Many of the common objects in our everyday world (such as kitchen timers, telephones, and answering machines), seem to go unnoticed until someone wonders out loud: "I wonder who designed that?" Fortunately, the good people at the Delft University of Technology’s Faculty of Industrial Design have created this virtual design museum to answer that exact question, and to take visitors on a tour of some intriguing designs created by European and American designers over the past decades. Visitors are free to browse through the Famous Designers section which features the work of such icons as Raymond Loewy, Ferdinand Porsche, and Mario Bellini. Each entry includes a selection of images of some of the most celebrated designs, and in several cases a short biographical sketch is available. Visitors may also elect to look through the Famous Companies area, which brings together work by such companies as Bang & Olufsen, Braun, Grundig, and IBM. Those with only a few minutes will want to peruse such objects as Dieter Rams’ design for a table top cigarette lighter for the Braun Company in 1970 and Aldo Rossi’s 1995 coffee pot from the table service "il Faro."

MIT World™ is hosted by the MIT School of Engineering Professional Education Program and provides "on-demand video of significant public events at MIT." The January, 2007 posting is on Innovation at the Interface: Technological Fusion at MIT. A short summary about the lecture and biographies of the speakers are available along with the video webcast. Other lectures of note include, The Electron and the Bit: 100 Years of EECS at MIT, and, Engineering Human-Machine Relationships. A search function allows visitors to search for specific topics or speakers.

As the site's title implies, this site is simply about making graphs. It introduces students to four main types of graphs -- bar, line, pie, and area -- and allows visitors to construct their own. By selecting a line graph, for example, visitors are asked to provide the title of the graph, the titles of the X and Y axes, and then to list the coordinates for all of the points on either axis. With a click of a button, a printable graph is generated. This is definitely an easy-to-use graphing program for those students just starting out with the sometimes complicated subject

Online since 1996, the Humanities Magazine is the magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Designed to complement the detailed information on the operations and grant opportunities presented on the main NEH website, visitors to this website can browse and read articles from the magazine dating back to the November / December 1996 issue. Not surprising, the magazine is designed to explore the projects and various endeavors sponsored by the NEH, and visitors will find a wide range of material here, including pieces on archaeology in Guatemala and a recent documentary on the Reconstruction. Another nice feature is the profile section offered once each year on the recipients of the National Humanities Medal. The profiles from 2003 are quite compelling, as they provide information on each of the ten recipients, including Robert Ballard (who is best known for discovering the wreck of the Titanic) and Hal Holbrook, the actor who is immediately recognizable for his animated and multifaceted portrayals of Mark Twain over the past fifty years.

FOLDOC is a searchable dictionary of all aspects of computing such as acronyms, jargon, programming languages, tools, architecture, operating systems, networking, theory, conventions, standards, mathematics, telecoms, electronics, institutions, companies, projects, products, history and so on. The dictionary has been on the web since 1985 and presently has "over 13000 definitions totalling nearly five megabytes of text". The entries are cross-referenced to each other and also to related resources elsewhere on the net.

It's hard to believe it's all free! This trove of information from thefreedictionary.com offers all sorts of information on math. From algebra and integers to derivatives and polynomials, it's all here. By scrolling over or clicking on a link, the visitor is treated to a sometimes whopping amount of information about the given topic. For those simply interested in math, math lovers, or possibly a teacher who needs to venture into a rusty subject area before next fall, this site is well worth a look. Note: while it's free, there are some advertisements.

This website features the specialist research groups at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI). The EBI's research groups provide "biological data and utilities to aid the scientific community in the understanding of genomic and proteomic data." This site offers a variety of information about numerous research groups including the Computational Genomics Group, Sequence Database Group, Macromolecular Structural Database Group, and Computational Neurobiology Group -- just to name a few. The separate research group web pages vary in content, offering links to such areas as research interests, publications, contact information, funding, projects, and more. This site also links to other sections of EBI including Services, Databases, Downloads, and Submissions.

This fascinating and quirky website was developed by Georgetown University Linguistics Professor Catherine N. Ball, to present the ways that animal sounds are expressed in different languages. The study includes an extensive group of animals such as bees, donkeys, geckos, hyenas, wolves, and many more. Animal sounds are provided for numerous languages including Albanian, Japanese, Italian, and Hindi, just to name a few. The site invites contributions from around the world, and provides a list of related links as well

Hosted by Harvard@Home, and part of Harvard University's Science Center Research Lecture Series, this website presents an hour-long lecture by the prominent entomologist, Professor E.O. Wilson. In his intriguing lecture titled, On the Relation of Science and the Humanities, Professor Wilson discusses the link between genetic evolution and cultural evolution. In addition to the lecture, the site provides a glossary, background information, and a brief biography of Dr. Wilson. Note: Although the video footage is a bit choppy, the audio transmission is clear and relays the lecture content nicely.

