Internet Items
Web Enjoys Year of Biggest Growth. The web has grown more in 2005 than it did at the height of the dotcom boom, says monitoring firm Netcraft (in a BBC report). In the year to October the web grew by more than 17 million sites. Netcraft said the rise was caused by small businesses going online, firms making the most of web advertising schemes, and spammers. The Netcraft survey found 74.4 million web addresses, up by more than 2.68 million from the September figure. Netcraft's monthly survey celebrated its 10th anniversary in August 2005. The first survey it ran, in the year that Amazon launched, found only 18,957 sites. Five years later the figure was 19.8 million.
More information on the survey results can be found at: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2005/10/04/october_2005_web_server_survey.html
In Transit Website for Youth - www.in-transit.govt.nz - This is a new website for young people exploring options in education, training and work, as they move from school to work. On the website, MSD profiles its Youth Transition Service (YTS). By the start of this month, ten YTS locations will be delivering services to youth (Whangarei, Waitakere, Rotorua, New Plymouth, Porirua, the Far North District, Manukau, Hamilton, Gisborne, and Upper Hutt/Hutt City). A further four locations are planned.
"Managing Well" now available on CommunityNet Aotearoa - www.community.net.nz/managingwell - A new catalogue of organisational resources for community and voluntary organisations has been published on CommunityNet Aotearoa. The catalogue, "Managing Well: Resources for Community and Voluntary Organisations", lists over 120 written resources, websites, newsletters, manuals, information sheets and other documents that provide information related to running an organisation. It also includes a directory of organisations that provide capacity-building support for the community and voluntary sector.
History Lessons By Computer. NZ's history is going online in byte-sized pieces. The Treaty of Waitangi Programme unit within the State Services Commission - http://www.ssc.govt.nz - has launched an email-delivered service - www.treatyofwaitangi.govt.nz - covering the Treaty of Waitangi, general NZ history and individual history-makers. The SSC says that not everyone wants to spend hours reading through historical information, so it has chosen "to chunk the information down into small bits over a longer period".
The 2005 Ig Nobel Prizes - http://www.improb.com/ig/ig2005 - While the world focuses on the Nobel Prizes, a set of equally important awards goes on less noticed: the Ig Nobels. Ig Nobel honorees in 2005 included researchers who answered the long-standing scientific question of whether humans swim faster in water or syrup (Chemistry), a 78-year-old experiment showing the liquid properties of congealed black tar (Physics), and the extraordinary series of short stories produced by the Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria (Literature). The Peace Prize was awarded to British scientists who electrically monitored the activity of a brain cell in a locust while it watched selected highlights from "Star Wars". Check out the site for a complete list of awards.
Blue Marble: the Next Generation - http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/ - NASA has been observing the Earth for many years, producing many spectacular photographs of our planet. One of NASA's most influential images was a snapshot of the blue Earth taken by Apollo 17 astronauts. This image and others led NASA to establish the Blue Marble Web site back in 2002, where it presented detailed true-colour images of the Earth. NASA has updated Blue Marble with stunning new images that show the colour of the Earth's surface for each month of 2004 at very high resolution, up to 500 meters/pixel.
Visions of Science Photographic Awards 2005 - http://www.visions-of-science.co.uk/index.html - This annual competition rewards the best scientific photography. The competition features ten categories, including two for young photographers. This year's winners include stunning images of shrimp cleaning the teeth of a lizard fish, extreme close-ups of a crystal of salt and a peppercorn, a paperclip-on-water analogy for the gravitational bending of light, and a painting of visual symptoms by a migraine sufferer. Past years provide even more award-winning photos.
Turning the Pages: British Library Releases Great Book Images - http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html - The British Library has published "Turning the Pages", an online gallery that allows you to examine in exquisite detail the pages of several historic books. The library also offers "Turning the Pages on CD", and encourages other museums and libraries to obtain the technology and apply it to their own collections.
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