can take advantage of whatever
offerings your state or local newspaper provides. You can access
international newspapers, as well.
Like most portal sites, which aggregate information and make
it easier to find, the utility of NewspaperLinks.com is its
convenience and stark simplicity. You can search a couple of different
ways: by geographical area, sectional feature like shopping
or classified ads, or publication frequency. The site is a service
of the nonprofit Newspaper Association of America, which represents
the newspaper industry and over 2000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.
But don’t blame the messenger if you’re disappointed once you find your way
back to your old newspaper haunts. A few of them are little more than Web window
dressing, while others will fully satisfy your craving for news, local color
and let’s face it- good old-fashioned hometown gossip.
Kathryn Thompson
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It's All in Your Mind
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InfoMinder
Longtime Site-tation readers may remember our review of Spyonit, a web service that allows registered users to receive notification of changes on websites of interest. Spyonit went on "hiatus" in July and will not be available again until "late Fall 2002". In the meantime, for all of those who are now addicted to those handy updates, there is another site that provides similar services. iMorph's InfoMinder allows registered users to track changes for 10 websites for free or up to 100 sites for an annual fee of $25.00. They also provide an Enterprise level to track sites firmwide. InfoMinder has many features in common with Spyonit, with a few twists.
Like Spyonit, InfoMinder provides an email alert when changes are made to a webpage. A summary of these changes is sent via email, with a hyperlink to the page. A major difference in this service, the link sent by InfoMinder takes the user to a page with the changes highlighted. This is a nice touch, especially for very long pages or very subtle changes. InfoMinder does not track an entire site - only specific pages. Dropped text, changes in HTML tags that do not affect the visible page, and changes to images are not reported.
InfoMinder, like Spyonit, has added functionality for Internet Explorer users. By downloading the "IE Assistant" users can set up "minders" with a simple right click while browsing. Users have the option to mind a page or a link. The "mind a link" function is only available for users using Internet Explorer 5.0 and higher. It enables notification for changes to text and image hyperlinks within a webpage. Through the users' account pages these minders can be modified, deleted, and added, as well as many other options.
Users have many features available when setting up a minder. Categories can be assigned so that a user receives an e-mail digest organized by category. Filters can be set up to send notification only when certain keywords appear in the site, when a certain number of changes occur, or send notification after a specified number of days. Sites that require authentication (i.e. username and password) can be tracked by entering authentication information into InfoMinder.
At the paid or enterprise level, users can download their Internet Explorer bookmarks into InfoMinder. iMorph offers suggestions for use, such as tracking RSS feeds for headlines and other content. They even provide a directory of popular RSS resources. InfoMinder is a great way to keep abreast of changes on sites that do not provide update newsletters or "what's new" columns. If you are a Spyonit user waiting for it to come back, take a look at InfoMinder.
Catherine Sanders Reach
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