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Archive for the ‘Internet’ Category

October 23 2008 – Google Chrome

In Internet, Software on September 19, 2008 at 12:37 pm

September marks Google’s tenth birthday. They celebrated by announcing just what the world needs, another web browser. They call theirs, Chrome. Why would Google go to all the trouble of creating a new web browser, when there is a perfectly good one available? It’s called Firefox, and most people don’t even know that it exists!

Google has some perfectly good answers to that question. Since 1998 the way, web pages present their contents, has changed. Back in the nineties there was no video, and the use of sound was minimal. Web applications were a rarity. Now videos are everywhere, and applications on the web have become so sophisticated that it is possible to use web-based, word processors, spreadsheets, and other office type applications.

All this functionality requires, according to Google, speed, stability, and security. They have addressed this by a fundamental change in browser design. In Chrome each tab in the browser window has its own environment, separate from others. This allows greater stability, because if one tab should fail due to a bug, only that tab crashes, not the whole browser. Security is enhanced, because there is no cross communication between the tabs. To address the issue of speed, Chrome has a new “engine”, they call “V8″, which speeds up the running of web applications. The code, that displays the web page, is also of a completely new design, allowing pages to appear much faster.

Google required this new approach as they are committed to computing in the cloud. That is, allowing people to use applications that do not run on their own PCs, but on Google’s servers, somewhere out there in the Internet. While this can be done with current browsers, it can be a little bit slow. By redesigning the browser, Google have openly declared that they are in direct competition with Microsoft for the future of computing. Cloud computing, sometimes called Software As A Service (SaaS), is effectively positioned to replace Microsoft Office, and make the Windows operating system almost redundant.

But TANSTAAFL (as Simon Jester scrawls on the walls of the lunar colony in “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress” by Robert A. Heinlein). There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. The browser may be free to download but Google will want to recover the development costs, somehow. Google has, arguably, the largest database of individuals’ search details. By supplying these individuals with a browser, Google is now able to keep track of every page visited, as well. A much needed bonus, allowing those Google ads to be even more specific, and targeted to the individual, than they are now.

Chrome, at the time of writing, is only available for Windows. It has been released as a beta version, this means that there are bound to be some problems. Some have already been reported, and there are warnings that it may not be as secure as Google thinks.

Interestingly, one of the main developers of Chrome is ex-Aucklander Ben Goodger, who worked extensively on Firefox, concentrating on the extensions facility. Goodger joined Google in 2006, and immediately started work on Chrome. Unfortunately there is no extensions facility in Chrome. Extensions are one of the major features in Firefox, and Google have announced that extensions will be coming to Chrome.

For Chrome to succeed, Google has to battle against inertia. People are unlikely to change from Internet Explorer on a whim. Firefox, and the lesser known Opera browser have found this out. Sometimes, just being better, doesn’t mean that you get the largest market share.

September 9 2008 – The Dial-Up Conundrum

In Internet on August 25, 2008 at 12:16 pm

In August, Statistics New Zealand released the results of the latest Internet Service Providers Survey, taken in March 2008. For this survey, questionnaires were sent to sixty ISPs in New Zealand. Various questions were asked. I was interested in those related to broadband versus dial-up.

Users of the Internet increased, over the six month period from September 2007, to 1.5 million. The percentage of broadband users is now just over 59%, leaving around 41%, or 613,000, languishing on dial-up. Admittedly this has decreased around 9% in the same period, but it is still a considerable number.

There are many reasons why someone would choose to stay on dial-up. They may only want email, therefore dial-up is the best solution. I believe the most likely reason, is their budget may not allow them to afford the higher price of a broadband connection. This, I believe, is also the reason for the lower levels of Internet use by Senior Citizens, Maori, and Pacific Islanders.

This theory is confirmed by a report from the World Internet Project, on New Zealand Internet use, which coincided with the Statistics New Zealand survey. This report confirms that the Internet is the domain of young, urban pakeha with money. The over sixties, Maori, and Pacific Islanders, are substantially less likely to use the Internet.

What we are seeing in New Zealand is a three-way split between those that can afford broadband Internet connection, those that can only afford dial-up, and those that can not afford any connection at all. There is probably nothing that can be done to make the Internet more available to those with a small disposable income, but perhaps there is something that can be done about those that can only afford dial-up.

Recently I was subjected to an experience that I had not had for some years. I had to use a dial-up connection. It was not a pleasant experience, and web pages took a much longer time to load than I remember. There could be two reasons for this, one is that my memory is playing tricks, and the other is that the web designers of today’s websites are designing their pages only for broadband users. I plump for the later reason.

One has only to take a look at TVNZ’s horror show of a website, or try to use stuff.co.nz on a dial-up line to see what I mean. You might as well take a walk to the dairy and buy the Dominion Post – you will be home before the Stuff website displays on your computer monitor.

The BBC has two different ways of presenting its news website. It has the normal high graphic version, and a lower quality version. The lower quality version is not only better for people with slower Internet connections, but it is also better for the sight impaired to use, with a “speaking web browser”.

The fact that the BBC can supply a website for dial-up connections proves it can be done. There are demographics showing senior citizens will soon be a sizable percentage of New Zealand’s population as the baby boomers reach their mature years. Among them are some heavy Internet users. What is going to happen when they can only afford dial-up?

We need a two pronged attack. The first must be cheaper, affordable broadband for all, the second must be thoughtfully designed websites that work well in both the broadband and dial-up environments.

August 21 2008 – Podcasts, Are You Receiving?

In Internet on June 30, 2008 at 11:58 am

Ever wonder what people, siting next to you on the bus, are listening to on their headphones? The chances are that some of them will be listening to a podcast.

Podcasts are audio files, that can be downloaded from a website, and then transferred to an mp3 player. They can then be listened to on the commute to work, or while at the gym, gardening, or during any other activity. In 2005, when eStuff last talked about podcasts, they were in their infancy. Now it is possible to get podcasts from most broadcasters’ websites. Podcasts are also available from other sources. Apple’s iTunes is the most famous. Other sites like podcast.com, Podcast Alley, and Podcast Directory are also providing a service, while in New Zealand Big Pod is the place to go.

The last eStuff article on podcasts urged Radio New Zealand to take the example set by the BBC, and start providing podcasts. RNZ now has a podcast web page, providing downloads of most of their programmes. For instance each Morning Report, Nine To Noon, or Saturday Morning segment is available individually. This makes it very handy for people who missed, for example, an interview, to download just that bit of the show.

One podcast of special interest is the Podcast Classics, where local orchestras have been recorded by RNZ, and the subsequent performance is made available, free of charge, for download. As I write, Beethoven’s 6th and Anthony Ritchie’s Second Symphony are available. This is a wonderful way to build up a legal classical music library on your computer, and mp3 player.

There is however, as I found out, one problem with the general podcasts. Recently I missed the “Music With Manu Taylor” segment, of Nine To Noon. Knowing that RNZ had podcasts available, I went to the website, and downloaded the podcast. I then begrudgingly started the dishes while listening on my mp3 player. The concept of “Music With Manu Taylor” is to play three tracks from newly released CDs. Manu then comments on the CD. This helps listeners know what is available, and assists in CD purchasing decisions. I judge that on the weekend following Manu’s segment, a fair number of CDs are purchased, based on what people have heard him play.

So imagine my surprise when the podcast had no music in it at all. I made a quick trip back to the website, and found the following statements: “Due to copyright restrictions, all music has been removed”, and “Not all audio is available via podcast for copyright reasons”. I understand that RNZ is unable to include music on podcasts, because the record companies are worried that people downloading the podcasts would then pirate the music, and they would not sell any CDs. This seems a little counter-productive. The sole purpose of “Music With Manu Taylor” is to sell CDs. There are now three CDs that I haven’t heard, and because the music was removed from the podcast will never know if I want to buy..

We are in the 21st century, it is a digital age, people now listen to “broadcasts” in a different way than their grandparents. It is extremely short-sighted of record companies to impose this restriction on podcasters. No wonder CD sales are dropping faster than Labour’s popularity, in the opinion polls.

Podcast Links

Some Broadcasters that have Podcasts

Podcast Directories

New Zealand Podcasts

Podcast Software

Some Of My Favourite Podcast Sites

January 10 2008 – The Internet Revolution

In Internet on January 10, 2008 at 8:26 pm

Since the 1990s our world has changed considerably. The spread of the Internet, together with the exponential growth of power in microprocessors, has left us all, as David Lange would say, wanting a cup of tea.

No one could have predicted that whole industries would be founded, and flounder, on the back of the phenomenon. Thousands of people are now employed in jobs that did not exist before the Internet. These are the people providing your connection to the Net, the ISPs, the people who design and maintain the web pages, and the people that write the software, and build the hardware that it all runs on.

The whole of the recording industry has had the guts ripped out of it by the demolition of its business model. Sales of CDs are dropping daily. The record companies have failed to adjust to the concept that music can be downloaded from the Internet. First they ignored it, then they tried to prevent it with Digital Rights Management, now they seem more in tune, and are adopting it.

Banks immediately saw that savings could be made. They had already decimated their branch structure, replacing them with ATMs and phone banking. The Internet allowed them to provide home banking. Now the only reason to visit a branch is to deposit a cheque. There are even banks that have no branches at all, allowing deposits by mail.

Newspapers were badly hit by the rise of auction sites like Trade Me and eBay. The classified advert market disappeared as fast as people signed up with an ISP. They also lost readers who found more up-to-date news is available on the Internet. They fought back, and now provide some of the best sites on the Web, and Fairfax Media, who own this newspaper, now own Trade Me.

Television and cinema will be next to experience pain. Unless they adapt they could have the same problems as record companies. People now want to watch their favourite programme when they want, and not when a TV station dictates. Some stations are now allowing downloads of their programmes. The expectation is that movies will eventually be available directly from the studios.

Radio seems to be doing the right thing. Broadcasters have made their programmes available as podcasts. Although they are hampered by the stupidity of record companies not allowing music in podcasts. They tried to stop stations playing records when broadcasting first started. That didn’t work either. Some stations allow you to listen online via streaming and others, especially the BBC, allow programs to be listened to for 7 days after the conventional broadcast.

Phone companies, the same people that connect you to the Internet, will be under stress as the use of VOIP grows. VOIP allows phone calls to be made over the Internet, which makes them very cheap indeed, if not free. Technology now allows ordinary phones to be used as VOIP phones.

As Microsoft, and Google rush to digitise all the books ever published, and Amazon pushes the Kindle ebook reading device, book publishers will be next to have to adjust.

Even software companies are under threat. The spread of open source software such as Linux and Firefox could only occur because of connections, and communication made available, by the Internet, to the programmers.

The retail industry, strangely, remains relatively untouched, as people prefer the mall rather than the mouse to shop.

Meanwhile some people now retreat from real life by spending time in virtual worlds like Second Life.

We live in a marvellous time. The Internet Revolution will be recalled, by historians, in the same way we recall the Industrial Revolution and the Renaissance.

November 1 2007 – Google Browser Sync

In Internet on November 1, 2007 at 8:22 pm

I find it completely and utterly annoying, using multiple computers. Surfing becomes a nightmare. Where are my bookmarks? What was my password? What was that URL I was looking at yesterday? And so on.

I use Firefox to browse the web, so I am able to use an Add-on, or Extension, to share data between machines. There are several to choose from, but I decided on Google Browser Sync. It provides more than just a simple method of syncing bookmarks. It syncs all your Firefox data. That is bookmarks, cookies, passwords, history, tabs, and windows. So, not only are your bookmarks kept in sync, but you can even close Firefox with tabs, and windows open, and reopen the same session on another PC.

Installing a Firefox extension is easy. If you have never done this, don’t worry, because instructions are provided on the web page. If installation is easy, using it is even easier, in fact I have forgotten that I have it installed.

Syncing occurs automatically, and data is stored on Google’s own servers. This frees users from the worry of leaving machines switched on. Once a desktop is synced with Google’s servers, the user can switch off, then use their laptop anywhere in the world. Once Firefox starts, it will ensure Google Browser Sync automatically synchronizes the browser data, with that stored on the Google server.

