John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Fill your cup and shadow the stars

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, July 3, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

Learn how the Stanley Cup evolved from a fairly simple bowl into the iconic, extended shape it has today, plan your vacation stops around where famous movie scenes were filmed, and learn the basics of genetics … all without stepping away from your computer. Those sites, and more, are on this week's browsing agenda.

Stanley Cup
How many kids, do you think, will have an indelible memory for the decades of the day they saw Daniel Cleary and the Stanley Cup at Harbour Grace? As sports trophies go, there aren't many as iconic as the Cup, which has its roots in an elegant bowl that Lord Stanley purchased from an English shop in 1892 to spark interest in the then-growing sport of ice hockey. The NHL's official site is loaded up to the rim with trivia and facts about the famous cup, which spends more time on the road each year than Willie Nelson.

Movie Locations Guide
Ever wanted to run up the steps that Sylvester Stallone mounted in Rocky? Case the building where Bruce Willis fought the bad guys in Die Hard? Dream moonily like Audrey Hepburn did on Fifth Avenue at Breakfast at Tiffany's? How about just fighting gophers, a la Bill Murray, at the golf course in Caddyshack? All of these films are among the movie locations listed at this site, with street addresses where movie fans can indulge themselves. The site also features some locations used in TV shows, from the Satriale's pork shop in The Sopranos to the mangy motel in My Name is Earl.

DNA From the Beginning
My son went to a science camp this past school year, and learned enough about DNA to dwarf what I could possibly have known at his age. (It is, indeed, very humbling to hear an eight-year-old explain the basics of genetics.) This multimedia site explains, step by step, what genes are, how some are dominant when they're passed along the generations, and how genetic components function. Breezy-easy it's not, but isn't that what DNA is all about? 

Geekologie
If you're one of those people who says something like "Sweet!" under your breath when you see something like, say, an action figure for Guitar Hero aficionados, Geekologie is owed a visit. The slogan – Gadgets, Gizmos and Awesome – will also give you a clue of what to expect. Toasters that send toast not just into the air but the stratosphere; boom-like attachments that swing your computing stuff around, so you could, conceivably, never get out of bed; irreverent products that will catch your friends' eye when they visit … yep, it's all there.

Mind Reader Game
Here's something that can appeal to those who believe in psychic powers, as well as the more rationally inclined. Actually, it's mostly for the latter. This game asks respondents to do a little math, click a button, and then be impressed by the result. The word in that sentence, by the way, is "math," and if you're not persuaded, click on the explanation at the end for more information.

Shape invasion
Triangles, circles, rectangles – sure, they may be the most basic of shapes, but in this shoot-‘em-up game, they're the villains. One evening few weeks ago, I tried this game out … and found myself an hour later, nudging myself to do something more productive. While writing this column, I found myself spending a wee bit too much time trying to reach the next level. Consider yourself warned.

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.

By and Marge: How well do you know Springfield?

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, June 26, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

How well do you know the people in your neighbourhood? More than five dozen faces appear before you, and you have a limited time in which to name each one … including some you've only seen once. The upside: some are world famous. They're also yellow.

Simpsons character quiz
Finally! A quiz to reward the many, many half-hours I have invested (yes, I use the word advisedly) in watching the Simpsons over the years. The setup is easy: you have 10 minutes to identify 63 faces, which hardcore fans will know is far from a complete list of characters who have appeared on the show over almost two decades of production. I was pleased (relieved, in some ways, shamed in others) to have gotten them all correct, which at least proves I've been paying attention.

Elsewhere this week

How Google Works
Google has been so huge, for so long, we take it for granted. At least one in every two searches on the web uses Google, which also dominates in other areas, from news delivery to e-mail clients to blogging software. How Google Works is a slight scan of how your search works, with a brief timeline about how Google has kept growing over the last decade.

Square Foot Gardening
Container gardening has become a popular alternative for gardeners who want plants and fresh vegetables on the deck. Square-foot gardening applies that minimal way of thinking to the soil, with very small plots for each plant. You'll find plenty of ideas at this site administered by Mel Bartholomew; the site's look is pretty outdated, and even though he's selling products here, you don't have to do any shopping at all to pick up some great ideas.

