SCIWAY News, No. 13 – July 1998

In This Issue

• SCIway Seeks South Carolina Pictures
• Another Way to Reach SCIWAY's New Web Site
• With a Little Help from My Friends
• New and Notable South Carolina Web Sites
• Greenville Venture Capital Firm is New SCIWAY Sponsor
• Three More South Carolina Library Catalogs on Web
• Does Your Email Page You?
• Upcoming Festivals, Shows, Events
• To Two or Not to Two?

SCIway Seeks South Carolina Pictures

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth ... but SCIWAY News and I have been waylaid by a complete renovation of the SCIway Web site and a move to a new Web server. Both undertakings have required numerous changes to each of SCIWAY's 4,500+ pages, then tons of testing. But I'm happy with the results, which you can see at https://www.sciway.net/ or at our new, shorter address, https://www.sciway.net/.

The biggest benefit of SCIWAY's new look is that we will be able to add a small South Carolina picture in the upper-right corner of every SCIway page–where the "wanted poster" is on most pages now. When you click on this thumbnail picture, you will see a larger version of the same picture plus a credit and description, or even a vignette or verse.

You can see an example of where we're going on SCIWAY's home page. The small picture of the Morris Island Lighthouse is actually a painting by Charleston artist Jean-Claude de Montford. Click on the picture and you'll see a much larger version, along with Jean-Claude's well deserved credit, a link to his Web site, and some information about the Morris Island Light.

To me, the best part of this South Carolina "pictures project" is that it's open to everyone and doesn't cost contributors anything. If you or your organization would like to display a picture on SCIway, just click on any wanted poster, read the information that appears, complete the short "Image Use Agreement," and send SCIway your pictures. We'll take care of the rest.

South Carolina is a truly beautiful and interesting state. I hope many of you will contribute your pictures to this online photo album so we can all learn more about our state and share its beauty and variety with people throughout the world.

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Another Way to Reach SCIWAY's New Web Site

While we have moved SCIway to a new Web server, we have not changed its domain name (sciway.net). However, if you are unable to reach the new SCIway (the one with the wanted poster in the upper-right corner of most pages), please use the IP number 209.207.138.241 instead of https://www.sciway.net.

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With a Little Help from My Friends

Like the Beatles, I get by with a little help from my friends. Actually, I need a lot of help. and that's exactly what I've gotten from three good Charleston friends for a long time, and especially these past two months. Kasey Briggs has created SCIWAY's new graphics (which I really like), while Don Carlton and Lesley Ogden have made more programming changes and solved more unanticipated problems than either would like to remember. Without their collective expertise, thoroughness, patience, and good humor, SCIway simply would not exist. I am grateful for all their talents, hard work, and good company.

I would also like to thank Jay Wingard of Columbia for inspiring us to improve SCIWAY's appearance and for pointing us in a good direction. Jay is the designer of one of the most useful websites in South Carolina, Richland County Online (http://www.richlandonline.com).

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New and Notable South Carolina Web Sites

Black News

(http://www.scblacknews.com–site no longer exists)

Central Carolina Technical College - Sumter

http://www.cctech.edu

Charleston Regional Development Alliance

http://www.crda.org

Downtown Greenville - a virtual tour

http://www.downtowngreenville.com

Forest Acres

http://forestacres.net

Junior League of Columbia + Smart Matters school readiness

http://www.jlcolumbia.org

Medical University of South Carolina - remodeled

http://www.musc.edu

Orangeburg County

https://www.orangeburgcounty.org/

South Carolina Banks

https://www.sciway.net/bus/banks.html

South Carolina Chess Association

http://www.scchess.org

South Carolina Credit Unions

https://www.sciway.net/bus/credit.html

South Carolina Genealogical Society

http://www.scgen.org

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Greenville Venture Capital Firm is New SCIWAY Sponsor

Capital Insights (http://www.capitalinsights.com –site no longer exists), a venture capital firm based in Greenville, will sponsor SCIWAY's "Economic Development" section (https://www.sciway.net/econ/) for the next year.

Capital Insights was formed in 1992. In the past 24 months it has invested more than $12 million dollars in North and South Carolina companies--the lion's share here in the Palmetto State. To learn more about these new companies, take a quick trip to Capital Insight's portfolio page (http://www.capitalinsights.com/ci-home.nsf/pages/portfolio –site no longer exists).

The support of companies like Capital Insights and Columbia's USHealthNET (http://www.lifewell.com –site no longer exists) means a lot to SCIway. Without it we would not be able to expand and improve our information services.

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Three More South Carolina Library Catalogs on Web

Three more South Carolina libraries--Berkeley County, Lancaster County, and Voorhees University--have Web interfaces for their online catalogs. For links to these catalogs, see SCIWAY's Library section (https://www.sciway.net/lib/). Twenty-four South Carolina library catalogs can now be accessed directly by Web browsers. That's 16 more than this time last year!

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Does Your Email Page You?

If your pager beeps when you receive an email message, please let me know, and I'll send your copy of SCIWAY News during the day instead of at night. I usually mail SCIWAY News late at night because network traffic and mail server loads are lighter then ... and because that's when I usually finish writing it.

But in a state that prides itself on its "smiling faces," we can't afford to have any of you waking up with a frown because you've been startled in the middle of the night by a chirping pager. So if SCIway News is interrupting your night life, send a message to service@sciway.net, and we'll solve the problem.

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Upcoming Festivals, Shows, Events

For current SC calendar of events, click here.

Pelion Peanut Party - August 7-8

Shawfest 98 - Shaw Air Force Base (near Sumter), August 8-9

Run for Hope - Greenville, August 22

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To Two or Not to Two?

In the May issue of SCIWAY News, I asked if you thought I should shorten this newsletter and distribute it twice a month. Ninety-four readers responded: 48 percent favored two shorter issues a month ... 36 percent wanted to keep the current format (one five-page issue a month) ... and 16 percent said I should do whatever suited me best. I promptly followed the advice of the last group and skipped June entirely!

In the absence of a clear consensus on this question, I would like to try a compromise that I hope will please most of us. First, I will continue to distribute an issue of SCIWAY News toward the end of each month. This issue will be just like past issues except that it will be limited to four printed pages (on my printer) and 10-12 links to "New and Notable South Carolina Web Sites."

Some months I will also mail a two-page issue toward the middle of the month. The heart of this short issue will always be the "New and Notable" section, again limited to 10-12 links.

I like this solution because it preserves SCIWAY News' current format, but enables us to publicize twice as many South Carolina websites each month–in reasonable doses. This will help, as the number of new and notable sites is increasing so much that there's just not enough space to list them in one monthly issue.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to share your thoughts concerning this question. I learned a lot from your responses.

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