Consisting of more than 100,000 members, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) augments "rigorous scientific analysis with innovative thinking and committed citizen advocacy to build a cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world." After learning about the Union's mission and history, users can find out about actions and news on the environment, energy, and more. The website features articles about global warming, nuclear energy, and other current scientific issues. Concerned visitors can find Green Tips and can test their knowledge about how their choices impact the environment. [RME]

Given the wide range of higher education opportunities in the United Kingdom, it stands to reason that there would be a website committed to serving as a primary portal for related materials. The site is organized into six zones, including research, studying, business, culture and sport, and two others. Some highlights of the site include the Research Assessment Exercise (which gives ratings to academic departments within Britain's universities and their research productivity), information for international students, and an important reference section. The reference section itself includes a glossary of terms (of which there are many within the lingua franca of higher education in the UK), listings of groups and organizations working in the same arena, and a listing of facilities at different institutions

This handbook provides an introduction to the key principles and activities of user-centred design as advocated by the ISO 13407 standard. It gives a descriptions of a range of established methods which can be used to evaluate the usability of a product or system in order to achieve quality in use. The description of each individual method includes details on the required pre-requisites, equipments and resources, advice on selecting appropriate method. This has been compiled by Owen Daly-Jones, Nigel Bevan and Cathy Thomas of Serco Usability Services & National Physical Laboratory

The website aims to provide IT professionals a resource to find technical information relating to data networking. It contains links to a vast collection of information regarding networking & career management and forums for IT professionals to interact.

libquantum is a C library for the simulation of a quantum computer. Based on the principles of quantum mechanics, it provides an implementation of a quantum register. The interface allows an analysis of quantum computation under a realistic environment. libquantum is a free software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Statistics on high-performance computers are of interest to manufacturers, users, and potential users. Information such as the number of systems installed, the location of the various supercomputers within the high-performance computing community and the applications for which a computer system is being used can facilitate the establishment of collaborations, the exchange of data and software and provide a better understanding of the high-performance computer market. The TOP500 project was started in 1993 to provide a reliable basis for tracking and detecting trends in high-performance computing. Twice a year, a list of the sites operating the 500 most powerful computer systems is assembled and released. The best performance on the Linpack benchmark is used as performance measure for ranking the computer systems. The list contains a variety of information including the system specifications and its major application areas.

VNC software is cross-platform, allowing remote control between different types of computer. It enables to view and fully interact with one computer from any other computer or mobile device anywhere on the Internet. VNC has a wide range of applications including system administration, IT support and helpdesks. It can also be used to support the mobile user, both for hot desking within the enterprise and also to provide remote access. The system allows several connections to the same desktop, providing an invaluable tool for collaborative or shared working in the workplace or classroom. The open source version of VNC has been freely available since 1998. It is available for general use under the conditions of the GNU General Public License.

FirstScience.com is a premier resource for science on the web. It offers science articles in various categories including space, physics, biology, earth science and technology. It also hosts science quiz, links, science and nature poems, games, webcams, fact files, science links, a free newsletter and comprehensive environmental, space and science news. Its aim is to make science fun as well as accessible. FirstScience.com is committed to bringing an outstanding service every hour of every day.

The EE Times Network is primarily a source of online news. It is also a repository of hundreds of technical, design and how-to articles. The EE Times Design Library is an index developed to facilitate easier and faster access to the latest design articles, as well as articles from the archive. Many of these articles are online-only exclusives. It also holds additional design-related information such as links to new product information, white papers and custom design magazines. The topics covered are analog design, communications design, design automation, embedded systems design. Articles are listed under these categories. The site is intended for design engineers and managers.Contributors to the library are EEdesign, CommsDesign, Planet Analog, Embedded.com, EETimes UK and EETimes.

Simple Network Management Protocol(SNMP) is the Internet standard protocol developed to manage nodes such as servers, workstations, routers, switches and hubs etc. on an IP network. SNMP enables network administrators to manage network performance, find and solve network problems, and plan for network growth.This site provides links and information about SNMP and MIB (Management Information Base). Its contents include news, books, magazines, tools, forums, links to other SNMP sites.

The Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) is a freely available Internet service which aims to provide a trusted source of selected, high quality Internet information for students, academics, researchers and practitioners in the social sciences, business and law. It offers users the chance to read descriptions of resources available over the Internet and to access those resources directly. The Catalogue points to thousands of resources, and each one has been selected and described by a librarian or academic. The catalogue is browsable or searchable by subject area.

This site, maintained by a sociologist attempts to be " ... a guide to queer sources in anthropology, education, history, law, psychology, sociology, and social work ... [the author recognises] .... this is a huge undertaking and the site is only supposed to be a starting point. Its intended audience is social sciences scholars who are interested in finding out more information about queer studies." The guide covers both print and online sources, with the emphasis, particularly in the printed resource sections, on material produced in approximately the last 10 years. The site also contains links to online search engines that the author found useful in constructing the web site.