Sat, October 3, 1998
Welcome to this weeks
edition of Things on the Web.
We have received over the last year or so, a great deal of mail
and information on the Y2K, and among other things we will have a
look at this issue and the wide range of views on the subject,
well at least enough for you to look further if you wish.
Feel free to send this ezine to your friends, they may like it and subscribe as well !!!!!
Y2K
The information that comes out on this subject is often wildly scary and sometime downright false. From our humble research we have come to the conclusion that yes there will be disruption and that it will come from the most unlikely sources. We do not think that the world as we know it will come to an end nor that the internet will collapse as a result of it. The most significant effects, we believe will come for the little things that we take for granted, for example, it would not be a good idea to travel in a lift on the change of the century or rely on the gas pumps working on that day or for that matter the ATM or the grocery store working up to normal speed, these things carry the real problem of the Y2K bug, imbedded chips, these little monsters are everywhere performing a multitude of tasks and no one has been able to estimate let alone warn us of just how many are going to fail on the date change. The large companies will for the most part be ready, the electricity will still be on (maybe), the telephone system will continue to operate, and while some parts of the Internet may stop the internet as a whole will continue to function. The extremists who want to run of to the hills are over the top and those that think nothing will happen are silly. Congress is working on the issue, and though we hope we do not have to rely on the Government sending us a check , the IRS will continue to collect taxes.
ELECTION TIME
With the elections is Australia and the US
I thought I would have a look at the political offerings on the
Web. Boy was I suprised, while the normal mainstream
parties are online The
Liberal Party in Australia along with the Labor Party, the US GOP and Democrats there
are also the Communist
Party, with so many shades of red I had to go to a green room
and speaking of Green,
well you get the idea. I found so many varieties that I
gave up after several hundred. This exercise reminded me of
what my Dad used to say, "don't vote you only encourage
them" I do not agree with that sentiment but, there are
certainly a lot of opinions on how to govern us all aint there.
TOUR BILL GATES HOME
Got some spare change? Like to have a personal tour of Bill Gates new $53million home? Well it is up for action as part of an internal Microsoft Fund raiser, the bids so far? $25,000.
ONLINE BANKING
Small business is taking to online
banking it seems, we all know that this is one of the
things that the Net is going to be real good at. The
ability to access your accounts, transfer funds, pay bills and
generally make your check book balance is one that appeals to me.
SOFTWARE PIRATES
Who said that all software is free,
this report certainly indicates that the big boys in the
software industry are serious about piracy, however the pirates
in China are not deterred by this.
MICROSOFT HATE
I read an article the other day on Why the World hates Microsoft, and I decided to have a look and see what feelings about this there were on the net. the following is a small sample of the hate sites I found. Please note that to access most of these sites use Netscape as IE will crash on some of them, not a pretty sight. I personally would not recommend that you let the kids see some of these sites as the language gets bad.
http://www.ihatenetwork.com/
http://www.ihatebillgates.com/
http://www.enemy.org/
FUTURE ELECTIONS
It would appear that with the explosion of the web that more and more information will be available for electors to help them in making an informed vote.
http://www.mercurycenter.com/premium/front/docs/online02.htm
SPAM ATTACK
Spam is being attacked by yet another front.
http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9810/01/spamfight.idg/index.html
BARBIE LAW SUIT
A $200,000 lawsuit threatens to give a
Maryland woman a bad hair day over a vintage Barbie doll she sold
through an Internet site to a collector from Canada.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/Textonly/0,25,27082,00.html?st.ne.ni.pfv
FREE NON PROFIT WEB SITES
Starting today, nonprofit groups in Central
Florida can become part of a community Web site without charge
through a partnership between Orlando Sentinel Interactive and a
North Carolina Internet pioneer.
HACKER HIT SQUAD
According to CenturyCom, an Internet security specialist, victims of cybercrime can now fight back against hackers by setting a specialist hit squad on their trail.
SATELLITE INTERNET SERVICE
Having connectivity problems, in a remote area or need to by pass the phone lines for Internet access, this may be the answer.
http://www.cnnfn.com/digitaljam/newsbytes/118989.html
NEW VOICE TECHNOLOGY
Motorola is promoting its new voice technology
which lets people get information from the Internet using voice
commands from a telephone. Motorola says VoxML (Voice Markup
Language) will allow programmers to develop new services such as
accessing flight information and weather forecasts from the
Internet by making a phone call. Motorola did not point out that
you can access such services by phone already without the need
for the Net.
http://www.mot.com/MIMS/ISG/Products/Vanguard_voice/
OZONE HOLE BIGGER
The ozone hole over Antarctica is now the
biggest ever, covering 26 million square kilometers, three times
the size of Australia.
ONLINE PETITION
The Million Move-On March, an online petition
calling for the US Congress to censure President Clinton, not
impeach him, has already got 100,000 signatures. You can add
yours if you wish at
VALLEY OF DEATH
Time magazine reports the chairman of Intel,
Andy Grove, believes the computer industry is entering a
"Valley of Death" in which everything, from the major
companies to PCs will change. Interesting read at
http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/daily/0,2960,14868-101980924,00.html
THE TEXAS GAZETTE
The daily news with a Texas twist, have a look. They support the Things Ezine so I have to give them a plug.
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/TexasGazette
This is all for this edition of the Things on the Web !
We trust you enjoyed this edition, Things now has a web site
where the back issues
are published. It it at http://members.xoom.com/dsalt/
Stephen & Dawn Carlyon
All Contributions to this newsletter are looked at, we will
endeavor to verify the links sent and all that stuff, BUT we do
NOT guarantee anything that appears here.
Like all moderated forums we look at all the material sent to us !!!! But the first amendment aside we ARE the final arbitrators of what appears here.