ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996               TAG: 9608270130
SECTION: WELCOME STUDENTS         PAGE: 63   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: HAL SHEIKERZ STAFF WRITER

THE SYSTEM IS WITH YOU THINK ABOUT FIBER-OPTIC SURFING - FROM YOUR DORM ROOM

If you thought having a 28.8 kps modem at home was luxury, wait until you get on line from your dorm room.

Radford University and Virginia Tech students can access the Internet directly from their rooms through Ethernet - the high-speed, fiber-optic connection that sends and receives information 100 times faster than a modem. That means you don't have to dial into the system; you're already on the system.

Then there's the Internet itself.

Those who see the Internet as "fluff" obviously have not had productive times on line. Yes, it's easy to get caught in the Web and start reading about Pez dispensers when you are trying to find information about 20th century American authors. Productive Internet searches require time, just as it takes time to do research at a library. The advantage with the Internet, however, is that you are at home. You can be sitting in front of the TV, in bed or even at a bar (check out Bogen's on Main Street in Blacksburg).

One major caution to anyone researching a subject on the Internet: Double-check your facts. There certainly are "valid" sites, but there are many more home pages set up by people like yourself, who aren't necessarily experts. Find out their source of information, then try to track it down in hard-copy form.

In addition to research and fluff, the Internet provides information that you can't easily find elsewhere.

For example, one of the best on-line sites is PointCast Network. It's been described as the "information television," and Dave Winer of Wired magazine said it was like "CNN on your desktop. ... It's the most compelling application I've ever seen for a personal computer.''

PointCast is not just a site; it's also a "program" you have to download. Depending on how you set up the software, PointCast automatically will retrieve and update the latest information you request. You can find out about companies, industries, sports, weather or horoscopes. Lots of people keep track of their investments or favorite athletic teams, for instance.

On top of that, PointCast acts as a screensaver, filling your idle screen with busy information such as top news stories or stock quotes.

If you have a dedicated, or Ethernet, connection, the program updates continuously throughout the day. If not, you can update each time you log on. To get there: http://www.pointcast.com.

Another new Internet craze is on-line radio. If you have a soundcard and speakers, you can download audio technology such as Real Audio (http:www.realaudio.com) and listen to music or talk shows. There's even a site that arranges Internet radio and TV stations by category, and plays a CD jukebox. That's called AudioNet (http://www.audionet.com).

More than 1,000 radio web "stations" now play on the web. On-line radio stations also broadcast information about upcoming concerts and shows, and provide links to music artists.

GREAT STATIONS

Radio:

Jazz WWOZ 90.7 FM, New Orleans: http://www.gnof.org/wwoz/

Classic rock WRRK-FM, Pittsburgh: http://www.gnofn.org/~wwoz/

Sports WBAL Radio 11 Baltimore: http://wbal.com

TV:

KTVK Channel 11 News, Dallas: http://www.ktvt.com

COOL SEARCH ENGINES

Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com/

WebCrawler: http://www.webcrawler.com

Various: http://www.msn.com/access/allinone.asp

Various: http://www.itn.net/cgi/get?in/index

COOL SITES

The Blacksburg Electronic Village: http://www.bev.net

The original "unofficial" Elvis home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/

elvis/elvishom.html

The safersex page: http://www.safersex.org/

The ultimate TV list: http://www.tvnet.com/utvl/utvl.html

Internet white pages: http://ww.switchboard.com

On-line newspapers: http://www.nando.net/epage/htdocs/links/newspapers.html

Webster's dictionary: http://9s213.sp.cs.cmu.edu/prog/webster

ESPNet SportsZone: http:espnet.sportszone.com/

Earth's biggest bookstore - the Amazon: http://www.amazon.com

GREAT OUTDOORS

National Park Services: http://www.nps.gov

American Wilderness Guide: http://www.worldguide.com/parks/index.html

L.L. Bean's guide to the outdoors (search engine): http://www.llbean.com/parksearch

HTML GUIDES

Background colors: http://www.infi.net/wwwimages/colorindex.html

Beginner's guide: http://www.nashville.net/~carl/htmlguide/index.html

HTML guide: http://www-slis.lib.indiana.edu/Internet/programmer-page.html

NEW RIVER COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Homepage: http://164.106.121.248/

RADFORD UNIVERSITY

Homepage: http://www.runet.edu/

Highlanders: http://www.runet.edu/

Athletics/Athletics.html

VIRGINIA TECH

Homepage: http://www.vt.edu

Hokies: http://sports.vt.edu

Hokie news: http://www.nrv.net/~wstewart

Center for European Studies & Architecture: http://www.arch.vt.edu/service

/facilities~labs/european.html

LENGTH: Long  :  116 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  ALAN KIM Staff. The New River Current has its own 
          homepage, too, of course. Check us out at 
          http://www.roanoke.com/nrvhome/nrvindex.html. Our e-mail address is 
          newriver@infi.net. color.