Wednesday, December 16, 1998
I love your zine! There's always something great in each issue. I thought you might appreciate a pat on the back!
Irwin Fredman
I have been subscribing for sometime, now. You are getting better all the time, including your quality of writing, which does make the World Wide Web much more alive than if you just gave us a list of Web sites. Love the news items, too. Keep it up, and I am glad you now have the support of advertising. Thanks.
Mloessb3
I've noticed that some issues just don't contain much of interest to me. Others take me all morning to explore. For me, at least, there doesn't seem to be much middle ground. Other than issues like Halloween, do you guys assemble the digest with any themes in mind? Is there a collective unconscience in the NSD office that changes from week to week?
BTW, you guys are doing a great job. NSD really truly is both my favorite and my most useful e-zine.
R. Tom Dixon III
We set no themes - other than our binary format. It just sometimes happens that way. - LN
Of all the Web-related things I subscribe to, Netsurfer Digest really is the most professionally done. There are daily and weekly e-mail newsletters with more volume, but not more quality and usually not more value. Thanks for a job well done.
Will Cook - Kansas City, Missouri
I would first like to thank you for this excellent resource. As a freelance writer, I'm always looking for ideas. Now I can scan NSD, bookmark items for later perusal and not feel so panicked I am running out of things to write about. Great relief.
Secondly, I want to say how much I enjoy the capsule comments describing the different entries. I love the writing and the light, jocular tone. I'm so pleased to be receiving this.
Nancy Hall
Once again you have provided a number of fun, educational sites. I usually bookmark several for further reading and occasional subscription. Thanks for the good work.
Kidevans
Just wanted to pat your group on the back for providing such witty abstracts in NSD. There's nothing worse than dry, reportive content. The personalized descriptions of your links make reading and browsing them worthwhile. We will definitely keep this subscription!
Richard and Sara
I'm an internet professional and I've been receiving NSD for several months. I want you to know that you guys do a great job of finding interesting sites for me to check out. Keep up the great work!
Rick Reiman
All I can say is that you have one of the greatest services on the Web! Thanks for the sites!
Perry Greer - Cleveland, Ohio
I anxiously await your Christmas edition and realized that I haven't bugged you lately! I'd like to e-mail you every time I receive the latest edition of NSD and NSS but time just doesn't permit.
Time also doesn't permit me to surf around the Web - and that's why I subscribe. I think you are doing a great job of bring me the best of the Web! Your URLs are diverse and cover a wide range of subjects to keep anybody happy.
Please keep up the great work, and I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!
Ron McGann
Hate to disappoint you, but we're not planning a Christmas issue. The most we do at this time is put up the 12 Sites of Christmas, and we don't do that every year. Thanks for the kind words, though. - LN
Wow! You've done one of the VERY best Ig Nobel reports I've ever seen. It really captures the flavor - and a lot of it.
Thank you! And you've got to come again next year!
Marc Abrahams
Perhaps, but remind me to avoid that bridge. - LN
Thanks very much for the review in the latest issue of Netsurfer Digest. You captured the flavor of my site, MagicTricks.Com, perfectly - and with great humor. I really appreciate being included in your reviews.
My comments here are not too clever, but they are sincere! Thanks.
Peter Monticup
Where can I go for a current review of major ISPs? I am currently using MSN, but I get "e-mail temporarily disabled" more often than I get direct access.
I have dropped Prodigy because of their poor service, and I understand from friends that AOL updates their program, often for up to 20 minutes, every time they log on, so that's not the answer.
I am looking for an ISP with access telephone numbers around the country, as I travel, and that has regular, uninterrupted service.
Doug Blackman
PS An ISP with a toll-free tech line and URL capability (neither of which are offered by MSN) would be nice.
Try Boardwatch for an ISP listing.
Normally, I recommend small, local ISPs who can attend to problems in a
timely manner, but they lack the covereage travelers like yourself need.
Maybe CompuServe? - LN
Thanks a lot for the mention of our Houdini site in NSD 4.36. Wow!
Yes, unfortunately Houdini failed to show up for our online seance, but we certainly got a lot of interesting email from visitors who had some pretty wild experiences to share!
We really appreciate the mention in your newsletter. You captured the "spirit" of the site in your inimitable and highly entertaining style! We are adding information to our main site, MagicTricks.Com, about how to subscribe to your newsletter, including the subscribe e-mail address and a hotlink to your home page. Thanks again.
Jackie Monticup
I mostly enjoy receiving your regular digests of the latest developments of the Web. Particularly, I read with interest your news items about security issues when they appear. I begin to wonder, though, when items such VelociGen (NSD 4.33) appear in your publication.
