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| Microsoft vs. Slashdot |
| Five-Word Webby Acceptance Speeches |
| State of the Art |
| Say Kids, What Time Is It? |
| Sonnyboo Productions Presents |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Gene Kranz's Space Book Web Site |
| Cook's Illustrated: the Pornography of Food |
| Art Bin's Fifth Anniversary Issue |
| Mental Doodling |
| Aroc of Zenith |
| The Neo-Comintern |
| The Museum.com Project |
| Geometry Made Graphic |
| Gems and Minerals |
| Star Stuff |
| Sun Releases Java 2 1.3 |
| WinZip Version 8.0 |
| BBC |
| Old Houses |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
Severe Windows Security Bug and Fix
This bug is quite bad, and has been known since last year. It became more of an issue after somebody figured out you could exploit it to propagate computer infections in the same manner as the ILOVEYOU worm, only with much more destructive results. Any PC running Internet Explorer 5.0 and/or Office 2000 can be attacked with e-mail attachments, even if the recipient does not open said attachments. You don't even have to be using Internet Explorer: just having it installed with default security settings makes you vulnerable. The techies among you can see the horror of the situation. Fortunately, a fix will patch the hole in under five minutes. Make sure all the Windows machines in your care apply the patch immediately. Incidentally, Microsoft has finally responded to this class of e-mail-delivered worms by redesigning how the Outlook e-mail client deals with attachments. PCWorld has the story.Bug: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms99-032.asp
Fix: http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/iebuild/scriptlet/en/scriptlet.htm
Outlook: http://www.officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/articles/out2ksecFileTypes.htm
PCWorld: http://www.pcworld.com/pcwtoday/article/0,1510,16721,00.html
Quake 3 Arena Serious Security Problem
All players of Id Software's Quake 3 Arena game need to be aware of a security problem in version 1.16. That version introduced an auto-update feature that lets the server send updated files to the game on your PC, without necessarily telling you it's happening. Unfortunately, there's no control over what the server can replace, so a malicious server, mimicking an Id Software machine, can modify your system in any way it likes. Very nasty. Upgrade to version 1.17 as soon as possible.http://www.quake3arena.com/news/index.html
The Web's Just a Bow Tie with Worms
AltaVista, IBM, and Compaq have released a collaborative paper on the graphical structure of the Web, detailing the results of two massive crawls of over 200 million pages and 1.5 billion links using AltaVista. The results lead to an intricate diagram of the Web, one that looks like a bow tie with worms hanging off it. Really. The detailed report points out that the Web is not as interconnected as once thought - there are large sections that you can neither use links to surf to or surf out of (depending on where you started). This new vision of the Web can be put to fascinating and esoteric uses such as the "understanding of the sociology of content creation" on the Web. The study also holds implications for navigation and searching and, of course, linking. The report itself is fascinating but drop by the Compaq press release if your graph theory is a little rusty.Report: http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/k53/www9.final/
Compaq: http://www1.compaq.com/pressrelease/0,1494,wp%7E14583_2%21ob%7E29892_1_1,00.html
Searching the Web and expecting high relevance can be an exercise in frustration, which is why we always welcome new search engines. With typical NetSurfer thoroughness (a couple of searches, a couple of times), we checked out a new Google-like search engine from AltaVista called Raging, and found it fast and effective. You can fit out the sleek and powerful page with the options you prefer, including an available "family filter", number of results per page, and language. While AltaVista has kept most of the details to itself, you can read a brief description of the information smarts such as text relevance and link analysis used to enhance relevance. We suggest you take this powerful new machine out for a spin. We also suggest you ponder how much traffic the slow, portal-like AltaVista pages have lost to the simple Google search engine, and if perhaps that explains Raging's existence.