Express Scribe
Ever had the joy of transcribing a lot of audio? You'll know, then, that I'm being facetious. Transcribing is drudgery. Express Scribe is a downloadable program that attempts to speed up the process. It has the special advantage of being free. (It also hooks up to various foot pedals, which experienced transcribers will recognize as being very helpful indeed.)

Google has been so huge, for so long, we take it for granted. At least one in every two searches on the web uses Google, which also dominates in other areas, from news delivery to e-mail clients to blogging software. How Google Works is a slight scan of how your search works, with a brief timeline about how Google has kept growing over the last decade.

Redesign Me
Ever picked something up and thought you could do a better job? I'll cop to thinking that when reading something, but I don't have a clue about product design. Redesign Me is aimed at people who do, and moreover is built on the philosophy (quite a trendy one at the moment) that the crowd knows more than you do. The site only launched last fall, and its RDM Challenges launched just this month. That said, registered users may get a kick out of chipping in. Some obstacles seem obvious: companies will need to trust their designs with an open-source flavour, and contributors may resent their ideas floating out without remuneration. Still, this is the sort of web venture that may find niche followings.

This Next
What are people buying online? You won't find much economic data here. In fact, none … other than seemingly random tidbits of information about items that people have been picking up through online shopping sites. There are plenty of sites that are basically mashups with Google Earth; this one is one of the more frivolous, and yet I bet plenty of people would find it entertaining just to sit back and watch for a few minutes.

The Pixar Process
With Toy Story, Cars, Ratatouille and especially with The Incredibles, Pixar has made some stunningly good films, and not just compared with other animated features. This feature on the Pixar site explains the basics of a film (in this case, Monsters Inc.) gets made. The main problem? It's all too brief.

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.

Where there's fire, there's Firefox

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, June 19, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

One thing dominated the web this week, and it has a curly red tail. Firefox launched its latest edition Tuesday, and enough of the world rushed to have a look that the world practically stood still.

Kidding. But the servers ready to serve up Firefox 3 were so overwhelmed at the launch, they couldn't keep up. Later, when things calmed down around suppertime Newfoundland time, they were allowed for about 14,000 downloads per minute.

That's right – per minute. That's a whole lotta download.

Firefox
For some people, choosing a browser is like choosing a cola; if you don't care about Coke or Pepsi, you may not care about Explorer or Firefox (or any others, like Safari or Opera). But for some people – millions of them, actually – it is very much a big deal.

I like Firefox, and quite a lot. That said, I use Explorer as my default browser, which causes some headscratching among some friends. (One went so far as to get mad, which I thought a bit much.) It's not my choice. I'm more or less forced to, because several of the web-based programs I use to do my job simply will not work on anything other than Internet Explorer.

Explorer accounts for almost three out of every browsers, which speaks to Microsoft's dominance in the racket.

Yet Firefox, which launched as a browser less than four years ago, is a solid No. 2, and nothing compares to the fervour of its fan base. If you've never veered from Explorer and its upgrades, you've benefited from its innovations: tabbing and auto-fill-ins for search queries, to name but two, started from Firefox.

I'm curious to see what will come out of Firefox 3, other than the boffo publicity stunt of Tuesday's launch. (Asking the fan base to try to set a Guinness world record was an inspired bit of marketing, given that it's basically meaningless!)

The cool thing is this: no one knows what the long-term implications are yet. Why? The people who are going to adapt this open-source code were just getting it themselves this week. Let's stay tuned and see what's around the corner.

Elsewhere this week

Viral Video Chart
Whether it's something new and amusing (a video featuring a band completely comprised of robots), or an "old" classic from, well, months ago, like a would-be beauty queen making a royal mess of why Americans are lousy at geography, viral videos have become a staple of daily life for millions. The Viral Video Chart lets you keep up with what's what, with traffic stats parsed over the last day, week, month and year. Choose the first for the freshest; choose the latter for all-time knockouts, like who's been, um, naughty with Matt Damon or Ben Affleck.

Mixwit
A month ago, I pointed readers toward Muxtape, a fun site that has a mixtape kind of flair with all the convenience of online streaming. A friend has in turn referred me to Mixwit, which has more, well, wit. It can be personalized easily enough, and you'll want to share your stuff with your bestest buds.

Toon Crisis
Here's a shoot-'em-up game that has a loony edge, or at least one like Looney Tunes. With Toon Crisis, you see a backdrop of urban alleys and streets … and then cartoon villains start popping up at you. Good, clean fun. (And watch for the boxes; nail one of those and you get "devil fingers," or double the firing power.)