It seems to me that you could at a pinch describe it as a newsworthy item on the latest Internet related developments, however, to me it smacks more of product promotion - do you get paid for this? Am I becoming a minority segment of your readership, someone who has no interest in commercial software products that cost a packet? I wonder....
Anyway, best wishes and keep up the work.
Simon James
We don't get paid for anything that isn't an ad.
I wouldn't consider you as part of a minority segment, but just one of many
segments. We have a wide range of readers, from clueless newbies to
sophisticated Web programming vets. Normally we aim at the middle in our
reviews, but when a noteworthy tool for any demographic pops into our view,
we'll let you know.
In this case, we felt these products so worthwhile for the somewhat
advanced Web site designer that we stuck it in NSD. - LN
That particular software caught my eye because I'm
always interested in anything that makes the back-end technology work
better. Judging by some of the feedback we've gotten in the past (e.g. book
sales, that kind of thing), a lot of our readers are also interested in the
Net technology end of things because many are in the online industry. We
certainly don't claim to be an exhaustive source of online tech news, but
whenever an item catches our eye we will pass it on if we think some of our
readers would be interested.
As always, the idea is that we point you to the item, you get to decide
whether you are interested or not. I have no particular opinion about
whether their software works well or not, but it sounded interesting so I
threw it in. You can check it out and make up your own mind.
Sometimes companies send us freebies or review products or outright bribes,
and if we write about them we'll usually mention our corruption in that
respect. If there's money involved, that's more of a business transaction
and will never, ever be disguised as content. - AB
The InternetBOOST display on your regular screen misleads me. I click what looks like a "close X" but it just takes me to the InternetBOOST site. This is irritating. What appears to be a pop-up window is not. Perhaps you can have this corrected or removed.
Robert J. Taylor
I've been on your mailing list for a couple of years now, and I'm always pleased to see your mail. Everybody and his dog seems to list good sites to visit, claiming one-knows-not-what qualification to judge, but you present your qualifications each time in those capsule reviews.
Well done, guys. A bit smart-alecky, but why not, and sometimes biased in ways that differ from my own biases, but worthwhile.
One comment in the current issue, while I'm at it: you show an ad for InternetBOOST that is disguised as an error message from the system. It's obvious intent is to sucker the reader. Why would anybody trust a company that publishes a come-on showing such disrespect for the reader? Tut tut and tch tch.
Thanks for doing a consistently good job.
Nels Winkless - Corrales, New Mexico
I enjoy your e-zine and take the time out of my schedule to go over it every time I get it. However, I think it is a disservice to your readers to accept banner ads designed to look like a Windows instruction/error message if there is no disclaimer copy in them that clarifies to the viewer that what they are looking at is an ad and not a true Windows message.
Most of us may be aware enough from our experience to recognize this deception, but recent banners have been inappropriately deceptive.
Dave Owen
The way our ad service works we don't generally get
to see the exact layout of the banners served on our site. We do have the
capability to block certain sites which we may judge to be - well, the best
word I can think of is "stupid".
Your complaint will probably carry more weight with the company which ran
the ad. Most legit businesses won't persist in behavior which pisses off
their customers. And if they're not legit, they'll wilt in the light of
public scrutiny soon enough.
For us, the drawback of not always being able to see the banner ahead of
time is far outweighed by the convenience of outsourcing the banner
service. So far in almost five years we've not had any significant problems
with our admittedly pretty media savvy readers' reactions to advertisers.
Looking at it philosophically, I'm somewhat torn on this issue. My
laissez-faire leanings lead me to let the company cut its own throat and
let my readers become more educated consumers through bitter experience -
surely educating the naive is ultimately a noble service. On the other hand
there's something to be said for not associating with stupidity.
Chalk it up to experience on your part. As for the company, they will get
lots of clicks but no business, which will cost them money in the long term
- the ultimate capitalist punishment.
If more people complain, we'll cut them off. - AB
I don't appreciate being forced to connect to the Net just because I open an E-mail. I will be un subscribing if you continue with this new format.
Don Fletcher
While our ads are live links, NSD will not
automatically go online if you flip some switch. I don't do Windows, and I
use Eudora Light, but I'm sure there is a choice in Eudora Pro's (or
Windows's) guts that will set the option to not connect automatically.
There are readers with your set-up who do not connect when they read NSD,
so there has to be a cure. Hmmm, maybe I'll ask around in the next NSD. -
LN
There's a preference for that in either Explorer or
Outlook (or both). It's totally under your control. In Netscape, there's
something called online/offline mode, if I recall correctly. If you work in
offline mode the modem won't dial. Check the documentation.
We should really make this an FAQ. I'm tired of being blamed for
Microsoft's silly defaults. :) - AB
I still would have preferred text.