Raging: http://www.raging.com/
Description: http://ragingsearch.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=acc&v=about
Victoria's Secret Cannes Fashion Show
Yes, it's time again for supermodels to frolic in flimsy underthings on the French Riviera. Come to think of it, is it ever NOT the time for supermodels to frolic in flimsy underthings on the French Riviera? No matter, Victoria's Secret will webcast its May 18 Cannes 2000 fashion show. Last time Victoria's Secret webcast a show, it brought their Web site to its knees and affected traffic throughout the whole Internet. Apparently, scantily dressed women have an anomalous effect on TCP/IP traffic. We'll have to look into that more closely. If you miss the show, don't worry - they'll archive it at the site. In fact you can now view 1999's show and photos. Supermodel trivia: "Victoria's Secret supermodels fly Air France Concorde." We'd expect no less.http://www.victoriassecret.com/html/glmlnge/index.html
If you're a Napster user, it must be hard to like Metallica these days, especially if your name ranks among those Metallica dumped on Napster's doorstep (see NSD 6.16). Napster has blocked all 317,377 accused from using Napster's filesharing functions. Inevitably, some innocents have been caught in the crossfire, but don't worry. Anyone affected can issue a counter notice - which requires personal identification - and if Metallica doesn't sue you within ten days, Napster will restore your privileges. Hmmm. Apparently, you can beat Napster's block, but Napster will pull the messages of anyone who talks about it on the Napster bulletin boards and warn them not to try it again. CNet has all the messy details, and Napster's got a clear, calm explanation of what they're doing and why.
NSD 6.16: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/nsd.06.16.html#BS4
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1859651.html
Napster: http://www.napster.com/metallica-notice.html
Usually, we pretty much agree with each other here at NSD, but this Metallica/Napster thing has us debating. Here's your window on the process. One of our writers wrote the above article, and added commentary bashing Metallica's tactics. Our editor cut it, which led to a debate on copyright and marketing on the Net. If you want to be privy to that discussion, head on over to this miniature Letters to the Editor page. (A great vomiting forth of a more traditional Letters page will come - uh, soon.)
http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/letters/letter.06.17.html
Until a couple of years ago, Gary Kremen owned Sex.com, a top money-making porn Web site. Then, Gary claims, Stephen Cohen stole the domain name from him by preparing phony transfer documents and presenting the forgeries to domain registrar Network Solutions (NSI) which duly recorded and transferred the registration. Not surprisingly, Gary sued both Stephen and NSI - admit it, you knew there was going to be a legal angle here, didn't you? In a strangely logical but still weird ruling, the case against Network Solutions has now been dismissed on the basis that a domain name is not property, as legally defined, and that NSI can't therefore be found guilty of complicity in theft. The fraud suit against Stephen continues. Wired offers all the hot details and legal viewpoints.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36247,00.html
Does Network Solutions Own Your Domain Name?
Well, if you read their contract, they effectively do. The little noticed new contract language introduced last year explicitly states that Network Solutions can take away your domain name registration if you use the domain for "any improper purpose, as determined in our sole discretion". Coupled with the recent court decision that a domain name is not property (see item above), this basically means that your domain name is at the mercy of Network Solutions. Time to switch registrars perhaps? News.com has an article which lays out the legal landscape, while Slashdot has the outraged discussion.Legal: http://news.com/Perspectives/Column/0,176,428,00.html
Discussion: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/12/2141250&mode=thread
They've got support groups for folks who get divorced, who've lost loved ones, or who suffer from depression - and now there's a support group for first-time business failures. Its motto says it all: "The place for bouncing back!" Founded by Nick Hall, a veteran of three failures, Startupfailures.com invites you to share information about your business failure with others, offers advice from a counselor, provides a list of links to places relevant to bouncing back, and even has job listings that can help you earn money to invest in future businesses. The sparsely stocked site itself has the optimistic air of a start-up, but it needs more content and better shaping of the bulletin board if it wants to be a warm and fuzzy place to rekindle optimism and entrepreneurial energy. Still, we think it's a neat idea and wish it well.
