AOL, BUSY SIGNALS, AND LAWSUITS
On January 24, the state of New York warned America Online it would sue unless the online provider awards refunds and stops promising unlimited access. AOL already faces five private lawsuits, each clamoring for class-action status, that allege it fails to deliver unlimited access. Pardon the editorial, but this is ludicrous. No service provider provides one line per customer at standard rates (now about $20 per month in the US). Good service providers have seven or eight clients per modem; AOL admits its ratio is 25-1. AOL is guilty not of false advertising, but of shoddy service - its access problems are like too-long lines at a supermarket. The solution is simple - leave. If AOL is not meeting expectations, find a nice local ISP that will. There are plenty out there. Lawsuit: <http://cnn.com/TECH/9701/24/aol.lawsuit/index.html>
ISPs: <http://www.boardwatch.com/isp/index.htm>
Helpful reader Tom Bradley says complaints about Pegasus and NSD can be solved: "Get a copy of Pegasus 2.5 (for Windows species, for free). In Pegasus 2.5, when you click on NSD in your e-mail folder, a message comes up asking whether you want to open NSD with your browser or as a text message. Click the browser button and, at least in the case of my finely tuned machine, Netscape opens, NSD opens, and the links are perfect!" Also, in the Clickable Links menu under File, Network Configuration, be sure the "enable display of clickable links" box is checked and that your browser's location is listed in the box below that. Here's the URL for Pegasus, but be careful: the "Current versions" link is out of date. Instead, look for files ending in "252.exe".<http://www.pegasus.usa.com/>
Life twisted Callahan until he broke, so he decided to twist back. Now life and we laugh with him instead of at him. With simple line drawings, he aims at the politically correct and gets a head shot every time. Check out the "2 Week Archives and Suppository" (we liked Jesse Jackson's life off camera) and the hate mail. Fans range from Robin Williams to President Clinton to Judge Ito. Is Callahan sick or just mercilessly accurate? Drop in and decide for yourself. <http://www.eyescream.com/callahan/>
The Denounce News Wire Web page (motto: "All the news that never happened"), contains the latest and greatest in the realm of totally, utterly, fictitious news stories and press releases. Websurfers tired of those boring "real" news sites like CNN and USA Today will really enjoy a good dose of uninformative, unreal headlines and stories, including "Sun Microsystems to Relocate to Indonesia, After Buying Island of Java", which, though strangely believable, is completely false. <http://www.denounce.com/>
CROSS-REFERENCED DIRECTORY, CALENDAR, AND ADDRESS BOOK
PlanetAll functions as a hybrid Internet white pages, personalized address book, and reunion site. You register with your info, and then the fun begins - as long as you're acquainted with more people than a hermit writer, that is. If you have long-lost relatives, friends, and business contacts who are on PlanetAll, you can use it to locate them and receive updates on their lives. Even better, once you're registered, newer registrants you might know get a chance to access the contact info you've already provided. If you want, you can get a daily or weekly update on your chosen contacts and notification on who has selected you for their list. Another definitely-not-for-stalkers site. <http://www.planetall.com/>
ONLINE GAME SHOWS FOR $100, ALEX
If you spend your time bemoaning the amount of money you don't have because you've never gotten your shot at fame and fortune on Jeopardy, hike on over to be humbled at Jeopardy Pro, the online version of the stalwart game show. It's all there: obscure questions, daily doubles, and answers phrased as questions. You can dispute answers if you happen to take issue with them and even submit your own boards to play. It takes a while to complete a board but what the heck, it's a game, right? All that's missing is Alex Trebek and, of course, real fame and fortune. <http://www.worldvillage.com/jeopardy/>
STAR WARS: THE NEXT GENERATION