Neil Lehrer
Thank your lucky stars we haven't gone Java.... - LN
Thank you for one of the most useful e-mail newsletters. In NSD 4.35, you mention the privacy danger of Netscape's What's Related button. Would the same technique apply to the search engines' "more like this" system as well as the use of Alexa?
Nimrod B Harell
As I understand it, Alexa might use cookies in a
similar way, because according to the What's Related paper the Netscape
engines are based on Alexa technology.
With regard to other search engines, it depends on whether they encode your
identity in your follow-up query string. There are several different ways
to implement this feature from a technical point of view. If you're a
search engine, and just return the results of a query and some related
information from your database at the same time, then there is no
particular privacy problem. If you use a cookie along with this kind of
query, or encode the user's identity in the related URLs, then the
potential - and let me make it very clear it's mostly potential at this
point - for privacy problems is there.
This kind of thing is really just the tip of the iceberg. For example the
ad companies have software which does a fairly good job of tracking which
ads you've been exposed to and which ones you've clicked. It's far from
perfect, but it gives them excellent demographic results. Large ad networks
routinely try to track your travels among the sites they represent so that
they have better data for ad targeting. The days of random ads showing up
on Web pages are long gone.
All Web sites have the power to track your click streams - which pages you
visited in what order and over what amount of time - with some simple
cookie technology. Online merchants find this information invaluable to
deciphering sales trends. It's not unlike the grocery store club cards
which are so popular now, where they trade five-cent discounts on canned
peas for exposing all your buying habits to the store chain.
In and of themselves, these technologies are not necessarily evil. They
make all those businesses more efficient and profitable, and ultimately
that's good for the economy as a whole. The problems crop up when
aggregated databases fall into the wrong hands - e.g. criminals or
overzealous cops. Marry click-stream data with your address, your buying
habits, your medical history, and your travel records and you're pretty
much an open book.
All is not lost however. Your best bet is to confuse the enemy. Every few
days just go right ahead and trash your cookie file. Set up a batch file
which does that automatically. It's not worth turning on cookie warnings -
that gets way too annoying way too fast - but if you purge them now and
then you're a long way to regaining some privacy. If you need to use What's
Related, turn it on in preferences, then turn it off when you're done. That
kind of thing.
And of, course, knowledge is your best weapon. Be aware of the privacy
implications of these technologies, and you can make informed decisions
about trading off convenience against privacy. - AB
This article in NSD 4.34 may have been a joke, but I don't think it was very funny. I browsed the link indicated and a Java script proceeded to act as if Windows and files on my C: drive were being deleted. After five seconds of panic, I shut down cold. That's when I realize it must have been a joke. I would have expected better from a reputable e-zine such as yours.
Chin_Sing
May have been a joke? Panic? Must have been a joke?
Just what part of our article did you not understand? We took great pains
to point out the nature of the site:
"A prank" e-mail circling the Internet
I'm sorry, but you seem to have failed the NSD aptitude test. You will be
unsubscribed ASAP. - LN
"a bit disconcerting at first"
"illusion"
You can't say more about the designer of the Windows to Mac conversion page? I'm surprised you don't know this, but you can translate any Web page in German by plugging the URL into AltaVista's translation page. I've used this a number of times, and it's very useful. Next time, don't let a language barrier stand in the way of knowledge!
And while I'm at it, thanks a lot for this valuable service! As a reference librarian, I feel it's part of my job to keep an index of good, reliable Web sites, and I've bookmarked a lot of places you've recommended.
Caryn Wesner-Early
Altavista has a translation engine available for many languages. You either give the site address or paste your source language matter in a box. The translation comes back in a jiffy.
It is a reasonably easy translation to understand. However it is a machine translation - so give it a break. I tried some German sites and it worked nicely, within reason.
Rahul Mehta
For me the Halloween issue was foolish and a waste of time. Stop being so cute.
Arthur F. Cody - Cambridge, Massachusetts
Who's bright idea was it to do a whole issue on Halloween? One or two stories, maybe, but the whole damm thing? Not one useful link in the whole issue. I get your mag for computer news, not silly stories! Please don't do that again!
Drcam
Not for another year, I promise. - LN
Give a raise to whoever thought up the concept of your Halloween issue, and especially the writers who wrote the copy. For such a nice writing job, they deserve it.
Al Forman
Chris Locke whiny? At least he's doing something to see that the Internet approaches its potential. You seem happy to document and to contribute to the no-substance grunge accumulating these days. Too bad you have no sense of humor. It would help to make you feel better about your site having no Kontent.
Richard King
I hope you sent this to WhineBoy, too. I assume
you're one of his good little soldiers and not just an irate NSD subscriber.
To be honest, Chris and I are online chums. Heck, we even meet in person.
He likes me so much, he's even used at least two of my quotes singing his
praises.