How Many Sequels Were There?
Not just the classics spark sequels at the movie theatres. For some reason, the likes of Hellraiser, Leprechaun and Children of the Corn spawned sequels. But how many, exactly? Here's a movie trivia quiz that rewards those fans who know, and love, their crud.

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.

The weight of the world, measured in cats

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, June 12, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

I've bookmarked a few helpful websites that handle conversions: you know, from metres to yards, pounds to dollars, centimetres to inches. But what about other, more creative conversions? Your weekly tour of the web starts there, and includes a site that plays with its words, some sources for scoping out quality photographs, and a water cooler for the Jane Austen set.

Sensible Units
A metre is just over three feet in length ... but did you know it's also the same length as 20 AA batteries, laid end to end? Did you know 10 square miles is the size of 13 Monacos? Or that 100 kilograms is equal to the weight of 20 average cats? Neither did I. The cool thing about Sensible Units is that it converts various units of measurement into things that may mean something more, say, realistic. For instance, 10 metres equals 5.1 Kobe Bryants, or 2.3 double-decker buses stacked on each other. That said, I was a bit surprised that units like litres and gallons didn't trigger anything. Doesn't volume count for anything anymore?

Will you
"Your friends will betray you. Time will not wait for you." Those are two of the messages that float along the screen on this page, among many, many unusual groupings of words that have only two words in common. The game: you can create your own phrase. The idea is simple: you have two blank fields, with the words "will" and "you" parked alongside them, leaving you to be creative with the words you choose. Some of the submitted phrases are a bit tasteless, so be warned. One of my favourites: "Anonymous will annoy you."

PicApp
Every Stock Photo
Photographic sites and services abound on the web, and here are two that are aimed at people who publish their own blogs and sites. PicApp has a rich supply of images for you to consider. You don't download what you like, but rather copy some code into your file (if working with code frightens you, you may be deterred, but it's actually really easy). Every Stock Photo boasts a free service, but that doesn't mean everything on it is free for you to use. What is free is registration. From there, you'll be directed to a library, where the licensing terms may vary from one photo to the next. It pays to read the fine print, but if you're in the business of needing to source photographic materials, you probably (and hopefully!) know all that already.

Locate TV
Here's a service that has some potential. It's still in beta, which is a fancy way of saying they're still testing it out, so don't get peeved when it doesn't work. The idea is simple: type in a TV show or an actor's name, and find out when you'll next see it on the air. The beta part is key for this limitation: you have to live in the U.S., the U.K or Ireland to get locally relevant listings. That said, I liked poking around this clean and attractive site, even just to see which shows are now available on DVD.

The Republic of Pemberley
How to explain the allure of Jane Austen? Apart from the often-lush film and TV adaptations of the last decade or so, Austen's novels hold up to this day, I think, because they are simply great reads. The Republic of Pemberley is named after the home of the esteemed Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, and it's a gathering ground for Austen fans ... and there's a lot of them, to judge from the activity here.

Two-bit explanation
What's a bit? Why's a byte? What's a gig? They're all here. If you've always been curious, now you know.

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.

My phone is crappier than your phone (and I don't care)

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, June 5, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

In the film version of Sex and the City that opened last weekend, there's a scene in which a distraught, hysterical Carrie Bradshaw needs to make a call, and asks a friend to lend her a phone. (Without giving too much away – it's pretty early in the film – it's important to know she's in a wedding dress, and thus doesn't have one of her own.)

She's handed an iPhone, the too-cool-for-school gadget from Apple. "I can't work this!" shrieks Carrie, or at least that's what I recall her saying. She soon gets a regular, old-fashioned phone – you know, one with buttons.

The joke got a few laughs at the screening we attended, but it's a joke with a limited shelf life. It was funnier, I'm sure, when they were shooting the movie last year, and the iPhone's sheer, slick screen was brand-new … and maybe a little intimidating to gadgetphobes.

It may even work next year, when the DVD edition still seems current. Years from now, though, I doubt the line will work at all.

Why? By then, Apple's iPhone will be as mainstream as, well, its iPod was a few years ago, and so tool will be the knockoffs and competitors.

