Staying on top of hurricanes

Today’s sites let you create an earthquake, find your favorite
restaurant cuisine in a strange city and watch Willie Nelson’s Farm Aid
concert live on the Net.

Big Blow. If you live where hurricanes are a fact of life,
make sure your bookmarks for sites that present hurricane forecasts and
tracking are up-to-date. The season isn’t over yet, by a long shot.
While most people turn first to the National Hurricane Center, often its
site is difficult to reach when a storm is at its height. That’s why
it’s handy to have hurricane
links to turn to. (You can also sign up to receive storm advisories
by e-mail.) The Orlando Sentinel’s Hurricane Watch
presents the latest advisories, a tracking map, satellite pictures and
probabilities, all listed by storm name if there’s more than one active
at the moment.

A Little Bit Country. On Wednesday, Sept. 8, 7-8 p.m. EDT (4-5
p.m. PDT), you can hear the Dixie Chicks chat about their new album, Fly.

On Sunday, Sept. 12, from 1-11 p.m. EDT (10 a.m.-8 p.m. PDT), you can
watch Willie Nelson’s Farm Aid concert at Rolling Stone. Scheduled to appear, in
addition to Willie, are Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Trisha Yearwood,
the Barenaked Ladies and more.

Live! If you enjoy live events on the Web, one place to find
out about concerts, sporting events and so forth is Live @.

Family Fun. The 4Anything
Network has more than 60 family-related sites at 4Family.com. They range from 4Fairy Tales.com to sites about
hobbies and holidays. Too many of the links are commercial for my taste
(although many contain useful information), but, to the site’s credit,
they’re easily avoided because you know before you click. Because the
site presents lots of pages and links in one place, it’s a good starting
point for exploration.

Trembler. Although it’s really an interactive science lesson
from the California State University at Los Angeles, Virtu
al
Earthquake is a fascinating exercise. You get to choose the region
that will have an earthquake (San Francisco, Southern California, Japan,
Mexico) and follow the earthquake and its effects. By the end, you’ll
earn a certificate as a “virtual seismologist.”

College Newspapers. Whether you want to keep up with what’s
going on at the university to which you just sent your daughter, your
own alma mater or a friend’s school, Jack Downs, the newspaper guide at
About.com, keeps an updated list of them
that can be quite handy.

Get Paid To Surf. Here’s another of those offers that lets you
put an ad on your browsing screen and then get paid $1 an hour (up to
$50 per month) while you’re on the Net. The difference in the setup at
Value Pay is that you can customize
the ads according to your interests and block out certain ads and/or
advertisers that you find objectionable.

Where’s A Thai Restaurant? When you’re in a city that you
don’t know well and you’re just dying to dine on a particular cuisine,
Online Menus come to your rescue.
Plug in the city, the price range and type of food, and you’ll get
recommendations, complete with menus. Even more helpful on occasion is
the search option that you can use if your mouth is all set for one
particular dish — it lets you find all the restaurants in the area that
offer it.

The World’s Best Vacation. Know you want a fall vacation but
haven’t decided where to go? Check out Travel and Leisure magazine.
There you can look over the editors’ picks for best city and best hotel
(by region of the world). Also, readers’ nominations for best values in
hotels, cities and islands around the world.

Humor. Grandparents are the targeted audience for And It Was So.
More jokes to pass along can be found at Got One For Ya.

Packing Light. Halfway through a trip, do you begin to wish
that you’d brought a lot less luggage? While some of Lani Teshima’s
information at Packing Tips for
Carry-On-Only Trips is very basic (and I found the advice on what to
wear on the plane bizarre since it was chosen with the idea that you
might catch on fire!), you can find good tips and links if you want to
learn to travel light.

Free Music. While some of the music dates back quite a few
years and the selection is eclectic, emusic’s Free Tracks lets you
download (in RealJukebox or MP3 format) selections of jazz, pop, rock,
blues, hop-hop and other types of music.