X 74's Cool Links

Intro

This page contains a lot of links to all sorts of things. Specific enough? Well, they are sorted on type. You can find:
* Programming, programming tools & sources;
* Robotics & electronics;
* Artificial life & intelligence;
* Stuff;
* Nonsense;
* Homepage & E-mail resources;
* Songtexts;
* Science;
* My interests page (with a lot of other links on it), and
* Links to my own pages.

Programming

* JavaSoft Home Page. The makers of (and thus the place to get) the Java Development Kit. It's 100% FREE, but it only works on machines with Windows '95, Windows NT, or some Unix systems.
* JavaUniverse Developer. An enormous amount of Java (source?) code. It's an extensive repository of all sorts of Java routines/classes, which you can download. So: if you are making some Java program, first take a look in there (to see if it already exists).
* Cetus Links. A page full of links to Object Oriented Programming sites (all sorts of programming languages). Very useful (for the same reasons as above).
* SuperTetris. A fine example of what Java can do on a web-page. Play Tetris live on your browser; appearantly it can be done. This page is only in Dutch, however.

Science

* Nature. Nature's (you know: the magazine) page. Down there, you will find a lot of scientific publications, dealing with all sorts of topics.
* Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The fermi lab's homepage. It contains a great tour through the wonders of sub-atomair particle science (...).
* Space Telescope Science Institute Home Page. The Hubble space telescope. A lot of nice pictures there. * Galileo Home Page. The galileo mission on the Web (galileo: jupiter mission). This site contains pictures as well as text, of both jupiter and it's moons.
* AstroWeb. AstroWeb is an extensive list of astronomical Internet resources. Are you interested in a particular subject, but you don't know where to find it? Then AstroWeb is the place where you must go.
* The MAD Scientist Network. An archive of questions asked by total lays on the subjects. All answered by real scientists (I think; the answers seem OK to me). So if you have a scientific question, go ahead and ask them.

Nonsense

* Ask Dr. Science. This is the Internet version of the radio show in America. I have never heard the show, but the web-version is great. Ask him some stupid question, and he will give you an even more stupid answer.
* HotAIR. 'Rare and well-done tidbits from the Annals of Improbable Research'. This site is dedicated to the entertainment through science. It contains a lot of reports about weird studies being done, as well as utter nonsense science.
* Bastard Operator From Hell. The famous story about the B.O.F.H. Quite entertaining, if you like computers and such (so if you know what the words in the stories are all about, that is).

Just stuff

* FutureNet. FutureNet is a European online magazine dealing with all sorts of stuff, ranging from computer oriented articles to Manga to SF. They sometimes do have interesting subjects although most of the time it's not too great (then why take it up in 'Cool Links'? I duno...).
* Online Camera Links. A lot of online camera's. I think there is a lot of rubbish in between, although I did once pick out a railroad camera link (you could see two model trains, which you could operate via the web!).
* The Journal of Ideas. A site with a lot of (wacky) ideas, ranging from anti-gravity to three-D programming languages. All ideas are worked out, and new ideas keep flowing in from time to time.
* IDM Computer Services. The maker(s?) of UltraEdit. This is a VERY good text editor for Windows; syntax highlighting, spell checking, HEX/ASCII modes, column select, UNIX-DOS text conversions, macro's, etc. etc.

Robotics & Electronics

* CircuitMaker Mixed-mode Simulation Information. Circuit maker is a very useful electronic design (and simulation!) program. I have tested it only quite shallowly so far (since I do not have Windows back on my own PC at home), but the things seems quite promising.
* Directory of /pub/cookbook. A very useful archive of cookbook electronic circuits. If you are designing one yourself, first take a look down there. Maybe someone else already found the solution for you.
* Galileo Informatica - A File Library Listing. A lot of electronic simulation programs. Some of hem are actually quite good, although you have to buy most of them.

Artificial life & intelligence

* TechnoSphere II. Technosphere is a huge virtual world filled with all sorts of creatures. All these creatures interact with each other (predate, sex, etc.), and with their environment (the fractal landscape). But even better: you can design your own creature, and let it loose in there! When important events in it's life take place, it will notify you about it via e-mail.
* Marco's Maddening Artificial Life Page. A page filled with links to very interesting artificial life sites around the 'Net.
* The Artificial Life Games Homepage. This page is filled with links to other artificial life sites, most of them game-related (I think; otherwise what's the title all about?).
* Zooland. An extensive list of downloadable artificial life software.

Homepage & E-mail

* Rank this! search engine promotion. A very useful tool to look how well your page scores with the various search engines. This site allows you to feed in the keywords (just as you would do when doing a net search), and it will tell you at what place your page comes up in the list(s).
* LinkExchange. A leading banner exchange program. Besides making easy advertisements on the net for your page, this program also counts the amount of visits to your page for each day of the month. So, if you are looking for a counter for your page, the LinkExchange program is also very useful (you won't see the counter on your page itself, however).
* NetAddress. NetAddress is a free lifetime e-mail address supplier. Their service is quite good, although I do not have any experience with other providers. If you want you own free lifetime e-mail address, follow this link, and you'll have one within five minutes.
* GeoCities. The main entry into GeoCities, a quite large homepage provider. GeoCities is split up in a lot of 'regions' or 'neighbourhoods'. All the homepages in a certain region have the same theme (or at least, that's how it's supposed to be...). If you want your own homepage, go here, and within ten minutes you have got one.
* HTML 3.2 Reference Specification. The specifications of HTML. Every tag is described (as far as I know), so if you are building your pages by hand (as I do), this might be a very useful page to keep at hand.
* Graphics Layout Library. A library of all sorts of bullets, backgrounds, stripes, you name it. All free downloadable.
* Web Pages That Suck. Lots of examples how NOT to make your web page. Although I do not agree with some of the design characteristics they say are bad use (like black backgrounds and rainbow colored bars), they do have a good point on all the other things...
* NetMechanic. A web-robot that will check your page or site for wrong HTML-code or bad links. When checking your HTML, it checks it really thoroughly, fussing about every minor detail (this can be a bad but also a very good thing). Very easy in use.
* Dr. HTML. A web based program that checks your site for HTML errors. This one is more diverse than the above one, even telling you the approximate time your page will take to load over a 14k4 modem. Also gives you a lot of statistics about your page.
* X 74: the missing link. My own homepage (you probably came from here...).

Songs & Songtexts

* The Hermit's Tower. A large database of songs, although most songs have no link to their lyrics.
* HeadBang's Lyrics Site. Another large database of lyrics. Don't let the name scare you off; it's not only 'head bang' music lyrics in there.
* X 74's Songtext Page. My own lyrics page. A vast collection of only lyrics (no 'empty' entries).

Backlinks

Interested in more? All my pages deal with the topics the above links point to. From my index page you will be able to select just the right page that meets your curiosity.

Criticisms

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