An advantage to using a Firefox extension is that, because it’s an extension, it runs inside the Firefox code, and is totally, operating-system independent. Wherever Firefox runs, so does the extension. And Firefox runs in several different operating systems.

One thing that you will need, is a Google account. If you use a Google service, you will already have one of these. If not, it is a simple matter to create one on the Google Account page.

The first thing you notice, when Firefox is restarted, is that your Google account name, and Browser Sync logo, are in the top right of the Firefox window. This is how you control Google Browser Sync. A click on this logo will produce a menu, allowing selection of “settings”.

Realizing that users like their data to be secure, Google have provided the ability to encode the data. This requires the use of a PIN. Your PIN should be a combination of numbers and letters, it makes it more difficult to break. Make sure that you remember this PIN, because you will need to enter it on any other PC where you install Google Browser Sync.

Google provide options for choosing which data to sync, and also encrypt. Cookies and passwords are always encrypted. A wise choice. I decided to encrypt everything. Some may think it is safer to not store passwords on a laptop that may go missing.

Take caution using Google Browser Sync on computers shared with others. People using Firefox on other computers, you’ve set-up for syncing, will have access to the information you have requested be synced, and any browser information they create, will be copied across to all computers being synced. Be careful in choosing to have tabs and windows sync. I found that when both PCs were using Firefox at the same time, tabs in one system would automatically open in the other when syncing occurred. A little disconcerting, and for some users, I guess it could be more than embarrassing.

Google Browser Sync is truly a painless way to sync Firefox data, and has joined my list of must-have, Firefox extensions.

April 26 2007 – The Hidden Web

In Internet on April 26, 2007 at 8:13 pm

All the information you could possibly want, is out there, on the web. Sometimes it’s just not possible to find what you’re looking for. There may be several reasons for this, but have you ever thought that the search engine, you´re using, does not even know how to get at the information you are seeking?

A significant portion of the web is hidden from view. This is called the Deep Web, Hidden Web, or Invisible Web, depending on who you are talking to.

Perhaps a good place to start is to explain how search engines find the web pages they tell you about. They send out a spider, some may call it a crawler, or robot. This is a program that crawls around the web, following links, and sending the results back to base. These results are a copy of the web page, which is then processed to produce the search results we all see when using our favourite search engine.

You can immediately see the problem. If the web page, containing the information you want, has not been crawled, you don’t get to see it as a result in your web search.

Non-reporting of a web page, by a spider, can be caused by several things. The page may not be linked to, by other sites, so the spider can’t find it; Pages on the website could be created dynamically, by using a database; The website may be using a file, called robots.txt, to block the spider from looking at the web page. The robots.txt file allows website owners to direct the processing of a spider, so that all, or some of, the website will not be crawled.

There are ways to find these pages. Search engines have been designed with a sole purpose of trawling the Deep Web. The method used is to index the web by subject category. This is done in two stages. The first is the categorising of sites into vertical topics, such as health, travel, or science, and then into sub-topics, depending on the content found in the database. The second stage is to organise the information into a meaningful display to the user of the search engine.

I tried out some of the Deep Web search engines.

OAIster is a project built by the University of Michigan, with assistance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. OAIster does not require you to select a topic, you just enter keywords, and the results are returned for you to read. I found it easy to use, and the results were interesting, and pertinent to my query.

Closer Look must be a Canadian organisation. I say this because the searches they provide are categorised under health, city search, and Canadian airfares. I used the city search for both Wellington and Auckland, and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of information returned.

Northern Light is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with development being done in St. Petersburg, Russia. The search page at Northern Light provides the ability to search the journals that have been crawled by their spider. A list of the publications is available. There is also the ability to browse topics, which is an interesting way to spend an afternoon when you should be working.

Alacra provides a search for company profiles, credit research, investment research, market research, economic data, etc. I used it to search for that Kiwi icon, The Warehouse, and it did return some information. However it concentrates on the USA market.

February 15 2007 – Hakia, a new search engine

In Internet on February 15, 2007 at 8:15 pm

The search engine Google has become the first choice of so many people worldwide, that it is now used as a verb, for describing searching the web. This was not always the case. There was a “before Google”, when most surfers used Altavista, a search engine that still exists, but is rarely used.

There have been many attempts to knock Google off its perch. Their closet rival is the immensely popular Yahoo!, but neither it, nor the others, have yet succeeded.

In 1999 Tim Berners-Lee was quoted as saying “I have a dream for the Web [in which computers] become capable of analysing all the data on the Web – the content, links, and transactions between people and computers. A ‘Semantic Web’, which should make this possible, has yet to emerge, but when it does, the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines. The ‘intelligent agents’ people have touted for ages will finally materialise.”

Developments are under way to make the Semantic Web possible. It is possibly, as large an undertaking as constructing the original Web. The object is to make web content meaningful to computers reading the data. For this to happen, information at websites has to be stored in a more specific format than current, human-readable web pages.

Humans would still be able to read web pages, it will just be easier to navigate around them and find the information you are looking for.

A step towards the Semantic Web is a new search engine called Hakia. Due to go live this year, it is the first meanings-based search engine on the web. The concept of this new kid on the block is that you can simply ask questions, and it returns the answers.

I thought that I would give it a try, and compare the results with Google.

My first question was about DVD formats, “What is better DVD-R or DVD+R”. Both Hakia and Google returned the same result as their first link. In Hakia, the link to the page was given as Hakia’s pick, whereas with Google it was the first in the list. A draw.

Trying a local question, I asked of both, “Where is a good place to eat in Wellington New Zealand?” Hakia provided detailed information about Wellington via a “gallery link”, which directed me to websites about Wellington restaurants. Google sent me to Yahoo’s travel pages on Wellington. I think Hakia won this round.

I thought I would ask a more testing question – “What is the meaning of life?” Surprisingly, both sites came up with some answers. Google directed me to Wikipedia, and a link about the Monty Python film “The Meaning Of Life”. Hakia gave me a “gallery page” with the note – “That is a very interesting question. Here is the hakia Gallery for the Meaning of Life. Good Luck!”. However it’s first entry was a BBC news page about ensuring criminals sentenced to life were not released early. I give this one to Google.

From this short example Hakia would appear to be doing its job. The question is will Hakia replace Google? Strangely it was Google that returned the better results to that question.

November 30 2006 – Yahoo Mail

In Internet on November 30, 2006 at 8:02 pm

A little while ago, Yahoo switched my webmail account over to their new system. I have found it very reliable, despite it being a beta version, meaning that all the bugs have not been found.

I was very surprised by the new system. Most of you know that I am a fan of Google, and will recommended Gmail to anyone, at the drop of a hat. But I think that Yahoo have the edge over Google now.

What Yahoo have done is clever, in its simpleness. They have put access to the main features of Yahoo onto the one web page. Once logged onto Yahoo Mail you can navigate these easily. Secondly the page design is clearer. I find that I don’t have to hunt for what I want, as I do with Gmail, I can just see it on the page, as if by instinct.

The welcome page is divided into sections. On the left-hand side of the screen is a list of folders, more about this later. While on the right is the main panel. It contains the latest news. You can choose between Top Stories, World, Entertainment, or Sport. You can select the news item you want to read, or choose More News, which displays all the headlines from Yahoo News.

At the bottom is a small panel that displays any events that you have registered in Yahoo Calendar. A prominent place to those reminders.

The top has the global navigation menu, along with a search box, enabling Yahoo Web searches. There are selections for changing the options, and getting help. A small indicator allows you to see how much space you have left in your mail account. You don’t get as much space as Gmail, only 1GB as opposed to Gmail’s 2GB+, but that should be enough.

The left-hand pane is the control, or navigation panel. The top of this has two buttons, one to check your mail, although this happens automatically every 10 minutes, the other for composing a message. Under this is a search box, allowing you to search through your mail boxes. Below is list of normal mail folders, then there are 3 links, one to allow managing of your contacts, one to view your Yahoo Calendar, and the last, to view your Yahoo Notepad. To view emails you click on a folder and the main panel divides into two. The top half shows a list of the emails, while the lower half will display the selected email.

The next entry, on the left-hand side, is RSS feeds. This is Yahoo’s method of allowing you to read your favourite news feeds. Much in the same way that the Thunderbird mail client does.

The last section is called “My Folders”. This is where folders, that you create, are placed. These folders allow the orderly storage of emails. It is easy to move emails to them via a simple drag-and-drop, or you can set-up filters. These are created using the options link at the top right, only I couldn’t get into the options menu. I presume that this is one of those beta test problems.

Do give the new Yahoo Mail a try. Current users of Yahooo Mail can switch over using the link, in the options section of the old mail system. I think you will find it easy to use, and you can switch back anytime you like.

November 11 2006 – Searching NZ

In Internet on November 11, 2006 at 8:01 pm

The last column explained about several search engines that could be used to find information from around the world. This time we concentrate on New Zealand sites.

Searching for New Zealand-specific information can be difficult, using global engines. A way around this problem is to use a New Zealand-specific search engine. Google provide a NZ only search page. There is a little button, which you can select, that limits the search to New Zealand pages. Closer to home, there is SearchNZ, which provides a search of web pages using “fuzzy” logic, so you don’t have to get the spelling correct. A different approach by nzs.com, uses a searchable web directory. The National Library also provides a comprehensive directory of New Zealand, and Pacific Island web sites, at Te Puna Web Directory.

Looking for phone numbers couldn’t be easier with the white pages, or the yellow pages. If you still can’t find the business you’re looking for, both Wises and UBD have sites to help.

Finding your way around is easy if you use Smaps, from Trade Me. Just simply type in the address, and the web page will prompt you. Select the address you want, and the map will appear.

For those needing to take a trip by public transport around the Greater Wellington area, Metlink provides a wonderful website that allows complete planning of any expedition. Just by typing in your starting point, and destination, you will receive detailed information on the best way to get there. You can also view timetables, and route maps, for both bus and trains.

There is a growing interest in genealogy, and the New Zealand Genealogy Search Engine is there to help find the missing branches from your family tree. Meanwhile, those trying to root out lost friends, couldn’t find a better place to start than Old Friends.

There are several sites that provide detailed information about New Zealand. Statistics New Zealand is a good place to start. Here you can get the real numbers, from the population, to amount of credit card debt. Te Papa provides The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, which has detailed information on subjects pertaining to New Zealand.

In the days before the Internet, most people would have searched the public library for the information they were looking for. Wellington Library has, for sometime, made available the catalogue of its entire collection. You can search for the item you want, reserve it, and have it sent to your closest branch for pick up. There is also a section of the website called Mygateway. This allows searching on almost any topic imaginable, and access to a vast collection of online newspapers, and magazines.

Hopefully, from now on, the web will now become the first, and last place you look for information.

October 26 2006 – The Right Search Engine

In Internet on October 26, 2006 at 8:05 pm

Finding exactly what you want, on the web, can be a daunting task. Of course most people will start with Google. You can learn how to get the best results from Google at their help page, but sometimes it doesn’t return the the information you want.

There are an innumerable number of search engines dedicated to specific subjects that could, for those subjects, be a better, first port of call than Google.

IMDB has always managed to settle arguments, in our house, about who was in what movie or TV show. You can search by title of movie, TV show, or by actor, and each entry is cross referenced. So if you want to know what Fay Wray has appeared in, and who was in “Perry Mason” with her, this should be your first stop.

An excellent specialist, music site is All Music Guide. This site provides biographies, discographies, information about songs, and chart details. Classical works are also covered. Unfortunately lyrics are copyrighted, and can not be legally published on the Internet. That doesn’t mean they’re not available. One of the best ways to search for lyrics is to use Google. Type – lyrics: “the song’s title” “the artist’s name” – into the search box.

For information about specific countries, Wikitravel is a good starting place for the traveller. It gives details about the country, how to get there, and how to get about when there. The CIA World Fact Book, yes that CIA, contains every detail you would want to know, from a map reference, to the unemployment rate of any country you can imagine.

For finding your way about, you can’t go past Google Maps. There are even satellite photographs of the vicinity available, and a neat function overlays the map onto the photograph.

When you are trying to find out about famous people, whether they be celebrities or royalty, Who2 is the place to go. From Angelina Jolie to Prince William, all the details are here.