Technology news blogs and sites top one another with advances in what's coming down the cellphone pike. Guaranteed will be the ability to stream live full-motion video over the web, right to your mobile. (Calling it a "phone" does seem a bit limiting, after all, as you may wind up only rarely using it to place a call.)

Indeed, whether or not you ever have an iPhone, I'm sure your mobile will likely become the hub of how you live. It will become your TV, your jukebox, and a Slingbox-like device that will seamlessly connect your entertainment equipment and your PC. You won't have to study a manual; you'll turn it on, like a TV set. You'll play games, manage all your communications, pay your bills, make recordings and, basically, manage every slice of minutiae in your digital life.

And we don't even have the iPhone yet in Canada. [Note: After this article appeared, a launch date of July 11 was announced.] When Rogers, which has the rights here all locked up, finally launches it, maybe we'll see plenty of Carrie Bradshaw moments all over the place.

I'm sure, though, we'll adapt.

Personally, I can live with what I have. I use an old, dented (no kidding) Motorola that has a very basic array of services. And I'm OK with it. I work at my desk most of the day, and don't need an office-on-the-go, one that fits in my pocket.

Nonetheless, I sooner or later would like a device that will make it easier for me to work on the fly. Being able to update and manage my websites – the nitty-gritty details, that is – from a coffee shop or the back of a cab? Catching up on a TV show I recorded on my PVR and dumped to my mobile, while I eat lunch at my desk? Managing the countless strands of data, from my calendar to my bank account? Watching TV – live, no buffering, in high-resolution?

Yep, those are things I would very much like to do. As much as I like the gadgets, I can wait for the right device, at the right price, to come along.

Elsewhere this week

Sketch
Make a sketch, then exchange it with a total stranger. Use your mouse to draw anything you want. If you’re not impressed with your work, hit “undo” and try again. When you’re ready, click on “swap,” and your image heads off to someone, somewhere. In return, you get someone else’s sketch. It’s kind of cool. Be warned, though; there is no moderation, which means you could be sent anything.

13 Awesome Screensavers
Ah, the screensaver. Before flat screens and current technologies, computer monitors had the unfriendly habit of burning in their images, should they be left alone too long. A brilliant workaround was developed: the screensaver, which not only prevented your Quattro Pro spreadsheet from becoming ingrained on your screen, but gave you, say, flying toasters or endless spirals to gaze at. Here’s a tribute to some of the best.

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.

Life on Mars? And other questions

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, May 29, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

If you're a David Bowie fan, you probably know the tune Life on Mars?, a punctuated song that came to mind as I heard a newscast Monday morning about the landing the night before of the Phoenix craft on the so-called red planet.

Phoenix Mars Landing
Hosted by the University of Arizona, which became the first university to ever sponsor a space mission, this site has a bit of nerdy giddiness to it. You can read blogs posted by excited collaborators, read up on how the mission worked, and (hopefully by the time you're reading this) download a weather widget, which can keep your desktop continually updated with the Martians, as it were. The kids section may appeal to the science-club crowd.

NASA: Phoenix
By contrast, the NASA page on Phoenix is much more official looking, and (as you might expect from the agency, which long ago realized that space photos are like gold chips on the internet) loaded to the brim with visual goodies, including videos. I imagine the horde will only get richer.

If you're visiting NASA for the first time, poke around beyond the Phoenix pages. There's a lot to read, see and hear; look for podcast links, schedules for other missions, and some eye-popping visuals.

Elsewhere this week

Terry Fox: Tour of Hope
On Sunday, Betty Fox was in St. John's to officially unveil the fully restored Ford Econoline van that Terry Fox used in 1980 for the history-making Marathon of Hope. I was surprised how much I recalled of that van, just from TV clips alone. The restored van is heading west; check out the official site for details and its history.

St. John's Farmers Market
Next week, the St. John's Farmers Market kicks into gear, working from a new space by the Lions Chalet off Mayor Avenue. I've long envied the markets in other cities (in downtown Halifax, the long-vacant Keith's brewery site has been converted to a vibrant weekend market) and wondered why one hasn't been fostered here. From June 7 until the end of November, a market will draw farmers and other vendors.

Kubrick 2001
In 1968, Stanley Kubrick unveiled 2001: A Space Odyssey, which arguably remains one of the greatest films of all time. Even by today's advances, it remains visually stunning, and just as mystifying as when it stumped audiences four decades ago. This Flash-based site explains the film's four main sections and their many metaphors. Parts of the animation are clunky, but I liked sitting back and watching the presentation, which if nothing else only made me want to watch the whole thing again.

