Microsoft calls them Favorites and Netscape calls them Bookmarks. They are the sites you visit so frequently that you want to save those addresses in your browser's memory so you don't need to retype all that yadda dot yadda dot com stuff over and over. To create a Bookmark in Netscape Navigator, click the Bookmark button in the Location Toolbar and select Add Bookmark. In Microsoft Internet Explorer, click on the Favorites menu at the top of the screen and select Add to Favorites from the drop-down list. When you begin surfing through the Internet, you often follow a trail of links that is difficult to trace back through. If you hit a site you really like, it's best to bookmark it right then and there so you can find it again without any trouble.

"Let's go surfin' now, Everybody's learning how, Come on and safari with me," (Brian Wilson/Mike Love, Guild Music Company BMI, Surfin' Safari, 1962). Every time I log onto the wonderful worldwide web, that song is humming in my head. In fact, the complete lyrics for that song can be found by surfin' through one of my favorite web sites, "Mike Wheeler's Web Page for Brian Wilson." You can get there by typing http://www.cabinessence.com/brian/ in the Address block in Internet Explorer or the Location block in Netscape Navigator.

There are many "cool" sites to visit in web world: some are very popular, some very obscure. The variety and volume of information is incredible. When I'm looking for information, I like to check out Funk and Wagnall's Online Multimedia Encyclopedia at http://www.funkandwagnalls.com/ . It's a complete library, and it's completely free. The San Antonio Public Library (http://www.sat.lib.tx.us/ ) is another great site for research, plus it has a very kid-friendly section call the Kids' Page, which includes a great listing of homework help sites. Another site with great information is the Symantec Antivirus Research Center (http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/index.html ) which includes a virus encyclopedia that provides free detailed information on a multitude of viruses, and is updated often. Although the virus information is free, the software available (Norton Antivirus) on the Symantec site that eradicates viruses is not.

Another site I visit often is the Yahoo! Maps site (http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py ) because it helps keep me from getting lost. It has colorful maps to help you find your destination and can provide detailed driving directions. Hand in hand with that is the Texas Transguide site (http://www.transguide.dot.state.tx.us/maps/ ) which provides up-to-date info on road conditions throughout the state as well as detailed information on the highways and byways of the city of San Antonio. When the weather takes a U-turn, I like to log in to the KENS TV's weather page (http://www.kens-tv.com/navbar/weather.html ) for current radar and forecast information for South Texas. After the floods hit last fall, I found information for my parents who live in McQueeney and suffered minor flood damage on the National Flood Insurance Program at the FEMA web site (http://www.fema.gov/nfip/ ).

Sites I like to visit just for fun are the University of Texas McDonald Observatory's StarDate Online (http://stardate.utexas.edu ) which has great information about meteor showers, eclipses, the movement of the planets, best times and locations for viewing the night sky, and tips for beginners. Another favorite of mine is http://www.starwars.com/ --the official site of the Star Wars series of films, which has a downloadable version of the trailer for the new film, "The Phantom Menace." To keep up to date with sport scores, the ESPN sports channel's web site that can be found at http://espn.com/ is a great choice. If I happen to be surfing when the Lotto numbers are announced, I log in to the Lotto Report at http://www.lottoreport.com/results.htm for the current numbers that are usually posted within 15 minutes of the drawing. With email becoming more prevalent one of the best free services on the web is the Internet greeting card, and the best site I've found for sending such cards is Blue Mountain Arts' Electronic Greeting Cards (http://www1.bluemountain.com ). They have cards for all occasions that can be personalized to suit the individual.

Those are some of my favorite sites, now get busy and get surfing! Hopefully, you'll enjoy some of these bookmarks and they'll lead you to favorites of your own. Good luck and happy webbing.

Shelly West, of JPC Services, has three years experience in web design; she is a graduate of UTSA , BBA-Management; and is a graduate from Southern Methodist University and from San Antonio Advanced Computer Education Center; MCSE.. She can be reached at wwwest01@sprynet.com or bpeterso@jpcservices.com.

To contribute to the Internet Beat column, contact column coordinator Gloria R. Rivera at 303-4764, fax 372 1418, riverag@connetcti.com, http://www.seguin.net .