Struggling with the English language is made easier by using the Cambridge Dictionary. This site provides a way to look up meanings, and a thesaurus for those stuck for the right word. If you prefer the Oxford Dictionary, the Ask Oxford website is what you want.

Users of the Firefox browser have an advantage over the users of other browsers. Available with Firefox, is the Firefox Search Bar. This allows the adding of thousands of search engines to a special area, in the toolbar section of the Firefox window. It is a simple matter to select the search engine you want to use, type in your search string, and press enter.

For site specific searches you can create your own search engine using Rollyo. This will only search the sites, up to 25, you specify. Your Rollyo search engine can even be placed in the Firefox Search Bar.

The information is there on the world wide web, you just have to use the right search engine, and search string, to find it.

September 14 2006 – Google Software

In Internet on September 14, 2006 at 8:05 pm

Hordes of programmers, slave at desks, in Microsoft’s offices, desperately trying to get Vista, the next version of Windows, ready for release on schedule. Meanwhile at the Googleplex, a similar bunch of coders are frantically working on Google’s vision. The two giants of IT could not have more diametrically opposed views on the future of computing.

Microsoft have bet all their chips on the PC requiring a large, complex chunk of code, that is proving very difficult to correct and clean-up. Their vision is that the PC will continue to be used as we currently do. A model which locks you into constant upgrades of the Windows operating system, and other software, preferably from Microsoft. Also constant upgrades of hardware are required by the user, as each release of the operating system grows in size.

Google on the other hand don’t want to sell you anything. Too good to believe? How can a company as large as Google make money by giving things away? I don’t know either, advertising plays its part, but the rest remains a mystery.

The future of computing, Google style, lies in the Internet. Analysing how people use their PCs, Google have started to roll out products that can be used through the web browser. The programs are stored at Google, not on the PC, and the files created by the user are also stored at Google. This means that the user requires a less powerful computer, and gains from the lower costs involved. It also allows people to be mobile, without owning a laptop, by using PCs in Internet cafes.

You can already download the Google Pack (pack.google.com), a package of software including Picasa, which manages digital photos, and helps to publish them on-line, along with Google Talk, a voice and IM application; RealPlayer, a media player; and a virus checker from Norton. There are also several other goodies including the Firefox web browser. These form the base of your requirements.

Having successfully launched Gmail, a web based email system, that’s taken the IT world by storm, Google have turned their sights to office-type products. They have introduced Calendar, which allows you to schedule your appointments, and organise your to-do list on the web, and to share this with others. Recently announced was Spreadsheets. Still in the testing stages, and not yet anywhere near the full function provided by Excel, but it is usable. At least it can handle the simple sheets I have at home.

The second announcement was that Google had purchased Writely, which is web-based word processing software. This is a great little product. In fact I used it to produce this eStuff column. It has all the functionality you would expect from a word processor, and more. One of the extras, in both Spreadsheets and Writely, allows multiple people to collaborate on documents, making it easy to share whatever you have written, or to get peer reviews.

Rumours are doing the rounds that Google will acquire a product that allows presentations to be built, using the web browser. If these are true, that would round off the office software range.

Google’s products are still in their infancy, and it remains to be seen if people will trust Google to store their documents safely and securely. I am not sure I would trust my personal information to a third party, but I think Google could be on to a winner.

Google accounts for Gmail, Spreadsheets etc

Invitations to Google Writely

August 3 2006 – Firefox Extensions

In Internet on August 3, 2006 at 7:50 pm

Naked, Firefox is a wonderful browser, and an interestingly alternative way to browse the web other than Internet Explorer. If you haven’t tried Firefox yet just click on the image below to download Firefox.

But there is something that can make Firefox all the better to surf with – Extensions. These wonderful small additions to the Firefox program add functionality, that is missing, or could have never been imagined by the Firefox development team.

Extensions are available, in my version of Firefox, by clicking “Tools”, then “Extensions”. This displays a window with a list of current extensions installed, and a link, in the bottom left corner, that says, “Get More Extensions”. Click on this, and you are presented with the extension homepage. You can select your extension by category, or by using the search feature.

Let me tell you about the extensions that I couldn’t do without.

Adblock: Tired of all those adverts in your webpage? This extension will get rid of them for you. It even dispenses with those pop-ups. It does this by using filters, which are easy to add, but better still, install the Adblock Filterset.G Updater extension, and let that do the work for you.

Adblock Filterset.G Updater: Together with Adblock, this will ensure that you have all the filters in place, so you should never see any web page adverts again.

ConQuery: Brings a whole new world to searching the Internet. A simple highlight of some text in a web page, and a click on the right-hand mouse button, allows you to search the web for the text, or direct your search to a specific website. ConQuery has many options to customise its features. It really does speed up web searching.

Add Bookmark Here: Once you have used the Firefox Bookmark Manager to sort your bookmarks into the order you want, Add Bookmark Here is indispensable for keeping them in order. This extension allows you to add bookmarks to any folder, in the bookmarks menu, you like.

Bookmark Duplicate Detector: Now that you have a system for filing your bookmarks, make sure that you never add the same bookmark twice by using this extension.

Tab Mix Plus: If you are only going to install one Firefox extension, it has to be this one. This extension enhances tab browsing by adding such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows. There is also a session manager with crash recovery, that will allow you to recover open tabs from a previous shutdown of Firefox.

AspellFox: If you are anything like me, you can’t “spel for toffe”, so this little extension will be a boon. It allows you to apply a spell check to any text on a web page. Most useful for those contact forms, and comment boxes on blogs. You will need to install a small program as well, but instructions are available on the Aspell web page.

Mail Notifiers: There are two that I would recommend, depending on which webmail account you are using. For Yahoo you should install Yahoo! Mail Notifier, for Gmail install the Gmail Notifier. If you have account at both sites, you can install both. Each extension displays a little icon telling you when new mail has arrived.

Exch: This is a wonderful extension that will calculate a foreign currency exchange based on the latest rates at Yahoo! Finance. Great if you use Amazon, or eBay a lot.

ReminderFox: If you need a quick reminder, calendar, and To Do list system, than this is the extension for you. A simple method for remembering birthdays, and giving yourself reminders to clean the fish tank.

Fetch Text URL: Such a simple extension, but it saves so much time. Sometimes people list the web site address on a web page without providing a link to it. eg. estuffonline.wodpress.com By highlighting that URL, it is possible to right-mouse-click your way to the web site.

Quicknote: Allows you to take notes. You can highlight text on the web page, and transfer it to your note, with just a click of the mouse. Adding your own text to the note, if you wish, before filing the note away for future reference.

Disable Targets For Downloads: This extension’s aim is to stop annoying blank pages popping up when you request a download.

Download Sort: Allows you to steer downloads to specific folders based on the extension of the file. Great for sorting the mp3s into one folder, and the zips into another.

Download Statusbar: Instead of watching the progress of downloads in a window, watch them in the Firefox status bar. It is much easier.

BugMeNot: Do you get annoyed by those sites that ask you to register before they will let you read any of their content? If so this extension is for you. It provides log-ons, without registering, for you, with a click on the right mouse button.

FireFTP: Any one who manages a website will find this extension useful. It provides FTP support within a Firefox tab, allowing up, or downloading of files from the website.

Morning Coffee: A great way to load all those websites you want to read in Firefox at the same time. You can visit the websites everyday, or on specific days. Just build the list the way you want, and away you go. All it takes is one click of the coffee cup icon in the toolbar.

Mozilla Firefox – Have It Your Way! Is a site that documents many more extensions, and some that I have above. The nice thing about this site is that it also documents other ways to customise Firefox. Such as Greasemonkey scripts, and Firefox themes.

thanassis, over at Technorati Blogs has documented his pick of Firefox Extensions in “27 Of The Most Useful Firefox Extensions”.

The Best Firefox Extensions in three volumes from CNET

June 22 2006 – Net Neutrality

In Internet on June 22, 2006 at 7:58 pm

While the battle for better broadband continues in New Zealand, over in the USA, a whole new fight for a “free” Internet, has opened up.

American telecom companies, like AT&T and Verizon, are proposing that organisations using large amounts of bandwidth will have to pay to use the cables. High bandwidth utilisation is caused by either, audio, video, large high-quality images etc, or, vast volumes of visitors. Currently it is the surfers who pay for the use of the cables, not the content providers. The proposal will see the carriers being paid twice. Like a phone call where the caller, and the person being called, both have to pay.

If the telecom companies get their way, it is possible that web pages from, say Google, may take ages to appear, while Yahoo displays in a flash. Some may see this demand for money as natural in a capitalist world, while others may see it as restricting the Internet.

The telcos claim that they have invested a fortune in providing the cables, and need to get extra funds to continue their investment in the network, otherwise the system will not be able to cope with the demands placed on it by new innovations on the Internet.

The detractors are calling for “Net neutrality”, basically that the Internet works the same for everyone who wants to use it, no matter what they want to use it for. “Allowing broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success,” says “father of the Internet”, Vinton Cerf.

The charge may see the Internet morph into two disparate entities. One providing heavy bandwidth applications, the other, a sort of hobbyist net, which would be home to the personal pages, blogs, and low bandwidth applications. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who developed the World Wide Web in 1989, is quoted as saying “What’s very important from my point of view is that there is one web. Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks very boring.”

Google, eBay, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, Intel, and many other organisations are against the proposal for a two-tier Web. Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, said in an open letter to all Google users, “Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.” Google has even suggested that it may be necessary to build their own network.

The battle may be over already. The US House of Representatives have voted to reject a Bill containing Net neutrality regulations, by a 269-152 vote. There are still several other Bills waiting for a vote, that have a Net neutrality clause in them.

If the carriers get their way, in the USA, it will affect the Internet, for as much as we claim that it is a global entity, the Internet remains US concentric. In Germany, Deutsche Telekom have indicated payment for high-speed network access is on the cards, and you can bet your life, that once the US telecom industry has won the fight, it won’t be long before Telecom NZ realise it’s a good way to recover the revenue lost in the broadband battle.

May 18 2006 – The Need For Speed 3

In Internet on May 18, 2006 at 8:08 pm

I didn’t expect to be writing about broadband again, so soon, but it could hardly have escaped even the most inattentive news watcher that, having found some spine, the Government has at last, stood up to Telecom, and will regulate to ensure competition is unfettered.

What is included in this regulation package?

This year the Act governing telcos will be amended. There will be a new unconstrained UBS service, allowing better access to Telecom’s network for Internet services. The local loop will be unbundled, which will allow other companies to install their own equipment in Telecom’s exchanges, enabling their own connections to the Internet or phone service. A review of the Telecommunications Service Obligation (TSO), or Kiwi Share (the agreement that keeps local calls free) will be undertaken. A new concept in connecting to the telecommunications network, called naked DSL, will be introduced. Basically it will mean that rather than connecting to the phone system, your communications line will connect you to the Internet. This will allow you to make your phone calls, over the Internet, using VOIP systems like Skype.

In 2007 further surveys will investigate the running of Telecom and the telecommunication industry, and a package will be developed to ensure that broadband coverage is available to rural areas.

So what does all this mean for the average Kiwi?

If statements from Telcom’s competition are anything to go by, there will be cheaper, faster, Internet for all. Pundits are saying that if you choose the naked DSL option, the monthly line rental will disappear. We could soon be cruising the Internet at speeds of 24Mbs. Fast enough to enjoy the wonders of VOIP for your phone, streaming Internet TV, and downloading movies.

And what is it going to cost?

Nobody is willing to give any firm prices, but figures as low as $10 or $15 a month have been suggested. I assume that these prices will be for entry level connections, and the premium connections will cost more. One thing is certain, you will need to investigate what your current supplier provides, and how much you might possibly save by moving. This may not be as easy as it sounds, given the self-stated curtain of confusion, used by telcos to ensure that consumers don’t know what they’re paying for. Once the new services and prices start being advertised, a new website, started just before the announcement, may be able to help you choose. The free site is ISPfind, and is provided by Neil Walbran Consulting Ltd.

When will we start to benefit?

Tough question that one! The change in legislation will not take affect until July. It is then up to Telecom to deliver the required service and access. It would be safe to assume that Telecom are not going to take these changes lying down, and will introduce delaying tactics to ensure that they are able to gain a competitive edge. Some companies are ready to move now, and say they could begin providing services 30 days after the law change.