http://www.startupfailures.com/index.htm
eBay has barred a Sacramento lawyer from using the online auction site because he bid on a painting he himself had listed for sale. eBay does not look kindly on shill bidding. There are other nuances here as well: tantalizing but incomplete item descriptions, potentially forged paintings, and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
CNet: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-1856120.html
LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/business/cutting/20000511/t000044457.html
Latest and Greatest Netsurfer Books
We've got cigars, Aeon Flux, the art of napping, a surprisingly complex pencil, uppity women, battles, romance, dominance and submission, blues and evil, and all the time in the world. Just another action packed edition of Netsurfer Books. Take a look, and subscribe if you like it.NSB 02.04: http://www.netsurf.com/nsb/nsb.02.04.html
Subscribe: http://www.netsurf.com/nsb/subscribe.html
ONLINE CULTURE
Microsoft, under pressure, recently revealed its proprietary add-ons to the open source Kerberos security protocol. But it did so unusually, in a program file that forces the reader to click on a button saying they agree not to let anyone else read it. This stunt fell to the Slashdot crowd like a pig in a piranha tank, mixing as it did security software, open source specifications, and Microsoft's attempt to "embrace and extend" a standard and its heavy-handed attempt to control the info. Slashdot forums went ballistic, and some brilliant mind at Microsoft decided to improve the situation by threatening legal action against Slashdot unless it removed any references to the Microsoft Kerberos information on their site. Picture a big juicy elephant entering the aforementioned piranha tank at orbital velocity. The story is still unfolding, but you can catch it at Slashdot. The Crypto-Gram newsletter offers the best one-page summary of the story so far, with numerous relevant links.Kerberos info release: http://slashdot.org/articles/00/05/02/158204.shtml
Threat: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/11/0153247&mode=thread
Latest: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/13/2038233&mode=thread
Crypto-Gram: http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0005.html#MoreonMicrosoftKerberos
Five-Word Webby Acceptance Speeches
Certainly there's no way you could have gotten this far into the month without seeing something about the Webbys, the award for remarkable Web achievement. Equally remarkable, and at times nonsensical, are some of the five-word acceptance speeches. Wired is all over it with a list of winners and the cream of the short-winded speeches.Webby: http://www.webbyawards.com/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,36302,00.html
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Stephen Linhart, whom some of you may remember as the creator of the Mondrimat (NSD 4.20) or an exhibit called Fragments (NSD 5.28), may well be redesigning the concept of visual presentation on the Web. Through a combination of Javascript and DHTML, he's created an experience that's like walking into a piece of art, or, more precisely, like walking into an algorithm. His site, aptly named Detail, focuses on the intricacies of six pieces of his work. A swatch of each piece loads on the front screen while, if you wait long enough, the larger images preload, eliminating download time later. Still, we recommend a fast connection. It's too bad we can't experience this in 3-D... yet.http://www.stephen.com/detail/
It's Howdy Doody time, on the Web. With games and postcards, this site is fun for kids - but it's more fun for adults who remember when with some help from audio and video clips from the shows. Perhaps the best part of the site is the Howdy Doody Great Peanut Search, where past members of the esteemed Peanut Gallery fondly remember their experiences of sitting in the audience, seeing the show for the first time in color, or realizing that the puppets really did have puppeteers controlling them. You can buy memorabilia at the site, as well as find out of older items in today's collectibles market. It's ironic that the site requires the QuickTime 4 and Flash 4 players in order to remind us of a simpler time.
http://howdydoodytime.com/
If you follow the movie biz, you've no doubt heard that digital filmmaking is a craze among hip directors and producers. Are Hollywood moguls aghast at a Net threat? Not yet, we'd bet, but no doubt some of them pay attention to experimental sites such as Sonnyboo Productions. Here, writer-director Peter John Ross offers "Back Office Shorts", a series of short, loosely interrelated online films in various formats, for free. The files are a good size: "Manhattan Project", for example, is 4 MB; "Conspiracy Theories", almost 10 MB. Each appears to have been made on a shoestring budget. The humor tends to be sophomoric, and the plots - well, banality rules for the moment. No "Blair Witch Project" lurks here, but movements have got to start somewhere. You may want to turn the volume down during any "Manhattan Project" scene shot in a men's room.
http://sonnyboo.tripod.com/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
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Items our staff likes and you might too. Click on the image or title to order at a hefty discount from our affiliate Amazon.com, and send a few pennies our way as well.
