desk·top
Pronunciation: 'desk-"täp
Function: noun
Date: 1929
1 : the top of a desk; also: an office desktop simulated by a computer program
2 : a desktop computer
(WWWebster Dictionary http://www.m-w.com)
What the dictionary definition above does not say about a desktop is that it is the ultimate working space for an academic. As such, our personal desktops need to be equipped with the kinds of tools and resources most useful to our specific needs. Today, a virtual desktop is more than a mere computer; it is a one-stop help-line to assist us in our academic endeavors. Basic assistance is a quick http away, if you know the addresses. If you bookmark these and put them into a folder, then they are at your fingertips. You may already have some of the items below on your real desktop, but now you can save time and clutter by putting them on your virtual desktop, in a virtual folder, immediately accessible with a virtual bookmark.
So, what goes on a desktop? It is ultimately your choice, but here are some starters. (In all cases below the "http://" is omitted.)
Surely every desktop needs a dictionary. The Merriam Webster dictionary, the authority for American English, is available free, on-line (www.m-w.com). This website provides instant definitions for more words than you would imagine, complete with date of origin and pronunciation. There is also an instant as well an on-line thesaurus. There are several other interesting features here, including a "word of the day" listserv which sends you a new word to your email every day. If your mailbox is not too full, this is an entertaining way to keep your vocabulary on the cutting edge.
The Oxford English Dictionary went on-line this year, but at this writing, requires registration and a fee in order to gain access.
Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail is available on-line at www.globeandmail.com.
This prestigious daily newspaper is all here, with full text articles under the following categories: news (both national and international), business, sports, features, and arts. You can also join discussion forums. If you wish a traditional hard copy of the newspaper sent to your home or your office, you can subscribe on-line. However, much of the newspaper is available free on the website.
Also available is Canada’s other national newspaper, the National Post ( www.nationalpost.com). You might wish to compare these two important Canadian sources. In addition to traditional news and features, under the heading "Diversions", the National Post features a daily on-line crossword, horoscope, and your choice of comic strip: Doonsbury, Garfield, Ziggy, Close to Home, Cornered and Fox Trot.
Of course, if you wish to look south, the New York Times, is also on-line, free, at www.nytimes.com. You do have to register for this service.
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia is available online from www.encyclopedia.com. Considered one of the finest single volume encyclopedias, the on-line version is comprehensive and authoritative.
Encyclopedia Britannica, has only recently gone on-line. Try it at www.britannica.com.
There are dozens of search engines available. For most uses, two are particularly useful. Altavista at www.altavista.com is one of the most popular. (A Canadian version is available at www.altavista.ca) The main trick to getting useful information out of altavista is using an appropriate search strategy. If you are getting too many "hits", try this: place a + in front of every word you wish to search, and a – in front of words you do not wish to find. In addition, put phrases in quotation marks, but still use the + in front of the entire quotation. For example, you may remember the famous line "Cannon to the left of them; cannon to the right of them", but not remember who they were, how many, and where they were going. In the Altavista search box, enter "cannon to the right of them" and the entire poem will be easy to find. It is too easy!
Or, try this:
+robin +hood +Greene –Flynn will get you information on the 50s television show Adventures of Robin Hood with Richard Greene, but nothing on the Errol Flynn film of the same title.
A second useful search engine, one which uses natural language, is at www.askjeeves.com. This engine is very selective and returns only a few hits, but can be helpful at times.
Two other popular search engines are www.metacrawler.com, which is a metasearch engine, that is, it searches search engines. One of the latest is www.google.com
To illustrate what search engines can do, let me give you an example. A dissertation, which crossed my desk recently, contained the following paragraph within the acknowledgements: "Finally, thanks to some of my greatest sources of inspiration and motivation: R. Daneel Olivaw, Susan Calvin, HAL 9000, Rossum’s Universal Robots, Deep Thought, The Shockwave Rider, Dr. Who and K-9." Although I am reasonably literate on such matters, the list had me stymied. I had some hint from some familiar names, but the complete list had no meaning for me. It took me perhaps a week before I realized that while an encyclopedia hunt, card catalog search or indeed any traditional bibliographic search would be useless, the WWW might solve my problem. Indeed it did. Within fifteen minutes, after searching each term on altavista, I had my answers!
Here is computer technology via your telephone. Jupiter is an experimental computer at MIT that can tell you the weather in your neighborhood. Dial toll free to 1-888-573-8255. Talk to Jupiter and ask your questions! If you get a busy signal, try again. Jupiter is pretty busy.
A more traditional on-line weather site is the weather underground at www.wunderground.com
And if you need to know the time in a given city, there is a useful timezone converter www.mich,com/~timezone/
Here are just two for starters:
MacLeans magazine. Canada’s national magazine is available on-line at www.macleans.ca
Scientific American is at www.sciam.com
The Atlantic Monthly has a web version called Atlantic Unbound at www.theatlantic.com
This one is perhaps somewhat esoteric. But if you would like to listen to music while you work, all you need is to download a plug-in called "real audio", then go to www.comfm.com/sites/rdirect/indexa.html. You will get two lists. The first gives you literally every country of the world; the second allows you to select the kind of music you wish to listen to including classical, jazz, country, top 40, religious, rap –- in fact, you name it; It’s there. (As I write this, I am listening to classical music from Minnesota Public Radio from Minneapolis.)
If you have systematically accessed and bookmarked the above, you now have a desktop which is a practical and useful set of resources for effective use of the internet for academics. If you choose to, you can place all these bookmarks in a sigle folder. Mine is called "academic desktop." You will have a dictionary, an encyclopedia, a couple current magazines, two or three daily newspapers and a source of daily weather information. In addition a couple search engines will get you on-line information. Not bad, is it? This desktop is already getting crowded.
Of course we have not even begun to look at what is available in specific academic research areas. Imagine having your own library of a thousand or more of the great works of world literature coupled with a personal library of another thousand or so current academic journals? Sound impossible? We all know that such a vision is already a reality in most universities across the country. We just have to get used to it.