Where does this leave Telecom?

It is already apparent that Telecom’s share price will be lower. Expect the company to split into two, as has occurred in the UK. One company providing the network, and the other providing the services.

Will TelstraClear have to “unbundle” its network?

A good question. In all fairness I suppose it should. There has been no mention of this at all, so I guess the answer is no.

Part one of this article can be read here.

Part two of this article.

April 13 2006 – The Need For Speed 2

In Internet on April 13, 2006 at 7:49 pm

Telecom has announced that beginning in June, they will roll-out ADSL2+ connections to the Internet. With ADSL2+ the speed of your connection will reach 24 megabits per second (Mbps), or 375 times that of a dial-up line, and 12 times faster than Xtra’s current 2Mbps connections. The only problem is just like DSL, the further your house is from the exchange, the slower the connection becomes. Speed starts to drop off from about 2Km from the exchange.

I am unaware of the price, but my guess is it will cost more than $59.95, per month, for the current Xtra Broadband Adventure. There will still be a limit to what you can download each month, presumably the same as currently offered, 10GB.

According to Matt Crockett, General Manager of Telecom’s Wired division, new services will be offered, including video calling, interactive television and Internet-based voice services. How users are going to manage to keep under 10GB per month, with those kind of offerings, is anybodies’ guess.

A cynic would suggest that the timing of this announcement is to offset any government interference into the running of Telecom, especially the unbundling of the local loop.

In a free market economy the best way to express discontent with one company is to move your business to another. In New Zealand, Telecom have a virtual monopoly, because they own the phone cable network. Even if you use another ISP, rather than Xtra, Telecom is still laughing all the way to the bank.

Luckily, here in Wellington we have other networks to choose from.

For those who live in Wellington city, and along the corridor to the Zoo, there is CityLink. Unless you can afford the corporate connections the speed currently offered by CityLink is 4Mbps. You can check if the CityLink service is available in your area, using a map on their website. CityLink do not provide an ISP service, they just provide the cable. If you wish to use CityLink’s cable you must contact an ISP, and the website lists around 20 ISPs you can choose from.

TelstraClear’s cable network covers a greater area, as can be seen on the map at TelstraClear’s website. A whole range of packages are available from TelstraClear, which include combinations of phone, digital TV and cable Internet. Speeds offered range from 2Mbps to 10Mbps, with a maximum traffic allowance of 80Gb. See their website for more information.

If you live outside the area covered by TelstraClear, or CityLink, or desire a more mobile option, there is Woosh. By using a wireless network, Woosh is able to provide Internet connection to your home, and while you are on the move. This is achieved by using a portable Woosh modem, or if you have a laptop, a Woosh PC Card. There are several packages available, and Woosh can also provide a VOIP phone service. A VOIP phone allows you to make telephone calls, over the Internet, without using a conventional phone, or Telecom connection.

Part one of this article can be read here.

The final chapter (part 3) – The Government acts

March 23 2006 – The Need For Speed 1

In Internet on March 23, 2006 at 7:59 pm

In the bierkeller, you order a one litre glass of golden German beer. I can see your mouth watering now, you want to pick it up, in both hands, and drink it, but instead the barmaid tells you that it is verboten, and offers you the choice of several straws. Each straw is fatter than the other, and you are charged, for the beer, by the fatness of the straw. There is a very thin straw, it would take hours to drink the beer with that one. As each straw is offered you are told that you will be able to drink the beer faster than before. You select one that you can afford, and get ready to drink your beer. As you do so the barmaid explains that when you have drunk 250 millilitres, you will have to pay an extra charge for each millilitre, you drink, from then on. You consider going across the road to another establishment. It will do no good, because these controls were put into place by the straw manufacturer, who has a monopoly.

No one would put up with that in the beirkeller, but all of us put up with it, everyday, when we use the Internet. Imagine the glass is the Internet, the beer is all the information available on the Internet, and the bierkeller is the ISP. The smallest straw is equivalent to a dial-up Internet connection. You get to drink the beer, very slowly, and don’t really get the full flavour. As the straw size increases you drink the beer faster, and your taste buds get more of the wonderful flavours. This is the equivalent to the varying packages of broadband connections available, the more megabits per second (Mbps), the fatter the straw. Unfortunately getting the full power of the Internet requires the use of the fattest straw available, or picking up the glass and sculling. In New Zealand we can’t enjoy the beer fully, picking up the glass to drink is not allowed.

The straws are the equivalent of the local loop, or, as it is sometimes called, the “last mile”. This is the cable that connects your house to the local exchange. The local loop is owned by Telecom. Owning this part of the telephone network is crucial in providing Telecom with the advantage it has, over any other communications company. The competition, whether it be a telephone, or Internet, provider, would like to have freer access to the local loop. Together with TUANZ, the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand, they have been calling on the government, for several years, to unbundle. That is to take the “last mile” of wiring away from Telecom. This would enable competitors to compete with Telecom fairly.

Telecom gained control of the local loop when the government sold it, along with the rest of the family silver. In the majority of other countries, where state owned phone companies were sold, the local loop is freely available. Needless to say, Telecom are furiously fighting any efforts to unbundle, they do not want to loose this advantage.

In the past the Government has been unwilling, or unable, to deal with Telecom. Anything they have done, or said, has had about as much effect as hitting Mike Tyson with a wet bus ticket. We can only hope that now the Prime Minister has spoken, something will be happen, and we will gain faster, cheaper, and unfettered access to the Internet.

The Wellington area does have alternative networks, and these will be discussed in part two of this article.

The final chapter (part 3) – The Government acts

February 23 2006 – No Holiday For Hackers

In Internet on February 23, 2006 at 7:53 pm

While we’ve all been holidaying in the bach, tent, or on the Gold Coast, the hackers have been busy.

PCs have come under attack, due to a flaw in the way the Windows operating system processes graphic files (JPG, GIF, etc). These can be found almost anywhere, in your email, on a website, or on a CD from Uncle Claude. To be infected you would have to display, on your PCs monitor, a graphic file that has been specially crafted by the hackers. These special files contain code that can do all the dastardly things you expect from these criminals.

The problem affects all versions of Windows, from 95 through to XP. It is no good relying on your virus scanner to pick-up the infection, because it is unable to recognise the code that is present in the file.

A patch is now available from Microsoft. The problem is this fix does not apply to versions of Windows, “not supported” by Microsoft. This list includes Windows 95, 98, 98SE and ME. Microsoft say these versions do contain the problem, but “the vulnerability is not critical because an exploitable attack vector has not been identified that would yield a critical severity rating for these versions.” I assume that means that Microsoft consider it uneconomical to provide a patch for older versions.

If you haven’t, or can’t, apply the fix, my advice to you is to switch off images in your web browser and email client, and don’t put Uncle Claude’s CD into your CD drive.

Meanwhile, another very nasty hole was found in Microsoft Outlook 2000, 2002, and 2003. This allows a hacker to send an email, in Rich Text File format (RTF), that could gain control of your Windows PC. Microsoft has a patch for this problem, as well.

eStuff has featured information on rootkits before, the last column was about Sony BMG’s use of a rootkit as a method of stopping the pirating of music.

Installing a rootkit is dangerous, because it can open a backdoor to your PC. So it is very disconcerting to hear Norton SystemWorks from Symantec Corp, and Kaspersky Lab Anti-Virus, are using rootkit features.

In Symantec’s case, the rootkit feature was used to hide a directory from users, in order to stop people accidentally deleting files. Since news about this broke, the company has released an update to Norton SystemWorks.

Kaspersky, on the other hand, have released a statement, “Kaspersky Lab believes that the iStreams technology utilised in Kaspersky Anti-Virus cannot be exploited by a malicious user, and to call this technology a rootkit is incorrect.”

This just prompts the question. If you can’t trust the companies that provide software employed to stop attacks on your computer, not to open them up to attack, who can you trust?

November 24 2005 – Gmail and Google Talk

In Internet on November 24, 2005 at 4:50 pm

The British have a word for it – Annorak, a person who is unhealthily obsessed with something. It comes from the coat worn by trainspotters, those people who spend lonely hours waiting for the 7:15 from Hartlepool to pass by.

I think I am turning into an Annorak, over Google. This company is so fascinating that I just can’t stop myself from writing another article about them. eStuff has featured several Google-related articles, over the years, and their announcements over the last few months compel me to tell you more.

In addition to providing Gmail, a web based email service, with enough disk space so that you will never need to delete any emails, ever, they have added to their communications toolbox, Google Talk.

Google Talk is a downloadable program, that allows communication with people via email,instant messenger service (IM), or voice calls. Calls are made using your PC, like like you the telephone. You must be connected to the Internet, and have a microphone and speaker, connected to your PC. If you don’t have a speaker, or built-in microphone, then the easiest way to use Google Talk is to purchase a headset. If you don’t want to use voice calls, you can use the IM services. An IM service allows you to chat, using the computer keyboard, with your friends who are also connected to the service. Google Talk is based on the Jabber IM system, which is an open system, built to allow IM networks to interconnect. Unfortunately, Microsoft Messenger, Yahoo, and AIM, do not support this system, and the only way to chat with people on these services, is to use software, such as GAIM. Doing so means that you loose the voice call function, but with the fierce competition in this area, anything can happen, and most likely will.

A very recent Google announcement, is that they have joined forces with Sun, in an agreement that sees both companies pledged to spreading, and developing, each other’s software. Sun is best known for providing Java, and a product known as StarOffice, an office system similar to Microsoft Office. It not only provides the full coverage of word processor, spreadsheet, database etc, but also can read, and produce Microsoft-Office, compatible files. It is based on OpenOffice.org, which is available for free on the web. Google have started hiring programmers to work specifically on OpenOffice.org. It can do this because all the code for OpenOffice.org is available on the Internet, for anyone to make changes. This is called Open Source. Once the changes have been made, they must be made available for inclusion into the main product. Microsoft will, no doubt, see this as a direct threat to its virtual monopoly of office software. This is going to be a very interesting battle.

I am off, either, to buy an annorak, or see a counsellor about my Google obsession.

October 27 2005 – Surfing Again

In Internet on October 27, 2005 at 4:51 pm

It has been a long time since I shared some of the websites I have found, or that have been recommended to me, by others.

There can be few of us, who have not heard the strange electronic music that heralds the approach of Doctor Who, being pursued by this week’s evil doers. Now while-away a few hours, as you mix your own version of this hypnotic theme tune, courtesy of The BBC Doctor Who Radiophonatron.

On the subject of whiling-away time, many a collective hour has been spent investigating the aerodynamics of paper. If you want to achieve the ultimate accolades for your paper plane, at school, or the office, there is a detailed plan available at Build the Best Paper Airplane In The World.

The wonderful thing about the Internet, is that it can fill in gaps in your own knowledge. It wasn’t until I played Free Trivia Web Quizzes, that I found out dogs would hallucinate if they ingested toothpaste. Find out much more about the world of animals, geography, health, and the twentieth century, by playing the compellingly contagious quizzes provided by Sheppard Software.

Have you ever wondered how scientists know which bone goes where, when they reconstruct the fossils found in rocks? At Strange Science you can see the mistakes made by scientists, over the centuries, as the struggled to make sense of their findings.

The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre is an archive of New Zealand and Pacific Islands texts, and heritage materials. This service is provided, free of charge, by Victoria University, and offers images, full-text books, manuscripts and journals. The site is constantly being updated, and currently features excellent coverage of New Zealand’s part in World War II.

Need to produce a small quantity of business cards? Then call in at The PCman Website, where, after completing a few questions, you will be able to print your own cards. The questions relate to the information you require on the cards, and the rest of the card is fully customisable, right down to being able to provide your own logo.

Taste in music tends to vary considerably from one person to another. I personally have never found Coldplay to my liking, and can’t listen to Celine Dion. Others have not heard of the artists I listen to, and would probably not like them either. I think that we would all agree, however, about the Guckenheimer Sour Kraut Band, and their record “Music for Non-thinkers”. You can download tracks from this unnecessary recording at Weirdomusic, along with heaps of other music, that demands the weird epithet.