Biggest Drawing in the World
Have you ever seen how a GPS readout can resemble a drawing – not necessarily a good or even understandable one, but a sketch nonetheless? The idea behind this project was not to produce something random, but quite the opposite: to design a drawing by shipping a GPS-equipped suitcase around the world, and then applying the route of its travels with a map of the world. Quite a trip, indeed.

Icon Look
Looking for icons for a website, a presentation or a document? One option is Icon Look, a search engine just for (yep) icons. Who knew one needed to exist? Well, maybe it needs some work. I tried out some sample queries, and only one of six produced anything decent. I was more pleasant browing through random icons, and finished my visit wondering why the search results were disappointing.

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.

Dylan and Cohen cross paths on Duckworth

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, May 22, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, as fate should have it, will each be in St. John's this weekend. Dylan will be celebrating his 67th birthday with a concert at Mile One on Saturday night; the next evening, Cohen opens a three-night run up the hill at the Holy Heart auditorium.

We have tickets to see both, and I’m mightily looking forward to each show. This week, we start with some of the websites that follow two musical legends.

Bob Dylan
As official sites of musicians go, Bob Dylan sets the gold standard – which ain’t bad, considering Dylan has been setting boundaries, and then breaking them, for more than 45 years running. Fans should consider checking in regularly (this is how I got tickets, in advance, to this weekend’s show) for inside tips and such, although the great value of the site is its complete database of Dylan lyrics. There’s plenty else to sample, including external links to an array of official videos.

Expecting Rain
The news section on the Dylan site is actually pretty sparse; it, wisely, directs fans to Expecting Rain, a Norway-based fan site that is, simply, voluminous in its listings. If something is being said about Bob Dylan, somewhere, a link will likely show up here. Amazing.

Theme Time Radio Hour
In 2006, Dylan started a new career as a DJ, as host of Theme Time Radio Hour, on the XM satellite service. You can listen here (through an online subscription), and also learn more about the show.

Leonard Cohen
Not that many years ago, I wouldn't have expected Leonard Cohen to even have a website; he had withdrawn from society into the world of a Buddhist monk, and his recording career seemed to have wound down. However, at 73, Cohen is in full flight: a new inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as weird as that still sounds), and he has just launched his first tour in 15 years. His site has been freshened up with new content, offering the basics, pushing the new product (newly remastered editions of three albums) and some videos featuring music and interviews. The forum section may draw in some fans.

Leonard Cohen Files
The look and feel of this fan site is dated, although the content is up to date. There is, indeed, a lot here to keep you occupied for quite a while.

Elsewhere this week

DRM, RIP: Napster reborn
Well, fancy that: people will be going to Napster to download music they can play any time they want, as often as they like. The difference now is that they'll have to pay for it. Napster relaunched itself on Tuesday, as the now-legal gateway for music downloading. Like Amazon, but notably unlike iTunes, Napster is ditching DRM, or digital rights management, the coding that is meant to prevent illegal copying but has basically just become a nuisance to consumers. Napster's decision to drop DRM should be a signal to the labels: the strategy ain’t working. Moreover, customers are willing now to drop a little cash ($1.19 per download) to get a decent, clean copy. Readjust your business plan, folks.

We Tell Stories
Fiction meets the internet, in a much more vital way than mere text might suggest, in We Tell Stories. The Penguin-sponsored site launched in March, and invited six authors (well, seven, to be precise: Nicci French is the pseudonym of a couple that lives and writes together) to compose a story using web tools, like a mashup with Google Earth. In other words, as the narrative moves, so too does the user. One of the hooks for Penguin is that the stories are all based on literary classics.

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.

Listen up: new sites for adventurous ears

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, May 15, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

Just when I thought I had maxed out on sites that can deliver music to my ears … I found some more.

Truth be told, I don't stop looking. I buy CDs, I purchase music for download, I subscribe to a whack of music podcasts, and I stream all sorts of music. And, when a suggestion comes in, I'll try it out at least once … and occasionally much more often than that.