When the first Star Wars movie (inexplicably titled "Star Wars"), came out long, long ago, in theatres far, far away, George Lucas used revolutionary techniques to make his space opera a reality. Now Lucas has returned to re-release the original Star Wars trilogy, making use of two technologies that didn't credibly exist twenty years ago: sophisticated computer imaging to enhance the look of the films, and the Internet to enhance the marketing. The marketing may be found at the official Star Wars Web site, full of images, games and updates on the upcoming release of the first movie. As is to be expected from George Lucas, the site is stylish and bound to appeal to fans of the movie series, which made its debut, alarmingly enough, 20 years ago. <http://www.starwars.com/>
There once was a time, long ago, when Loni Anderson was considered the ideal of feminine beauty and perfection. The television show that propelled her, Howard Hesseman, and the far, far more desirable Jan Smithers (we love you Bailey!) to fame, "WKRP in Cincinnati" has a Web site replete with details on one of television's classic comedies. Nostalgia buffs will be pleasantly surprised to find behind-the-scenes info, cast photos, and a synopsis of every one of WKRP's episodes. Unfortunately, there isn't any information on what happened to the guy who played Andy Travis; he apparently just plain flew off the planet. <http://www.tir.com/~rtw/krp.htm>
MOVE OVER, GOLF SIMS - MAKE ROOM FOR THE JAVA OPEN
Golfers with a fast connection to the Web - say, a fractional T1 or better - might enjoy the Sun Microsystems Open, an online Java golf tournament. Each week, three more holes are introduced. Chair potatoes may practice all they want before the real game. You get a graphic preview of each hole as you check the wind and adjust your viewpoint, club, and stance. And cross your fingers. Those with the top 100 scores in the qualifying round (which ends February 23) will compete in the official tournament for a trip to Turnberry Golf Course (on which the online model is based) in Scotland. For many, this Java version will be no faster than a real game of golf. Even so, it's really cool. <http://www.999.com/sunopen/english/>
PAINT ONLINE WITH A JAVA BRUSH
At this innovative site, there are "no problems if you are not Van Gogh or Picasso." The faster your connection, of course, the more you're likely to enjoy Java AnfyPaint, an online paint program that lets you paint in real time and save your creations in a virtual gallery. Every three months, a jury from the Institute of the Arts in Lucca, Italy, hands out Fashion, Imagination, and Technique Awards. If you prefer, you can paint offline in the Java applet, reconnect with your service provider, then submit your masterpiece. The Italian custodians would prefer that you "make 'online' the paintings, since this is more cyber, but we can't check it." Instructions are available in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Swedish, and Finnish. Before you start, check out the gallery, which may change the way you look at your mouse. <http://www.anfiteatro.it/javadev/anfypaint.html>
Tickle me, Elmo, it's Sesame Street online! CTW's (Children's Television Workshop) Web site is the official home of Sesame Street, and you get lots of goodies for parents, children, and those of us who are kids at heart. Although the site is still under construction and they're seeking feedback, there are articles for parents and providers that range from tips for easing the rigors of traveling with a baby to info on getting your child's picture plastered all over the Life cereal box (remember Mikey?). For children, there are some great online games, coloring books, and more. <http://www.ctw.org/>
HISTORY OF RADIO PARALLELS THE NET
This site will appeal to history buffs and those interested in the future of cyberspace. It draws fascinating parallels between the early days of radio and the Net. Then, as now, there were many innovators, experimenters, and competing factions that included national governments. It was possible to communicate freely with other individuals worldwide with a small investment of time and money. And the big companies wanted to control it all for themselves. <http://www.northernnet.com/bchris/>
SQUEAK, SQUEAK, BEND, BEND - LOOK, IT'S A POODLE!