Flatting can be a problem. Those constant rows about whose turn it is to take out the rubbish, or clean the toilet. Chore Busters, a new website, developed by Rimu Atkinson, promises to take the drudge out of drudgery. You build a roster of tasks that are shared amongst the flatmates. Families will also benefit, as it will put an end to sibling shouting matches over who is to dry the dishes. You can try it out, free for one month.

If you have a favourite website, or one you have developed yourself, drop me an email for the next surfing column in eStuff.

June 9 2005 – The New Google

In Internet on June 9, 2005 at 4:45 pm

In 1998 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin started Google, the Google home page looked much as it does now. Very sparse, just a Google logo, and a search box. You had to press the enter key to start the search, because there was no “Google Search”, or “I’m Feeling Lucky”, buttons. The reason for this minimalist look, was not due to some advanced idea of design, but because neither of them knew much about the writing of web pages.

We have become used to this lean look, in fact it has become an unofficial Google trade mark. All of this is about to change. Now under test is a new look, Google home page. It is now possible to make use of the vast expanse of white space, and design your own Google home page. To the familiar logo, search box, and buttons, you can add, stock market quotes, weather, and news, from sources such as Google News, New York Times, BBC, Wired and Slashdot. You will also be able to keep a watch on your Gmail inbox. And that is just for starters. There are plans afoot, for more options.

Google will be adding RSS aggregation, and within the next couple of months, you will be able to choose from a selection of default feeds. The ability to add your own choice of RSS feeds will come later.

To be able to use the page, you must have a Google account. If you already have a Gmail account (see below) this will work fine. A Google account gives you access not only to Gmail, but also, Google Groups, Alerts, and Search History.

The new home page is completely flexible, and user customisable. You can choose between 1 to 9 headlines for each news feed, and you can place them in any order you wish. You may already be familiar with the portal page concept, from sites such as Yahoo or XtraMSN, but compared to the new Google layout, these sites look cluttered, and it is difficult to find what you are looking for. I have been using the Google layout for some time now, and I like it. It is very quick to load, and once loaded, there is no confusion, you can instantly find what you are looking for.

Google Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt doesn’t want us to refer to the new layout as a portal, “It’s a personalization tool” he says. This is a prime opportunity for Google to place the text ads that we have become so used to seeing, on web pages such as eStuff. Google claims that it has no plans to bombard us with ad,s on the new style home page, well not yet anyway.

Currently the page is USA-centered, for example, the weather is driven by US Zip codes, but I assume that once beta testing is complete it will become more global orientated. There is also the ability to switch back to the Classic Google page by a link in the right hand corner.

Messing with a classic can bring resistance. New Coke was introduced in 1995, as a replacement for the classic Coca-Cola. It only lasted two years. Let’s hope that Google’s new home page is here to stay.

May 19 2005 – More Podcasting & Gmail Drive

In Internet on May 19, 2005 at 4:49 pm

Radio New Zealand may actually benefit by its slow adoption of Internet technologies, available for the the dissemination of their programmes, on the web. eStuff recently ran a couple of articles about Internet technologies for broadcasters. One about the BBC’s innovative use of the Internet, for making its programmes accessible worldwide, and the other about podcasting.

Not only, has the BBC made available all its programmes on the Internet, but it has now started to experiment with podcasting. Podcasting is a service which allows PC users to download an MP3 version of a broadcast, which they can then transfer to their portable MP3 players. There are now in excess of twenty programmes, as podcasts, from the BBC.

They are not alone in this. The UK commercial broadcaster, Virgin Radio, is making available a thirty minute podcast of excerpts from its breakfast show. In Australia the ABC is trialling podcasts for Radio National, and also provides several shows from Triple J as podcasts. Not content with providing its own content as podcasts, a radio station in San Francisco has taken the rather unique step of accepting podcasts from anyone, and then broadcasting them on the radio. KYOURadio is the first radio station, in the world, to broadcast podcasts from its listeners, 24 hours a day.

So perhaps Radio New Zealand should look into podcasting its programmes. It certainly looks as though it’s definitely a technology here to stay.

On a different subject completely. Gmail is a webmail service provided by Google. Users of Gmail are able to use the web, anywhere in the world, to read their email. It works much the same way as Hotmail, but being a Google product has more “street cred” attached to it, not to mention better features. It also offers 2GB of storage. That should be enough space for anyone to keep all their email, and never have to worry about deleting any of it ever.

Google carried out extensive research into email usage, by using Gmail, in-house, for two years, before releasing it to the public. In all Google identified 6 types of email user. However, they never expected anyone to use their webmail account to gain extra space for their computer files. When you offer 2GB of space you must expect some people to think outside the square. GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google Gmail account. This allows you to add a new drive to your computer under the My Computer folder, where you can create new folders, copy, and drag’n'drop files, just like it was a hard drive in your computer.

May 5 2005 – BBC Digital Radio

In Internet on May 5, 2005 at 4:48 pm

Trying to listen to Radio New Zealand, on the Internet, is a bit tricky. Concert FM doesn’t appear to be available from the RNZ website, and only news broadcasts, and selected programmes, are available from National Radio. There are no music shows, like Homegrown, Saturday Night, or In A Mellow Tone available. This has led media commentators like Russell Brown (1, 2), and Andrew Dubber, to criticise RNZ for their lack of Internet content.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, The BBC is showing everyone what is possible. The number of people who listen to BBC shows, via the Internet, has increased by 25% in one month. It is not surprising that they have nine million listeners (and the number is still growing), when you consider what the broadcaster is offering.

Not only can you listen to BBC radio live, from all its stations, Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, the World Service, over 40 local and regional stations (some broadcasting in national languages), and five digital stations, only available via digital radio, or the Internet, but you can also listen to a variety of programmes, anytime you like, for up to seven days after they were broadcast. This is known as radio on demand.

Many people will be familiar with the music provided by Radio 1, 2 & 3, the talk networks 4 & 5, and the World Service. It is the digital stations I want to draw your attention to.

The Asian Network, provides music news and entertainment, for the Asian community in the UK.

1Xtra is a music service aimed at youth, who love hip-hop, R&B, garage, dancehall, and drum and bass, with all the culture surrounding it.

Five Live Sports Extra, offers commentaries from the soccer Premiership, Nationwide League, Scottish Premier League and cup soccer, plus cricket, rugby, Formula One, tennis and golf.

6Music plays modern music for those people who enjoy more than a playlist of 30 songs. There are also specialist shows playing the like of funk, and reggae.

BBC7 is an entertainment channel providing a selection of drama, comedy, and children’s programmes. This is the place to go for Miss Marples, The Goons, and stories for your kids.

The ability to listen at anytime, makes it perfect for us, down here in New Zealand, because we can select the programme we want to listen to when we are nice and comfortable, with a cup of coffee, and a slice of carrot cake. I find myself spending entire evenings listening to the programmes from BBC7, rather than watching TV.

The BBC have made it easy to pick the station, or the show that you want to listen to, by providing a special website. All you need to do is make sure you have Real Player installed.

Now if only we could get access to BBC TV programmes on demand.

April 21 2005 – Spam, Spam, Spam

In Internet on April 21, 2005 at 4:38 pm

The Vikings can carry the blame for the raping and pillaging of England, and Europe. To blame them for spam, might be taking it too far. Yet the name for unwanted junk email, comes from a Monty Python Flying Circus sketch, featuring Vikings, singing “Spam, spam, spam, lovely spam! Wonderful spam!”

The Viking may have thought spam was lovely, but to most people with a computer, it is a problem akin to the arrival of long-ships, carrying hordes of Leifs, Lars, and Olafs.

The spam problem has become so vast that governments. around the world. have resorted to passing laws to quash it. New Zealand is among them. In February, Information Technology Minister. David Cunliffe. unveiled The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Bill, with the aim to outlaw spam in New Zealand.

Targeting not only emails, but also text messaging, and instant messaging services, the Bill requires that any person, or organisation, sending multiple marketing messages. ensures that the recipients have opted-in. to receive their messages. The senders of these messages will have to remove any recipients who ask to opt-out of further mailings. Each message must carry the correct email address for the sender, and information to allow the recipient to unsubscribe. Penalties. for non-compliance. will be a fine of $500,000 for organisations. and $200,000 for individuals. The proposed legislation is similar to laws passed in Australia, UK, and USA.

This Bill will probably not be introduced to Parliament until after this years election, the proposed date. for the law to take effect. being early 2006.

The effect that this Bill will have on spam in your inbox may be negligible. Only 10%

of spam is thought to emanate from New Zealand, and while other countries are passing their own anti-spam laws, there will always be those that don’t. With just one country. where spaming is legal. a deluge of unwanted mail will still occur.

And the deluge will not stop while people keep buying the products, or falling for the scams. In the UK one in five British consumers has purchased software from spamers. Other items purchased include, clothes and jewellery (23%), leisure and travel (20%), finance (18%), adult content (8%), pharmaceuticals (8%) and “business opportunities” (8%). Here in New Zealand, a 78-year-old woman and her 65-year-old niece were taken in by a scamster. They defrauded others, taking their money, and “investing” it a Nigerian scam, with the hopes of US$28 million return.

The passing of laws may not be the only weapon in the spam war. Yahoo, and Microsoft, have proposed methods by which spam can be eliminated. The problem is getting all the Internet to agree on which is the best method, and then adopting it. While big business is behind the proposals, there will always be an element of doubt about whose best interests they really have in mind.

Two websites which may be of interest to those drowning in spam are New Zealand’s own Stop Spam, and the BBC’s Ask Bruce.

March 3 2005 – Podcasting

In Internet on March 3, 2005 at 4:46 pm

Blog was the word of 2004, according to the US dictionary publisher, Merriam-Webster, and Podcast could well be on the way to being the word of 2005. Already it is the fashionable thing to have on your website.

A podcast is, basically, an audio file, that can be download from a website, and, if you wish, transfered to a portable audio player, such as the Apple iPod. The idea being that you can then listen to the audio file anytime, anywhere. The name, of course, comes from “cast” as in broadcast, and “pod” as in iPod.

Podcasts resemble radio broadcasts, in that each podcast is one show. The content of the show is determined by the producer of the podcast. They can be right-wing diatribes supporting US foreign policy, or left-wing diatribes decrying US foreign policy, there are comedy shows, or people creating audio journals of their life, there are music shows of every genre from A to Z, in fact just about anything, and everything you can think of.

Adam Curry, an ex MTV host, is the man who has been credited with the development of the podcast. Curry wrote the initial podcasting script, which he admits was pretty rough, and released it on the Internet asking for help to spruce it up. It didn’t take long for the code to be cleaned up by enthusiastic supporters. Dave Weiner, who wrote the specifications for RSS 2.0, updated them to allow for audio files, and voila – it is now possible to download audio files, in the same manner as you can download your RSS feeds.

Despite these efforts, building your own podcast can be a daunting task, for the novice. There are three basic, and separate, steps that need to be taken. You start by creating your audio file, then you upload the audio file to your website host, the last step is creating a blog entry that will become the RSS feed. An excellent explanation exists at howtopodcast.org.

If you want to listen to podcasts you will need to download some software, called a podcatcher. iPodder is the most recommend, although there is quite a choice out there. The right podcatcher will, over night, download the podcasts you are interested in, and, if you have one, transfer them to your iPod for your listening pleasure on the way to work. You don’t need to have an iPod, or other MP3 player, you can just download the podcast to your PC, and use Winamp, or other MP3 software to play it.

Finding worthwhile podcasts to listen to is difficult, but already directories are springing up on the Internet to assist in the search. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). The podcast already has broadcaster’s approval, with WYNC, a National Public Radio (Sort of an American BBC) station in New York, podcasting one of its shows called “On The Media“. Listen, and enjoy.

January 26 2005 – Other Search Engines

In Internet on January 26, 2005 at 4:43 pm

The success of Google has seen a flurry of activity from companies wanting you to use their search engines. All this activity is really an effort to ensure you view advertising, served up, with the results of your search.

A9, from Amazon, looks the most promising candidate. It uses Google as a base,but it is the way the results are presented, that make it interesting. You can view the standard search engine results, or you can select other panels. By selecting ‘images’, you receive not only, search results, but a side bar full of images, relating to the search. A quick click of ‘books’, retrieves information from Amazon’s database about books, relating to the search. You can also select ‘movies’, which delves into the IMDB database, and ‘reference’, which provides encyclopedia and dictionary entries. I was very impressed by A9, but there are questions relating to privacy, especially if you use the A9 toolbar. You can sidestep the privacy concerns, by using Generic A9, which doesn’t keep any search, or personal details, about you.