CD Baby
An old friend was visiting home last week, and pointed me to CD Baby, a U.S. supplier of independent music. A lot of independent music, too – I was astonished by just how much is available to browse. The topic came up because a friend from our teenage years has been recording folk-acoustic music, and it's available here. So too is, well, pretty much anything: funk, rock, smooth jazz, ambient … the list goes on. Music is available to ship or, in many cases, through digital download. You can sort your searches many different ways: new releases, what's selling, by mood, and by location. I was impressed to see many familiar names from Newfoundland and Labrador available here.

What Mood Are You In?
If you're in a happy mood and heading over to your stereo, you're likely going to pick music to match. If you need to study, the tunes you want will need to stay in step. What Mood Are You In? is a music-finding service, although be alert to this: you're not going to find any Top 40 stuff here. The music is independently made and is available through YouLicense, which exists to match musicians and producers with companies that license music for things like commercials, film, etc. This side of the service is kind of like a sampler, and it's meant to appeal to everyone, not just those looking for commercial prospects. Try it out.

Muxtape
Muxtape Stumbler
I haven't made a mixtape – a real one, on a cassette – in many years, but I'm constantly making playlists on my computer and for my iPod. Muxtape takes that eclectic approach to music group to the web, and allows users to post what they're listening to. The benefit for you is that you can sample what's making other people's toes tap. It's an intuitive player, too – just click on the song to start a stream, and click again to pause. Muxtape Stumbler is a cool feature: type in a tune or artist you like, and see what else has been connected to it through submitted lists. You can purchase many of the songs through Amazon's MP3 sales service.

Grooveshark
Curious about what a song sounds like? Type it into Grooveshark and see if it comes back for streaming. I've used it a few times to sample things, with mixed results.

Guitar Lessons
I never learned to play guitar. Sigh. Never tried, either, but that hasn't made envy those who can whip out a guitar at a kitchen party and get things rolling. Being musically inept, I wouldn't know if the instructions here are good or not, but they seem easy enough to make a late start plausible.

Elsewhere this week

Web Sudoku
A few years ago, I got hooked on Sudoku puzzles. I managed to wean myself off, sort of. Every now and again, I find myself juggling numbers in my head until I've got it cracked. Bloody addictive, these things are. A reader suggested this one to me; 30-odd minutes later, I was able to turn the thing off.

Food Bytes
Here's a plug for a food blog from people I can vouch for. Four of my cbc.ca newswriting colleagues are pitching in for a consumer-oriented blog about food, flavour and what goes into what we eat. Among the first posts: the return of the glass milk bottle. Who knew?

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.

Evolution, Great Big Sea and getting Lost

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, May 8, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

The most popular band in the land overhauls its website, the dean of evolution gets the full-on literary tribute, and an easy tip to help your deck plants flourish this summer … all that, and more, in this week’s hop, skip and jump around the web.

Great Big Sea
A sign of a healthy website is that it reinvents itself every now and again. The GBS site unveiled its makeover last Friday, to herald the upcoming album Fortune's Favour. The album is now out for more than a month, but you can amuse yourself aplenty on the site, which has a new player (stream a half-dozen songs while you surf), some new social-media functions and various other features. Old favourites are still in place, including the forums, where hardcore fans meet up.

Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online
Next year will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, one of the scientists who truly changed how we look at the world, and ourselves. Get a jump on the festivities with a site that pulls together everything Darwin wrote, which is no mean feat.

Pop Bottle Irrigation
If you have outdoor plants and a plastic Pepsi bottle kicking around, you can solve two problems at once. Instead of dropping the bottle into recycling (or, worse, the garbage can), making a few snips can give you a tool to keep your plants moist during the summer days to come.

Lost Spoilers
In our house, I'm alone in following the TV show Lost, but I’m certainly not alone out there in cyberspace, where there are, I don’t know, a billion sites picking apart the show that raises two questions for every one it resolves. While I like to being surprised, I’ll cop to getting a buzz from this well-informed blog that tracks where the next dozen or two plot turns might lead.

Sandwiches
A couple of months ago, Esquire magazine ran a feature on great sandwiches, and asked readers for their ideas. Apparently, every reader had a different idea on the ultimate sandwich. Here’s the central page, which is sliced, buttered and stuffed with an endless variety of sandwiches. I bet you can’t scroll through the list without wanting to head to the kitchen for a snack. If you’re planning on a road trip, take notes; the suggestions here are fixed to particular restaurants, diners, etc., that serve up wonders on a plate.