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The Monk and the Riddle: The Education of a Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
Eater: A Novel
Gnome/Gtk+ Programming Bible
Silver & GoldGene Kranz's Space Book Web Site
Gene Kranz set up this site to support his recent best-seller, "Failure Is Not An Option", in which he relates his experiences at NASA from Mercury through the Shuttle. The site, as no-nonsense as the man, offers straightforward sections with book errata, a listing of his promotional appearances, information on how you can contact him, and a list of FAQs. The number one FAQ is, of course, "What was it like to be the flight director for the first moon landing during Apollo 11?" Of particular interest to space buffs is the promise of extra technical material Gene left out of the book. This so-called Flightplan section was sparse at press time but keep an eye on it for interesting space tech tidbits.Site: http://www.genekranz.com/
Book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743200799/netsurferdigest
Cook's Illustrated: the Pornography of Food
Search no more through your dust-ridden bookshelf for that one cookbook your mom gave you when you left for college. Forget how to make salad dressing? Dial up the Cook's Illustrated Web site, companion to the popular magazine, to access a resource for all cooks, struggling or experienced. Cook's Illustrated is one of the few food magazines that actually focuses on cooking, rather than celebrities and restaurants - it calls itself "the Consumer Reports of cooking." You can view teasers from its online recipe and tips databases, but you have to pay for the complete collection ($25 a year or $4 a month - compare the cost of a few cookbooks). A variety of free reviews help you identify the cheese grater that can take the pressure, become a spotter of the better butter, or taste a little of New Orleans in a really good key lime pie. Other free resources include a bulletin board, extra content from the magazine, and the offer of a free issue of the magazine to Americans (snap it up!).http://www.cooksillustrated.com/
Art Bin's Fifth Anniversary Issue
Many fear that our increasingly television-centered world seems to be stifling art, literature, music, and similar forms of communication. In the spring of 1995, Karl-Erik Tallmo took a step to help combat this phenomenon. The Web offered him the opportunity to mix words and pictures in a style open previously only to the print media. We've liked his work from the start. Since then, the Art Bin has slowly evolved into more than an educational and entertainment source. Among other things, it has become an empowering outlet for the creative works of people from around the world sharing their talents. Even after five full years, Karl-Erik's project continues to maintain itself as an incredibly high-quality alcove to read, browse, and ever expand our horizons.http://art-bin.com/art/artbinhistoryeng.html
Charles Pappas, who aspires to respectability as Yahoo Internet Life's Surf Guru, uses Happy Hour at the end of the work week to put together Finkydoodle, a weekly trivia list. Responding to the suspiciously hokey questions his readers ask him each week, Charles provides witty answers while working in a bit of Net culture to boot. For instance, in one explication he describes the time period B.I. (Before Internet) as "long before the Net was even a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee's eye." It's entertaining. It's fun. It's only one piece of e-mail a week in your box, from which you might learn something that'll prove useful one day, at least in a game of Cranium.
http://www.topica.com/lists/Finkydoodle/
Every Sunday brings another episode in the story of Aroc, a modern superhero who lives on a planet much like a future Earth, only dislocated in time. That makes for some interesting and amusing occurrences in his comic strip. The graphics owe something to the detailed styles of "Flash Gordon" and "Prince Valiant", and are truly art. The engaging story is highlighted with sardonic humor. The series started January 2000, and you can read all previous episodes on the site. Aroc is a worthy new entry in the adventure comics world, but be forewarned: the art takes a lot of space - 230 kB or so for each 1050x802 pixel weekly panel. That doesn't work well on the small screens and the slow connections of the present.