Ask Jeeves, one of the lesser known, search engines, has under beta testing, a desktop search, which will help you find information on your PC. The beta test version may be a bit buggy, so it could pay to wait for the first full, release. Also just out of the box, is My Jeeves, which looks very interesting. Using Ask Jeeves for your search, you then save each result that interests you. Saved results can then be organised into folders. You can even add comments, or notes, against each result that you save. There is only one problem, the results from Ask Jeeves do not appear as comprehensive as those from Google, or A9.

Appealing to a niche audience, of surfers, looking for sounds on the web, Find Sounds turns the web into one big sound-effects library. So if you are looking for the sound of a submarine, jackhammer, or bazooka, take a visit.

Some people are a little paranoid about the information that Google can amass about you. eStuff has detailed this dark side of Google in a previous article. Now there is a website you can visit, that allows you to use Google without worrying about the Big Brother aspects of the service. Scroogle will complete your Google search for you, return the results to your screen, and not store any information about the search. It is run by Public Information Research, Inc. who also run the Google Watch site.

Unperturbed by all of this, the Google juggernaut moves slowly on. Currently under beta test are, Google Scholar which specifically searches scholarly literature, and Google Suggest, which gives you suggestions as you type in your search string.

December 30 2004 – email Return Receipt

In Internet on December 30, 2004 at 11:29 am

Some time ago, a reader emailed me, asking if there is a way to find out if someone reads an email that you’ve sent. I answered that Outlook provides this function, although there is a problem with using it. The recipient has to be using Outlook, and they also have an opportunity not to send the notification, as they are asked, if they wish to confirm that the email has been received.

There is a lot of interest in knowing, if an email has been read. I presume this comes from the fact, that we have all had one, if not several, emails ignored by our intended recipients. This desire, for confirmation of receipt, has lead to several companies trying to make their fortunes, by offering solutions to the public.

I managed to find four such organisations; ReturnReceipt, ReadNotify, DidTheyReadIt?, and MSGTAG.

All of these companies offer a free service, even if only, for a short time. They all promise to provide you with notification of receipt of your email. Before you sign up, and download any software from these sites, you should be aware of a few things.

Despite the fact that there is a charge for using the services, there is ultimately no guarantee, that the service provided, will work.

The process, that the majority of these companies use, is called a “web bug”. It is a well known trick used by spammers, to ensure that the email addresses they are sending to, are live, in use, addresses.

A web bug makes use of a function, allowing the sending of images, in emails. The image used is usually only 1 by 1 pixel. So small, you wouldn’t notice it. This is why you should always set your email client to block the loading of images. With Outlook, this setting can be found under Tools | Options | Security | Change Automatic Download Settings, where you can specify that pictures, or other content, should not be automatically downloaded in HTML mail. This feature is available in most email clients, and if it isn’t, you should change clients.

Once a client is set to block images, the spammers, and those notification services that use the same web bug, will be foiled. No images downloaded, means that they do not know if you’ve read the email.

Now I ask you, would you want to pay around US$50 for a service that is so easily made inoperable? I don’t think so!

These services have created a lot of discussion on the Internet, about privacy. It seems you can’t do anything, these days, without someone claiming that their privacy has been breached. I think that most people would agree, that it is fair enough to provide notification of receipt of an email, only when the recipient has agreed, that this should be provided. After all, in the real world, registered mail, and signed for courier delivery, do provide the option of not signing, and of course, not receiving the item.

There is some discussion as to the legality of these services, both in the USA, and in France, where computer users have been warned, that the service breaches French privacy legislation. A French user can be sent jail for up to five years, and receive a fine of 300,000 euros.

It looks like Microsoft got something right, when they made Outlook give the recipient the option of returning notification.

December 2 2004 – Flickr

In Internet on December 2, 2004 at 11:26 am

The digital camera is becoming ubiquitous. Most cell phones now come with an inbuilt camera, and those old 35mm cameras are few and far between. This creates a big problem. What to do with all those photos you take?

Having a digital camera in your pocket, or bag, makes it all to easy to click away, and take photos by the hundreds. Once they are on your camera, what do you do with them?

It doesn’t seem right that you should take the memory card into a shop, for processing, after all, the reason you went digital, was to save the trees, and do away with shoe-boxes full of photos that nobody ever looks at. Wasn’t it?

You could download them to your PC, and then burn them onto a CD or DVD, but how does that help you share them, with other people?

The answer is close at hand. A bunch of Canadians have come up with the ultimate way to share digital photos on the web. It is called Flickr.

Flickr allows you to upload photos from a camera, phone or computer. Once uploaded, you can organise the photos into albums. Then you can add tags and comments. It is also easy to post your photos onto your blog. Just about every blogging tool is supported. If you only want to share your photos with a select few, you can secure them by making viewing, only open to specific Flickr account holders. You can even build an RSS/XML feed of your photos, for sharing with people who use that method for browsing the web.

The most intriguing function is the tag. This allows users to label each photo with a one-word tag. Say you had some photos of your trip to the Mt Bruce National Wildlife Centre. You could tag them with “wildlife”. That tag allows other people to use it, as a search-string, to view your photos, along with others by people who have used the same tag. This does work, see the current wildlife tag.

Adding comments also makes the photo have more meaning. An example would be uploading photos of your family, and commenting on them, in a way that could be used by genealogists researching a family tree. Imagine being able to see great-great-uncle Archibald, as well as know when he lived, and his wife and children’s names, just by passing the mouse over the photo.

With a free Flickr account you get limited use of the services, or you can upgrade to the Pro Account for US$41.77 per year.

On a different subject completely.

For a while now those that visited the eStuff website have, not only been able to use the quick links to the websites mentioned in each eStuff, but also view archived copies of each eStuff column. Now, in a effort to keep readers better informed of security issues relating to their PC, the eStuff website includes virus news. This section of the website is updated, as soon as news of a security problem becomes available. A brief description of the security alert is given, along with a link to the original article. There are also links to appropriate articles on the eStuff website, and third party sites, in particular the virus warning pages of the virus scanning software providers, and Microsoft’s pages dealing with security issues. It is hoped that, by providing this information, readers can ensure that they practise safe computing.

November 18 2004 – Google Print And Desktop Search

In Internet on November 18, 2004 at 8:23 pm

In August, Google’s shares were listed on the US NASDAQ, and are doing nicely. The money raised is being put to good use, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the brains behind Google, in their plans for dominance of the Internet. They have been extremely busy, recently, adding to their array of products.

Aimed at citizens of the USA, Google SMS allows users of cellular phones, in the USA, to have search results returned, as text messages to their phones.

Meanwhile in the UK, Internet users can use Froogle UK. This is a special search engine for online shopping. Entering a search, for example “Lawn Mower”, will result in a list of places to buy the item, allowing you to be frugal, and choose the cheapest.

One of the main criticisms of the Internet is the ease with which anyone can publish information. This information may be misleading, untrue, or worse, libellous.

To answer this problem, web surfers can now use Google Print. In, what will be, a massive undertaking, Google is negotiating with publishers, to allow the scanning of books, and make excerpts available through the Google search engine. In forming this alliance, with publishers, Google is guaranteeing that, at least, some of the hits, returned by searches, are going to give informative, and believable results.

Using Google Print is very simple, just do a search as normal. The results from Google print appear at the top of the list of hits headed, “Book results for”, with an image of four, brightly coloured, books. For an example, search with “Thomas Edison”, “Romeo And Juliet” or “William Shakespeare”.

It is extremely frustrating to have only a few pages from each book. Google will be bound by a copyright agreement with publishers, and possibly concerned about the amount of hard drive space required to store every page, of every book, ever published. To solve this problem, and, no doubt, to add to the coffers, Google has links allowing you to purchase a complete, hard copy, edition of the book.

One undeniable fact of computing, is that, as hard drives get bigger, it is more difficult to find what you are looking for amongst the data you have stored on them. Google come to the rescue again, with Google Desktop, a tool that will find any information stored in Outlook/Outlook Express, AOL Instant Messenger, Word, Excel, Power Point, text files. It will also search the Internet.

The announcement of this software beats Microsoft, possibly by several years. The inclusion of this function, by Microsoft, is not scheduled until the next release of Windows, some time in 2006 or 2007.

That is not all. There are rumours that Google is preparing its own web browser. Several people, who used to work on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, are reported to have been hired by Google. Adding more fuel to the rumour mill, is the fact, that in April, Google registered gbrowser.com.

Whatever happens with the Google browser, there will be no argument that Google Print, and Desktop, will prove to be just as popular, and as useful, as Google News, Gmail, and the other Google offerings.

October 14 2004 – Website Review

In Internet on October 14, 2004 at 8:24 pm

It has been awhile, but now is the time to catch up on some interesting websites that I have found, or people have emailed me about.

DietNet is a New Zealand site that aims to increase your knowledge about nutrition, by adding to what you may have learnt from other sources. It contains information on nutritional basics, dietary theories, sports nutrition, and more. Among subjects covered are the popular Zone Diet, Atkins Diet, information on herbs and supplements, and over training. Did you know that training too much, too hard, or too quickly, will lead to injury, fatigue, and illness, and not to any long-term performance gains?

Classic Radio Gallery brings back memories, for those of us, who grew up pre-TV. The site is a gallery of photos, of those old radios that, used to sit in the corner, or on the mantle, and bring the world into our homes, by sound alone. There is even a section devoted to the early transistor radios. Basically an American site, but there are images of radios available, from around the world.

Radio Lovers is an archive of those old radio shows that were broadcast during the golden days of radio. You can chose between comedies, dramas, mysteries, variety, westerns, SF, or music. Once again, this is an American site, but some of the shows may be known to New Zealanders, like Amos and Andy, and Father Knows Best. The shows are presented in the MP3 format for download to your PC.

Green Flame can provide you with your Maori themed clip art. This site contains everything from buttons, background, to themes. There are even MP3 player skins available, that change the way your MP3 software looks. The site also carries a gallery of Maori art, carvings and bone work.

WriteCheck is a site run by John Bishop of Wellington. The site aims to provide a checking, correcting, proofing service, not just for the ordinary writer, but also for anything from restaurant menus, to real estate advertisements, and everything in between. If you take a look at the common-mistakes section, of the site, you will see that the service is definitely required by some.

Common Errors in English was built by Paul Brains, who is Professor of English at Washington State University. It is based on his book “Common Errors in English Usage”, and exists to ensure that we are all aware of the mistakes that we make in English, each, and every day. For instance, ?hairbrained? is often the way it is spelt, but the original word is ?harebrained,? meaning your are as mad as the March Hare.

The Shape Of Money aims to help you get control of your money. We all know how money has the ability to slip through our fingers into someone else’s grip. The financial advisers, behind this site, have collected together the information you need to stop this slippage. There is advice on saving, advice on saving money when you must spend it, and budgeting advice.

Dropcash is a new site that enables you to build a fund raising web page. The site achieves this by using the services of two other websites, TypeKey, that provides a central user-management system, for checking people’s identity, and Paypal a website that allows payments to be made, by anyone in the world, to anyone else in the world.

July 29 2004 – The IE ADODB Problem

In Internet on July 29, 2004 at 8:10 pm

eStuff has reported on Microsoft’s “Trustworhy Computing” project before (1, 2). It was started by the company in an effort to ensure that your computer is safe to use, straight out of the box, and that it will continue to be safe. Unfortunately, for all Windows users, and Microsoft, it hasn’t been delivered, yet.

Two serious flaws were discovered, recently, in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (3). One flaw (4) was fixed six years ago, in IE 3.0 and 4.0, for some, inexplicable reason, however, it has reoccurred in all later versions. The other flaw allowed information such as credit-card numbers and other banking information to be stolen (5).

These flaws are considered so dangerous, that in the USA, the Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) issued, amongst other advice, a warning that IE should not be used.