Animated gifs
Ah, the animated gif. The Graphics Interchange Format has been a staple on the web for years; who, after all, can forget the burning fires that dotted many a personal web page around 1995? The animated gif is still a favourite; you don’t need any plug-ins or special software to make them work on even the most basic of web pages. This particular page consists of nothing but animated gifs: row upon upon row of them, all fit into tiny squares, each endlessly repeating.

Hansard
When the House of Assembly is in session, Hansard makes for some of the best reading in town. Well, for some people! Get your political fix here, and keep up with legislative business, too.

Type the Alphabet
Not all games involve zapping aliens, bouncing balls or cute animals. This is a twist on hand-eye co-ordination, and rewards those who can actually do one important function of daily life: type. See how long it takes to type the alphabet in sequence; I was humbled, and I can touch-type. (Allowing for a few boo-boos, that is.)

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.

Beautiful losers: Who's not going pick up awards at the Webbys

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, May 1, 2008. Click here to read more columns.]

The Webby awards, which honour the best of the net, sure do things differently: the five-word limit on acceptance speeches is proof enough of that. Another clue: even before the voting is over, you can find out not only who's winning, but who's bound to lose.

The Webbys come in two flavours: one batch is decided by the industry, and the rest by ordinary schmos, like you and me, in a massive competition. Both are valid: it's nice to be recognized by your peers, to repeat a cliché from televised awards shows, but it’s great fun to watch what the crowd does. Which, of course, is what the web is all about.

A curious thing about the "people's voice" division of the Webbys is that you can actually see the vote results so far – that is, after you’ve actually cast your ballot. You see who's in first through fifth place. Better hurry: the last day to vote is today. [Note: the competition closed May 1, when this column was published.]

Webbys: People’s Voice
You have to register to vote, which takes a minute. Why? "It's the only way we can determine a human from a robot. That's why we named it People's Voice, not Robot's Voice." Makes sense.

As always there are a dizzying array of categories and options. Every year, I’m amazed by the sheer variety, not to mention how many nominees I’ve never heard of. Then again, as we’ll see, a good few aren’t up my alley.

So, this week, I focus on a bunch of the sites that appear destined to lose when the awards are handed out next week.

Design Observer
I'd make a lousy architect, I can't draw a straight line, and I wouldn't know where to start in creating a model. That said, I have a real curiosity about design and how things are put together. Design Observer (a nominee in the personal blog category) is an eclectic find, in which I always learn something.

Star Doll
I had never heard of  Star Doll (celebrity site category) until I read about it in a magazine a few weeks ago. Then again, it's not exactly aimed at adult males (well, most of them); it's a virtual update of those pop-out paper doll books, where you could fit clothing over various figures. Except, in this twist, the "dolls" are all celebrities, including the ones that preoccupy the supermarket tabloids. [That's Amy Winehouse to the side, in a doll I whipped together in a minute. Not bad, eh?]

Bad Gift Emporium
"Because one man's bad gift is another man’s bad gift … in a good way." Ever received one of those presents where your face muscles clench as you force a smile? This site (a Weird category finalist) treasures those non-treasures. You can submit your own, or celebrate your favourite finds by sending them as e-cards to friends. That’s a gift that’s likely more suitable.

Don’t Give Up on Vista
Some of the best bits up for Webbys this year are in the advertising categories. That shouldn’t be a surprise: they’ve got the money, the creativity and the licence to be more flippant on the web than in practically any other medium. Toyota's hilarious ad, which puts a Tacoma truck in a World of Warcraft gaming sequence, is (at this writing) leading in the Online Advertising category. But I like this ad for Apple, which adapts the famous PC-vs-Mac series for the web, and makes brilliant use of the parameters of an online ad.

Cook’s Illustrated
You Suck at Photoshop is leading the how-to and DIY grouping in the video categories (there are quite a few, which says something about how potent online videos have become), but I picked the Cook’s Illustrated video podcast. Until a year or so ago, I had the impression that Cook’s Illustrated magazine was a bit snooty. Then I started reading it, and then got into the companion America’s Test Kitchen show on PBS. Snooty it’s not. Fussy, yes, but often funny, too. The video podcast is all about one of the key goals: finding the best and easy-to-make version of a popular dish. Try it out.

John Gushue is a news writer for CBCNews.ca in St. John's. Site suggestions always welcome at surf at thetelegram.com. John is on Facebook right here.