Magicians: fun, funny bringers of joy, mirth, and merriment, or dull, drab irritating extroverts who turned to magic because they had so much free time while everyone else was at the prom? You be the judge. In the meantime, the Jinx Balloon Animal Web page will allow you to mystify your friends and neighbors by turning innocuous-looking long, thin balloons into hours of "fun" and laughter (with or at?). Sarcasm aside, the Jinx site is an interesting guide to creating those funny balloon things, without the popping and ridicule that normally accompany this type of endeavor. Enjoy! <http://www.jinx.com/>
The Web Development Resources site contains a plethora of info about everything from basic HTML pages to CGI programming to "Persistent Cookies" (not the chocolate chip kind that persist in calling you from the kitchen at 3:00 a.m.). You can work through tutorials, study guides, and check out development tools. There's even a little search engine for the site, which contains a substantial number of links. And if you run your own server or want to investigate HTTP, there are resources listed for you, as well. <http://www.eborcom.com/webmaker/>
Sadly, so many conspiracies permeate our culture that they now can be catalogued. The Black-Ops Conspiracy Home Page will help you to find your conspiracy of choice, and you can add your favorite to the indexed list. For instance, pick the letter "B" and check out toxic baby formula, banking scandals, the Bermuda Triangle, Biblical Prophecies, and much more. Something else beginning with "B" comes to mind. If you are not paranoid now, you could end up that way after a visit here. <http://www.cruzio.com/~blackops/>
If you'd like to get a fix on Public Enemy Number One (and Two through Ten), zip on over to America's Most Wanted (AMW). Based on the TV series, this site features a plethora of fugitives, missing children, and a few safety tips to help you stay alive. You can send in any hot tips you might have on suspects, runaways, and kidnapping victims. The Wells Fargo (WF) site aims to capture all of them-thar criminals that've done the bank wrong o'er the last few years: crooks who've grabbed innocent people's money fresh from the ATM and armed felons who've held up banks in broad daylight. See their photographs, every last one of 'em. There's a reward for information that leads to an arrest. Also worthy of note: historic reward posters from the 1870s, when Black Bart was the thieving and rhyming "po8". AMW: <http://www.amw.com/>
WF: <http://picasso.wellsfargo.com/wanted/>
Paul Clerkin's Architectural Dublin is a labor of love and scholarship that presents some of the noteworthy, noble buildings of Dublin. The site currently covers medieval, 17th and 18th century architecture and features information on the architects and town planning of each period. The site is spare and elegant, simply serving to give more weight to Clerkin's words and pictures. A great spot for anybody planning to visit Dublin or interested in the architectural evolution of a city. <http://www.nua.ie/ArchDub/>
AROUND THE WORLD IN ABOUT A YEAR
While balloonists are being forced down all over the world, a lone woman keeps to her goal of being the first of said persuasion to sail around the globe. Karen Thorndike left Puget Sound Nov. 18. She's currently in port in the Falkland Islands, checking out the penguins and having some repairs done. You can read her daily reports and see answers to questions asked by children around the world as they become involved with Karen's adventure via GOALS (Global Online Adventure Learning). <http://goals.com/amelia/karen.htm>
PHOTO AND DIVING EXPEDITION TO BAJA CALIFORNIA
The Brooks Institute of Photography's Socorro expedition site chronicles the travels of a dozen adventurers on a photo and diving safari down the west coast of Mexico on the vessel Just Love. There are many beautiful photographs taken underwater and above the sea, along with biographies of the crew, a route map, and details of the the undersea classes. Of course you can also browse lots of information from the sponsor. <http://www.justlove.com/>
TrainWeb is a homespun but comprehensive site for all sorts of railroading fans put together by a man who logged over 34,000 miles on Amtrak last year alone. The site offers travelogues, current developments, maps, schedules, a kid's corner, and a message board. For model railroaders, there's the thrill of driving a train over the Internet using a clever combination of Java and chat. Simply designed, but full of real content, not unlike the trains themselves. <http://trainweb.com/>
Palm trees. White sandy beaches. Lush rainforests. This beautiful Caribbean island is just waiting to be explored, and you'll find it displayed in all its tropical glory at this plentiful site. In addition to the scenery, we're talking major geographical, historical, and governmental details. Serious demographics. Loads of tourist information. It's everything you could possibly want to know about the people, places, and things of Puerto Rico, down to the charming little coqui frogs. Bananas, anyone? <http://welcome.2puertorico.org/>