The problem occurs because something called the ADODB.Stream lets some types of data through, when it shouldn’t. Microsoft has, meanwhile, issued a temporary solution that will make changes to your IE settings. The same problem can be used to spread viruses via e-mail.

Microsoft has also issued information to help users of Internet Explorer and Outlook reduce the chances of being attacked by a hacker.

Many people have had enough, and are switching to alternative software for reading email and browsing the web. Although the majority of those switching are likely to be home and small business users, eWeek reports that larger, enterprise size businesses, are not switching because they have software that has been specifically developed to use Microsoft IE-only functions.

There are several browsers which can be used to replace Internet Explorer, like: Mozilla; Opera; and Firefox.

To replace Outlook, and Outlook Explorer there are, amongst others:

Eudora; Pegasus; and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Both Opera, and Mozilla have mail capabilities built into the browser, so that you only need one piece of software to do both jobs.

eStuff has reported on the alternatives that are available in previous columns (1, 17, 18), in particular, Mozilla Firefox, a browser that is enjoying a lot of popularity at the moment.

Problems may still arise even if you replace IE and Outlook with other software, but probably not as many. A security issue with Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox allows malicious websites to trick users into accepting security dialog boxes. Although there is some discussion that this is not a bug in the browsers, but a bug in Windows itself.

July 8 2004 – PageQ Editor

In Internet on July 8, 2004 at 8:10 pm

If you visit the same web pages every time you use the Internet, there is that constant typing of the URL for each, and every page, or you can use favourites, in which case you still have to click each link in succession.

New software, PageQ Editor, from Aspiring Software in Christchurch, can change the way you browse the web. Instead of the tedious round of typing, and clicking each site you want to visit, PageQ Editor will display each page, for a specific amount of time, allowing you to read the information, and then it automatically presents the next page you want to visit.

PageQ Editor is easy to download, and install from the Aspiring Software website. It comes in three flavours.

PageQ Editor Home, is free of charge to home and educational users. Businesses can use it for free on a 30 day trial. This is the basic version of PageQ Editor, and has some functions disabled.

PageQ Professional, is more powerful than the Home version. Aspiring Software have included all the features of the Home version, along with productivity enhancements, and advanced functions. PageQ Professional is available for download, with a donation of US$10, $20 or $30.

PageQ Editor Business, is the fully functional business tool in the series. Once again, this version contains all the features encompassed in the Professional, and Home editions. The added features allow for “branding” the browser using your own logo, and business name.

Businesses must use this version.

A comparison of the features available in the different editions of PageQ Editor, and how they stack up against Internet Explorer (IE) or Netscape is available on the PageQ Editor website.

I downloaded, and installed the Home version, to try out this new approach to surfing the web.

First of all, it does not replace your current browser, but can be used in addition to it. This means that you can use your current web browser as normal, and switch to PageQ Editor to read those pages that you visit regularly.

Once installed, it is extremely simple to understand and use, and comes with help files, a tutorial and FAQ. In appearance, it looks, and acts, just like your normal browser. It contains all the major functions of a browser, but with the addition of new toolbar, menus, and options. The new toolbar has buttons on it, which act much like those on a video recorder.

PageQ Editor works by building queues of web pages, which can be played back at anytime. It is simple matter of typing in the websites that you want to visit, then capturing them in a queue by clicking the appropriate button on the toolbar. Once you have built your queue of web pages, you save it using a meaningful name. You can add many more queues to your PageQ Editor database at any time.

When you are ready to do some surfing, you just start up PageQ Editor, open the queue you want to visit and, press play. The web pages are then displayed one after each other. You can use the toolbar at any stage to pause, rewind, fast forward or stop the queue running.

When I visited a few known sites that have incompatibility problems, PageQ Editor behaved perfectly. These incompatibility problems are caused by some website developers ignoring the fact that people use browsers other than IE.

So there you have it. A fresh approach to surfing the web, available for free, and from New Zealand.

May 6 2004 – The Dark Side Of Google

In Internet on May 6, 2004 at 8:21 pm

Web surfers, distracted by mp3s, spam, and the Janet Jackson incident, have not noticed, that slowly, and stealthily, Google has amassed weapons of mass detection. We have all been gaily googling away, as the guys at Google deftly turned to the Dark Side. At least, that is what some people are saying.

It all starts with the cookie, a token, stored on your PC’s hard-drive, that websites use, to track users. Most websites use cookies reasonably, letting them expire within a few days, or months. Google, on the other hand, has decided that their cookie shall exist for ever, at least until 2038. Not only that, but embedded in the Google cookie, is information that can uniquely identify you. This identifier is used to track every search that you have ever done, and will do, and store that information in Google’s vast database.

Google then introduced Orkut, a social networking service somewhat like Friendster, where groups of people can meet, and interact without leaving the safety of their own home. To join Orkut, you have to be invited. Once invited, you have to register. Registration is not a simple matter, there are pages and pages of questions asking things like your name, your income, and everything in-between. The Orkut terms of service also have some very dubious clauses, which are startlingly similar to some that Microsoft tried to foist on people, a while ago.

The armoury is completed with the introduction of Gmail, Google’s new email offering. This is causing an incredible amount of fuss. Google entice you to use Gmail, by giving you enough storage to allow you to keep every email message you receive, at your Gmail account. Sounds wonderful to all those people who regularly fill up their Hotmail space.

There is a catch, more than one, in fact, with this service. Google will insert adverts, into your emails, based on keywords that they find in the email. For instance, if you receive an email that contains the words “Ireland” and “Holiday” you may see adverts from travel agents wanting to sell you their package tours.

With these three tools, Google is now in a position to know more about you, and your life, than your mother, or the government. They know what web pages you are reading, based on your searches; they have personal information held in the Orkut database; and they will know everything you say; and who is saying what to you, by scanning the emails in your Gmail account. What could they possibly want all this information for?

Google Watch thinks they know the answers. Not only are Google able to provide incredibly accurate, targeted advertising, but they will also be able to assist the US government, in its expanding role as Big Brother. Google currently have ex-NSA staff working for them, and are actively seeking more staff, with spy-type connections.

Those seeking anonymity can use the GoogleAnon bookmarklet for googling, and choose not to use Orkut, or Gmail.

April 1 2004 – April Fool!

In Internet on April 1, 2004 at 11:22 am

This is the April Fool’s Day edition of eStuff. Now that I have announced that, you will know that anything written below is absolutely true, and not an effort to con, catch, or otherwise be cantankerous. I just thought it would be an opportunity to share some sites about April Fool’s Day, that can be found on the web.

Wikipedia, is a free encyclopedia, which is built from entries by ordinary people. Anyone can submit an article to Wikipedia, and anyone can correct existing articles. According to the the April Fool’s Day entry, people have been pulling pranks on their friends and neighbours for a long, long time. Since the 16th century in fact! In 1582 New Year’s Day was moved from April 1st to January 1st, when the Gregorian calendar was introduced. Sounds like a big April Fool’s stunt to me.

Newspapers, radio and television all get in on the act, pulling their own stunts. Even the BBC, bastion of all that is British, has been known to pull the wool, or should I say, spaghetti, over peoples’ eyes. In 1957 the well-respected programme Panorama, showed a documentary of Italians gathering the spaghetti harvest from spaghetti trees. Whirligig, a site dedicated to 1950’s television has a small video snippet of the spaghetti tree documentary.

San Serriffe. Sounds like an island in the Indian Ocean doesn’t it? That is where, the Guardian newspaper, would have us believe that, this tropical paradise is. The ruse first appeared in the Guardian on April 1st 1979, when it published a seven page supplement about the island. It has since treated readers to articles about this magical place, in 1978, 1980 and 1999.

On April 1st the Internet will be closed for 24 hours, for cleaning. All the redundant data will be be removed by five, very powerful, Japanese-built, multi-lingual, Internet-crawling, robots. The Toshiba ML-2274, to be precise, are situated around the world, and will search the Internet, deleting any data that they find. At least that is was people were told in 1997. This is reported by the April Fools R Us website, which carries details of many pranks played by devious people around the world.

The Museum of Hoaxes April Fool’s Day Gallery has collected a list of April Fool’s Day jokes, that goes all the way back to 1582, and covers every year from 1972. The list includes, from 2002, Tesco’s whistling carrots – they whistle when cooked, from 1994, a PC Computing magazine article, written by John Dvorak, describing a bill going through US Congress that would make it illegal to use the Internet while drunk, and in 1947, Phil Shone, a New Zealand deejay for radio station 1ZB, telling listeners that a mile-wide wasp swarm was headed towards Auckland.

Mar 18 2004 – SOS (Stop Orrible Spam)

In Internet on March 18, 2004 at 8:19 pm

Spam levels on the Internet have been rising steadily, ever since some Internet savvy salesman worked out you can mass email just about everyone connected to the Internet in a matter of minutes. According to Brightmail, a company that produces anti-spam software, the level of spam in January was 60% of all emails, and rising.Since my ISP switched on a spam filter, I can’t remember the last time I was offered Viagra on-line, or asked to share in the wealth of a Nigerian prince.

One person is responsible for this ability to block spam. It is not, as you may imagine, an incredibly intelligent Internet wunderkind, who still needs a mother to wipe his nose. The thanks must go to a 18th Century minister of a Presbyterian Chapel in Tunbridge Wells, England. Thomas Bayes, was born in 1701, and would, I assume, be immensely surprised that his theory of probability is now being used to stop emails attempting to sell products of a dubious nature.

What makes the Bayesian filter, as it is called, work so well in blocking spam, is the fact that, it does not just look at the subject line, but scans the whole email, and in doing so learns what is spam, and what is not.

For instance, if the word “Giraffe” appears in an email there is a probability that it is not spam. Whereas if the word “Cartridge”, as in ink cartridge, appears, it is more than likely, spam. If both “Giraffe” and “Cartridge” appear the filter has to make a decision based on the knowledge that “Giraffe” is not spam, but “Cartridge” may be. This is where the learning aspect of the filter takes over. The filter may need to be told this email is, or is not, spam.

We know it works, because there is less spam in our inboxes. What about the ones that get through?

Sometime ago, I received a spam email, in which the first 150, or so, words were random, with no relationship to each other. Words such as “Transistor”, “Chain”, “Mushroom”, “Cardigan”, “Brick”, and so on. I wondered what this was all about, but then realised it was spam and deleted it. Then I came across a BBC article that explained this strange spam. It appears it is possible to confuse the Bayesian filter by putting random lists of words in an email. Thankfully it doesn’t work all the time, and to be fully effective it needs to be tailored to each recipient.

If you are still getting spam, there are actions you can take to eliminate as much of this menace as possible. The first step would be to ensure that your ISP has a spam filter in place. If you have your email sent to your own domain name, install a Bayesian filter there. The hosting company should be able to help. Next, read the Better Business Bureau advice on limiting spam, and the very informative New Zealand site, Stop Spam.

Other than making sure you have protected your inbox as best you can, you will just have to wait for the next battle in the spam wars.

January 22 2004 – VOIP and Broadband In NZ

In Internet on January 22, 2004 at 11:40 am

Telecom are putting up the price of a home phone by 55 cents, to $39.85 a month. Not much, but still an increase! The price of a Telecom phone is cheaper in areas of the country where TelstraClear provide a service. So, if you are in the 04 area, and pay more than $32.40, from February, dial 123, and ask why.

The good news is, that, eventually, technology will make it possible for phone companies to drop the charges for phone calls, and even make them free, whether, they are local, national, or, even, international.

The technology allowing this, is Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). This ensures any Internet user, once they have the right software, can talk to any other Internet user, with the same program, as though they were using a telephone.

The current software of choice for VOIP comes from KaZaA, another company that started life allowing you to share MP3s. Their software is called Skype, and they boast of over 5,645,855 users. To use Skype you need Windows 2000 or XP, and a 400 MHz processor. You also need a microphone, and headphones, connected to your soundcard.

VOIP’s big problem, is restricting the connection only to users with the same software. It certainly won’t become universal, until the telephone is a VOIP device. Why use a PC, when all you want to do is make a phone call?

A broadband connection will make VOIP more efficient. Broadband is defined by the FCC, as an information service with a carrying capacity in excess of 200 kbps upstream and downstream.

