Something to Talk About at Macworld

With all the recent buzz about the new, blue iMac, this week’s Macworld Expo in New York is sure to be a little more upbeat than in the recent past.

Macworld’s Spotlight on Creativity conference will feature special attractions, including aQuickTime workshop; Content@Home, an examination of consumer applications and digital entertainment; tools, applications, software and multimedia for schools and training; and a Digital Art Gallery. This is all in addition to keynote addresses, product demonstrations, daylong workshops and more.

For more information, go to https://www.macworldexpo.com.

Cyberspace With the World Cup heading into the semifinals, now’s a good time to check out what’s happening online in the world of soccer (even if the U.S. has already been knocked out of contention).

* Vive le Footix: The most obvious place to start would be the Official France 98 World Cup site, at https://www.france98.com and https://www.worldcup98.org. The site is in both French and English and is brimming with news, schedules, photos, scores and game results. Also, more about Footix the World Cup mascot than you ever wanted to know. Speaking of Footix, you can play the Footix Shockwave game at https://www.papermate.co.uk/footix.html.

* FIFA Fo Fum: FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football) is professional soccer’s governing body. The organization’s official site (https://www.fifa.com/index.html) is in both English and Spanish and has a lot of the same game information and statistics as the French site, but also throws in data on referees, e-polls, a personalized news page and FIFA news.

* Our Guys: Closer to home is the United States Soccer Federation (https://www.us-soccer.com/). Fortunately, it’s not all World Cup news, otherwise there wouldn’t be much to see there anymore. But if the World Cup has given you soccer fever, it still has a lot of U.S. soccer information you’ll want to keep up with. Read up on U.S. soccer news and happenings, the 1998 U.S. Open Cup, future events and TV schedules of upcoming games.

Even closer to home is Los Angeles’ own Galaxy, our Major League Soccer team. Some of the Galaxy players were part of the World Cup team. The Galaxy’s official site is at https://www.lagalaxy.com/.

* Mega-Site: Back to the World Cup. SoccerNet has quite an offering, at https://worldcup.soccernet.com. Yes, there’s news, player and team data, statistics, etc. But there are also games, fan polls, a 3-D soccer world, the Kids Corner, forums, chats, an audio section (with World Cup game minutes, head coach chatter and analysts’ takes), and a fantasy league. The arcade has a bunch of Shockwave games, and the Kids Corner has a glossary of soccer terms, virtual greeting cards and the skinny on all 32 teams.

* For the Obsessed: You have to be a really big fan--or really bored--to care about this, but at https://www.kgoal.net, you can sign up to have them send you an e-mail every time someone scores. Any team, every time.

* For the Disgusted: Hate soccer? Don’t feel left out; you have Men in Shorts. It’s put together by a bunch of women who have “lost a loved one to the World Cup.” Stick and her friends are looking for a pub in England that doesn’t have a TV, snickering at World Cup fashion and raging against the soccer machine. The stick figure characters all hate football.

All this fun without any practical information? No way. Learn the French translations for such phrases as “I don’t care how many they would’ve scored if they hadn’t missed,” “Oh dear, your team is losing” and “Oh dear, my stiletto seems to be stuck in your football.” There’s even a place for men who are scared to admit to their friends that they hate soccer. Stick and the gang are at https://www.men-in-shorts.com/intro.html.

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Please send site suggestions to cutting.edge@latimes.com.