I suspect Chris probably wouldn't agree with your apprasial of NSD. But you
ask him, OK? - LN
Which cretinous marketing genius at Easy Diary (NSD 4.34) designed a site that you can't get into without accepting cookies? You can't enter even to find out whether it has relevance for you. They neither account for people who won't accept cookies nor provide an error trapping default condition to deal with it.
It demonstrates a sound understanding of the medium and a genuine desire to communicate. (I'm being ironic here in case you didnt discern that :-)
Brenda Aynsley
It seems to me that the article titles have become less informative in an effort to be more imaginative (to be kind). As the average reader scans through your offering he will miss the message unless the title captures his attention.
In short: more information, less cute.
Jim Hurley
555-1212.com is highly out of date. They have two listings for my family in which the numbers and addresses are five years old or more. Why would you out this site in your digest?
Christine Kucher
Because it wasn't out of date for the stuff we tested. - LN
I find it offensive that you would promote Cyber Promotions in NSD 4.35 as a legitimate business, particularly since you cite their main business practice as "selling spam". The article's tone may be "tongue in cheek", but the message is loud and clear: Here's a site to effectively and inexpensively promote your business to thousands of uninterested people who will pick up the tab.
Margaret England
The item made clear how we feel about Cyber
Promotions and what they do. My personal Net experience predates spam by a
good many years, so I'm particularly aware of what was lost when spam
became so common.
Having said that, let me paraphrase: We don't build the Net, we just report
it. Just because Cyber Promotions does evil does not mean that it's not
newsworthy. We focused on the arguably important anonymity function they
provide - something of interest to a large segment of the Net population.
Overall, barring our trademark smart-aleck tone (which I'll grant you does
get us into trouble now and then), the item was reasonably informative,
leaving it to our readers to make up their own minds about what they want
to do with this information.
We have great faith in our readers' intelligence and their ability to make
informed consumer choices. - AB
Well, I'm reading along, enjoying my Netsurfer digest, and alas, I see this comment on Europeans (NSD 4.35). I found it a bit alienating, as if suddenly this newsletter wasn't aimed at me or anybody else European. Know what I mean? I don't really think I'm oversensitive - it just struck me as a bit, well, Them and Us-ish.
Sheila McDonald - Dublin, Ireland
You're right. In hindsight, I'd have changed "Those Europeans have everything" to "Europe has it all" to make it less personal. - LN
Regarding "House of Hypocrites" (NSD 4.34), you do not see the difference between porno sites and the release of a legal document? I doubt that the goal of the independent counsels' office was titillation for a bunch of computer dorks and closet leftists. I do not remember the Web site to view the legal documents splashed with "Hot! HOT! HOT! Teen! Sex!" graphics.
Stick to the Star Wars stuff. You can't win by standing on either side of the political fence unless you want your publication to be construed as unfair to the left or right.
Rich Beck
I see a difference, but the point is the law cannot, for the same reason that the First Amendment protects equally Mark Twain and neo-Nazi propaganda. - LN
What happened to your common sense? A close-up picture of a teenager with a foreign object inserted into her - well, pick a hole, has no distinction from saying "penis" in a legal brief? Amazing how one can twist simple concepts into the absurd. No wonder our morals are so screwed-up. "It's free speech, man!"
Clearly, it is your newsletter and you can include whatever material or opinions you want. I was under the impression that NSD was a non-partisan, middle-of-the-road, rather whimsical newsletter that points surfers to interesting sites. Many of your site descriptions in your newsletter clearly show you well left of center. Maybe that is what you were shooting for?
Nah.
Forgive me for not being convinced by your overwhelmingly persuasive argument. :)
Come now. Our hero would never agree to make such a bill into a law, and the champion of women's rights would never engage in sex acts with a young employee that could be graphically depicted since an executive blow-job isn't sex. And of course, you do give a rat's behind that children might read a "patently offensive" Clinton civics lesson, not to be confused with the consciousness raising benefits of the Bob Bork, Clarence Thomas, and Bob Packwood stories led by nonpartisan statesmen of the President's party.
Hope they have enough room on that page for all that deserve a home.
Gordon Lundene
More and more of your comments indicate to me that you all are dyed-in-the-wool hard liberals in slick disguise! Shouldn't you keep those comments to yourselves and out of this forum? I had thought that I had found a really sophisticated site that would show me unbiased reviews of the different Web sites. There are, you know, alot of Internet nerdies out here who happen to be Republicans. Please keep your politics out of this, before you ruin the whole thing!
Linda Nachtweh
No rat's asses were harmed in the making of this document.
Publisher: Arthur Bebak
Editor: Lawrence Nyveen
Address your letters to
editor@netsurf.com.
Letters and
signatures edited for clarity and brevity.