http://www.monmouth.com/~mfrankel/aroc/aroc.html
It's not the latest political movement, but a personal, off-beat, and often funny e-zine. Having now reached the ancient (in e-zine years) age of two (laddie, help your old NSD to the crapper!), it's still going strong. This e-zine isn't designed for casual access; it's more an acquired taste. Don't be put off by the white-on-black text and sometimes bizarre language. Follow the links and you're likely to find decent graphics and excellent writing on topics that are all over the place. There's also some real junk, but the good/bad ratio leans well towards good. Some might find some of the material offensive, but on a normal Web scale, Neo-Comintern rates as spicy, not nasty.
http://members.home.net/comintern/
SURFING SCIENCE
The Global Internet Museum database project is just a baby, but an infant with real promise. The database hopes to eventually categorize by subject and keywords all the museums of the world. The site is simple and easy to use. It consists of links and an effective local search engine. The 12 well chosen major categories each break down, Yahoo-like, into numerous subcategories. This site, being German, right now mostly lists museums in Germany, although you can read all pages in both English and German. You'll discover many wonderful sites. For example, the Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen (ZMF) site is a great place to learn about dirigibles (zeppelins), blimps, and other lighter-than-air craft. Coverage is constantly expanding, and some US and other European museums are in the database already.Museum.com: http://www.museum.com/jb/start.html
ZMF: http://www.zeppelin-museum.de/
The Geometry Center of the University of Minnesota no longer exists in reality, but it lives on in this Web site, which gathers its results and history. The goal of the Center was to explore techniques in the visualization and rendering of geometrically defined structures. There's a lot of software available here, for all platforms. Most of it still works and is as visually exciting as it is instructive. The site has areas with neat interactive Web and Java applications for you to try, multimedia documents, a geometry reference archive of graphic images and formulas, and much more. This site is not an epitaph; rather, it's a useful resource.
http://www.geom.umn.edu/
Sometimes, the small treasures wash up on one of the world's many shores. Others lie buried hundreds of miles underground, in long-term storage. They're not loot from sunken ships nor the relics of a mythical society. They are the many minerals, gem stones, and other samples of the Earth's diverse composition. In the Mineral and Gemstone Kingdom, you can start to understand these pieces. Look up the specifics of more than 150 different minerals, or learn the difference between "carat" and "karat". You will find detail in depth, complemented by a gallery of mineral pictures. In the guide sits a remarkable breadth of well organized knowledge which can be used for chemistry experiments, homework assignments, or even identifying that shiny hematite necklace from your dad way back when.
http://www.minerals.net/
Star Stuff's main subsite, StarChild, is an educational center sponsored by the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at NASA. Level 1 is for beginners; Level 2, for kids at a higher reading level. Planets, space travel, the Hubble Space Telescope - these subjects and others are well explained and illustrated. Teens may find more to their liking at the Imaging the Universe subsite, including Satellite Showcase, Featured Scientist, and Ask a High-Energy Astronomer. Other resources at Star Stuff will interest teens and adults with amateur inclinations, especially the Data Services section, where you can find timetables for stargazing in your area or report discoveries. In a universe of slow change, the Image of the Day feature is a nice touch.
http://www.starstuff.com/
SOFTWARE
The major feature of this new major release of Java is faster performance, as Sun concentrated on optimizing the Java Virtual Machine. Other features include better applet caching that also helps perceived performance, CORBA connectivity, security standards support enhancements, and a nifty feature to display output on two or more screens. This note has the details.http://java.sun.com/features/2000/05/j2se1.3.story.html
The venerable Windows Zip compression program evolves. Major new features include better integration with e-mail and Windows Explorer, a better Wizard feature for novice users, ability to extract MIME encoded files, desktop themes, and more. One of those absolutely indispensable utilities, well worth the $30.
New Features: http://www.winzip.com/whatsnew80.htm
WinZip: http://www.winzip.com/
CORRECTIONS
In an offence to Beebheads everywhere, we called the BBC a Company last issue. It is, of course, a Corporation.In NSD 5.03, we brought Old Houses - essentially, a classifieds section for old houses - to your attention. In January, the site moved to a new URL. No news about whether anything got damaged.
http://www.oldhouses.net/