SEARCH THROUGH NEWSGROUPS AND MORE
With Reference.Com, you can search the Usenet and mailing list archives, and newsgroup and mailing list directories, and order the results by preference or alphabetically. It's very speedy, and organized clearly and concisely. <http://www.reference.com/>
Exscape, cleverly edited for gamers of every ilk, contains ample demos, shareware, tips, and cool graphics. What's really novel is that it's the creation of two adolescent cousins. Their comparative reviews are the best we've read. We just wish the pages would load faster. <http://www.exscape.com/>
THE WORLD CONDENSED TO 1000 PEOPLE
If the world had only 1000 inhabitants, there'd be 520 women, less than half with access to contraception. Only 200 people would control 75 percent of the wealth. An incredible microcosm where 335 are illiterate. <http://www.inch.com/~magicxz/website/index.html>
INTERNATIONAL PEZ COLLECTORS ASSOCIATION HOME PAGE
This site has a great deal of I-candy, (the I stands for Internet, folks), and is another Web home for the candy-in-funny-dispensers fan. This one has way more strangeness than the ones we've previously encountered. <http://www.pez.org/>
What? You're expecting to enter the 21st century on wheels? Get hip, get hot, get a rocketbelt. Check out the RB-2000. It runs on hydrogen peroxide and lift 300 pounds, and you can make it in your garage. Better yet, have one custom made. <http://www.rocket-belt.com/home.htm>
Populus bills itself as "an intelligent white pages Internet service." Give it a whirl. You'll need to register to ensure you're listed. Until January 31, they're offering a deal on a free home page and "business card listing". Act quickly. <http://populus.acunet.net/>
The Fabric Stain Removal Guide has been posted courtesy of Hi-Tech Detergents Ltd. of New Zealand. These people know of what they speak. Want to get that chocolate sauce stain out of your favorite shirt? Want to remove the candle wax from your best khaki pants? No problemo. <http://www.hitechdeterg.co.nz/stain.htm>
The Scriptorium celebrates and designs antique or arcane fonts and typography. Each month this site offers a shareware font and interesting articles on the finer points of typographic elements in design. <http://members.aol.com/ragnarokgc/scriptorium/index.html>
Shack categorizes direct links to manufacturer's product pages for all sorts of potential consumer purchases. From cars to couches, office equipment to sporting goods, browse on-screen before spending your cash. <http://www.shack.com/>
IMAGE ALCHEMY - PRICY BUT WORTH IT
We don't usually look at boxed software even when it's offered to us, but Handmade Software's press kit was so cleverly written, we went ahead and asked for their Image Alchemy PS, an image conversion program available for Mac, Windows, and Unix. While smaller, cheaper shareware programs (sometimes several in concert) can perform the same job, Image Alchemy PS provides a higher quality result faster, especially for those notorious PostScript images. It sells for hundreds of dollars but if that's reasonable for your needs, it's worthwhile. The company guarantees results: if you can't process an image, send it to them and they will do it for you. In fact, you can test the software with one of your own images at the Web site. Look for the Web Alchemy link, or download a demo version. <http://www.handmadesw.com/>
MS INTERNET EXPLORER 3.0 FOR MACS
The final version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 for Macintoshes has been released. If you're into Java, this is the browser to use. <http://www.microsoft.com/ie/mac/>
DID YOU ENJOY YOUR COMPLIMENTARY ISSUE?
Dying to show our appreciation to all you HTML subscribers out there, and being unable to find a more appropriate gift, we decided to give you a mere taste of the thrill that shakes the text subscribers down to their very cores each time they get a NSD. We hope you enjoyed the experience, and we hope never to do it again. If you don't know what this is about, just move along, nothing to see here....
The FBI moved their latest press release on telephone wiretapping just as we published an article on it. Coincidence? We think so. Here's the new URL. <http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/tele/telephon.htm>
We started mailing NSD 3.2 the morning of January 19th, and several readers pointed out that the Five Columns URL led only to a self-referential index page. It does, and the page said it was modified "18-Jan-97 21:15", mere hours before we started mailing. The last peek we took showed the page was more recently modified at "25-Jan-97 18:09". We suspect it will come back eventually, but we have no idea why things aren't working for now. <http://www.the-columns.com/>
The International Shakespeare Globe Centre Germany, which we reported on just about two years ago, has undergone an earth-shaking change in URLs. It's now at the following address.
<http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/shakespeare/>
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