The bad news is in New Zealand only about 4% of homes use DSL to connect to the Internet. This compares with 15% of Australians, over 40% of Americans, 64% of Canadians, and 70% of South Koreans.

Most home users probably use Telecom’s Xtra Jetstream Starter, which has a top speed of 128 kbps. That’s not broadband, just fast access. You need Jetstream Home at 256 kbps, or 500kbps, ranging in price from $49.95 to $79.95. Also required is a DSL modem, costing about $150. The amount of data transfered to/from your PC is limited, depending on your package, to between 500-2000 MB. An extra 20c per MB is charged above this limit.

An alternative is TelstraClear’s Paradise High Speed Starter, costing $59.95 per month. Running at 256kbps downstream and 128kbps upstream, it still does not qualify as broadband, but allows 10GB international traffic before any extra charges. However, Paradise High Speed Express, at $92.95, does qualify for broadband. It run at 2Mbps downstream and 256kbps upstream, and allows 1GB of international traffic. These offerings use the TelstraClear cables, and are not DSL. $17 must be added each month for the rental of a cable modem. Package this with TV and/or phone and it becomes a cheaper option.

To help decide between DSL and Cable, read what TechTV has to say.

With those prices, it is no wonder the uptake of broadband is so low in New Zealand.

January 8 2004 – Foldershare

In Internet on January 8, 2004 at 11:39 am

One of the biggest problems that all computer users have, is sharing files, either with their own computers at home and/or work, or with other users. Most users will probably go for the email option, but, as I have said before, attachments in emails are not a good idea.

Now, thanks to those “evil” people who bought you programs for MP3 sharing, comes a system that allows you to share your own files. Audiogalaxy, one the companies that the recording industry took to court for illegal MP3 sharing, has become legitimate. Not only, do they, now, provide a legal MP3 site, but they have come up with a method of file sharing available to all, and, at the moment, it’s free.

Foldershare is a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service. Peer-to-Peer systems allow computers to connect to each other, rather than through a server. This means that the files being shared do not have to be uploaded to a central computer. In fact, Foldershare works just like the MP3 file-sharing systems, but has options that allows you to choose with whom, and how, you share your data.

You start, by signing up for the service (3), and then downloading software that runs on your computer. This software is only available for Windows, and I could find no mention of any intention to release it for Mac OS or Linux.

Once the software is installed, you are prompted to select a folder that you wish to share. I suggest that you set up a new folder, rather than share everything. It is a simple matter to move, or copy, the files you want to share, into the shared folder. This is a crude form of security, that ensures that you don’t share a personal file, unintentionally.

Foldershare than asks you to select from two options. Auto Replication, which means that as a file is changed in your sharing folder, it will automatically be updated on any computer, with which you share. On Demand, which means that other people, who you share with, will have to download the file themselves.

There are several permission levels available, so that different people can have different levels of access to your sharing folder. Some would only be able to read files, others could have the ability to edit them as well.

There are countless benefits to sharing files this way. For instance, family and friends can download photos etc., rather than having them sent as attachments. In a work situation, you would be able to easily synchronise files between your home computer, and your office machine. Also it makes the task of sharing files between a group of workers much easier, even if they are in countries separated by oceans. If you have a laptop machine, it is certainly going to make the synchronisation of files with your desktop, easier.

Sharing of the files can only occur while you, and the people you are sharing with, are all connected to the Internet. So it is no good sending an email to your friends and family, telling them to get the photos of your Christmas party by using Foldershare, and then logging off. They won’t be able to gain access to your computer.

The only problem is the price they may charge, once the service gets of the ground, and they have you hooked. Mind you, I expect that if there are not alternatives already available, there soon will be.

December 18 2003 – Interesting Sites

In Internet on December 18, 2003 at 8:19 pm

It’s time to catch up with a few of the websites that I have discovered, or that readers have emailed me about.

1. With Christmas coming up, there is a chance some of you will be unwrapping a DVD player. Maybe you’re researching DVD players, with the idea of making a purchase. The creators of this medium couldn’t have made life more difficult for the average consumer. There are many different formats, and the movie moguls imposing a zone system for DVD movie releases, haven’t made it any easier. DVDhelp.com tries to untangle the confusion for you.

2. This year has been a special year for the Catholic Church, it is 25 years since John Paul II became Pope. At the Vatican’s own website you’ll find a special web page celebrating his Silver Jubilee. There are also several pages giving information about the Vatican State, and an incredible virtual tour of the Vatican Museums.

3. Another year has nearly gone, time rushes by so fast. Why is it so difficult to make your mark on the world? Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age will provide you with more reason to worry if you will ever write that novel, paint that picture, or play sport at national level.

4. The Scottish say, Hogmanay, and we say New Year’s Eve. Scottish Words Illustrated gives those of us born outside the land of heather, whisky, and porridge oats, a chance to learn some of the words that make up the Scottish language. For example, “Nae much left sonny, an I’ve still a terrible drooth upon me.”

5. Words are funny things. It is bad enough, that enough is spelt with an “ough”, and not an “uff”, but to then have homonyms, words that are pronounced the same, but are spelled differently! Like bite and byte. Alan Cooper has been interested in homonyms since he was a small boy, and has gathered together a list of them on his website.

6. If you are borediferated, you might like to visit Random Words. This site will generate 20 words which, you won’t find in a dictionary, but are reasonably syntactically correct. It can do this by using something called Markov chains. A bit too complicatedinficall to explain here.

7. Max sent me an email telling me about his photography site. Max built the website as part of his photography hobby. There are 26 black and white photos to look at. I am no expert on photography, but I was impressed by these photos. Some appear to be a study, not so much of the subject in the photo, but of the light. More a case of what is not in the picture than what is.

8. Geekzone is a website run by Mauricio. The site serves around 8,000 pages a day, not only to New Zealand, but also to the world. Geekzone is jam packed with articles and reviews on mobile phones, hand-held computers and other related stuff, and also contains some discussion forums. Mauricio says they always have a giveaway going on, so take a visit, and try your luck.

If you have a favourite website, or one of your own, that you would like to share with others, drop me an email, and I will include it in the next surfing column in eStuff.

November 20 2003 – Using Google Search

In Internet on November 20, 2003 at 9:17 pm

There is a lot more to Google than meets the eye. Not only are you able to use special search functions like: directory, groups, images, and news, along with other developments by Google Labs but, there are also features that can be used in the normal Google search. These features allow you to either, narrow the search in an effort to get more precise hits, or use tools like a calculator or dictionary.

When you are presented with a large number of hits, it makes the process of finding what you want rather tedious. Narrowing the search terms can help. This can be achieved in many ways. For instance, if you are searching using the terms, bag of wind, it would be better to place the whole term in quotes (“bag of wind”). This restricts the search to only those words in that sequence, and not documents that contain those words, in any order, anywhere.

Next it is possible to use the “+” and “-” signs in a search. An example of this would be searching for bootleg recordings by The Beatles. The temptation, is to use the search term, bootleg beatles. This will also display pages for a band called The Bootleg Beatles. To restrict the search further, use, bootleg beatles -”bootleg beatles”. Similarly, searching for the information about the song Anyone Who Had A Heart by Cilla Black would be easier, using the term, “anyone who had a heart” +cilla.

Remember that Google does not use the wildcard facility. Therefore if you wish to search for Smith or Smyth, you must type both terms in the search box. The same applies for plurals like book and books.

For more information see Google’s basic search page.

More advanced searching techniques restrict the search to a specific URL. If you wanted to search only Te Papa’s website for information on earthquakes, your search term should be, earthquake site:www.tepapa.govt.nz. The nice thing about this function is that the parameter for “site:” can be any part of the URL. This means that searching for earthquakes in only New Zealand sites can be achieved by using, earthquake site:.nz, if you wanted only .co sites use, earthquake site:.co.nz, and so on.

Using Google as a dictionary is possible by using the term, define. To find the meaning of carbuncle, type, define carbuncle, into the search box. The definition appears at the top of the page. It is also possible to use, define:carbuncle, which returns all the definitions found for carbuncle on the web.

The calculator function is very simple to use, just type the equation in the search box. For instance, 17*(25/5), gives the answer very quickly, just like a search result.

Sometimes the page you want no longer exists. The Google cache may help you. After the information about the website Google recommends, are two links labelled Cached and Similar pages.

The cache is a copy of the web page, the last time Google looked at it. The information you require, may be there.

Clicking the Similar pages link will return a list of pages that have content similar to that appearing on the page listed. Eg. clicking on Similar pages after searching for Beatles, results in a list of pages on musical topics.

More information, about these features and, others not discussed in this article, is available from the Google Web Search Features page.

November 6 2003 – Internet Safety Tips

In Internet on November 6, 2003 at 9:06 pm

A dozen tips to help you use the Internet safely.

1. If you have a web page, do not put your email address on the page. Spammers use robots, programs that search the web, to look for email addresses. It is safer to use email forms. Your hosting service will have an email-form script you can use.

2. Do not send attachments with your email. Attachments are the preferred method for propagating viruses. It is much safer if no one uses attachments. That way, email with an attachment, can be assumed to be a virus.

3. Do not open attachments that you receive in your email. You may think it has come from someone you know, but virus programs are known to use false email addresses. If you must send an attachment, contact the person to whom you are sending it, beforehand. That way you can verify that it is a valid attachment. Instead of sending Word documents, put the text into the email.

4. Ensure you have an up-to-date firewall program installed. This will stop hackers from attacking your machine, while you are online. This is a must if you are using a cable or DSL connection. [link]

5. Ensure that you have an up-to-date virus scanner installed. Any files that you do receive by email, or download from the Net, will then be checked, to ensure they are safe. [link]

6. Use a spam filter, or sign up to an ISP that provides one. Both Xtra and Paradise provide this safety measure. The Paradise spam filter puts all the email, assumed to be spam, into an email inbox called “Spam”. You can then check this, using webmail, to ensure that no “valid” emails have been captured there. Email older than 30 days is deleted from the Spam box.

7. Never, ever, send your credit card details in an email! Email may appear to be safe, but it is like sending a postcard, with your credit card details on it through the postal system, which is not something that anyone would do.

8. Ensure that when a web page asks for credit card details, that the page is secure. You can do this by looking to see if the little padlock, in the bottom right of the screen, is locked. This indicates that the page is secure, and any information you enter can not be seen by prying eyes.

9. Practise good password management. Choose a password that can not be guessed by anyone. Do not use family members names, pets names, special dates etc. It is safer to use a string of letters and numbers in a mixture of upper and lower case, eg. Dx78hqWz

10. Change your passwords regularly, once a month is a good guide. This ensures that if the password is known by a third party, any exposure is limited.

11. Do not use the same password for everything. Using the same password everywhere will mean that once your password is known, the perpetrator has access to all your secure information, everywhere.

12. Never write your password down and leave it attached to your screen with a Post-it, or tucked in your desk draw, or anywhere else. Someone looking for a password knows exactly where to look. A good idea is to use a password manager. Not only will they encrypt your password before storing the information on your hard drive, but they will also generate passwords for you. Tucows has several to choose from. [link]

October 23 2003 – Beware Of eBay Scammers

In Internet on October 23, 2003 at 9:20 pm

I was nearly the victim of an email scam. The email purportedly came from eBay. It mentioned that, as my feedback count had recently reached a new level, I was going to be offered a special deal for listing my auctions.

I was a little suspicious because my feedback count had not changed for some time. The reason was simple, I hadn’t listed anything on eBay for ages. The offer sounded so good, that I decided to see if it was for real. I clicked the link in the email, and was taken to, what looked like, an eBay web page. My suspicions grew.

The URL in the address line of my web browser had a rather peculiar look to it. After the characters spelling out the eBay name and web page, were some numbers that I knew were an IP address. The light-bulb went on! Why would eBay use an IP address in a URL? An IP address in a URL is used when you don’t want to, or can’t use a domain name. An example of an IP address is 216.239.37.99 which if you type into your browser will take you to Google.com.

Back to the email. Near the end were links indicating they were for eBay support, and another eBay page. I clicked both of them. The result was very interesting. The URL’s had been misspelled, and showed nothing in my browser.

Now I was certain I had a scam email. I reported the email to eBay, and found that I had to send them the whole email, that is the full header, and the body containing the email to spoof@ebay.com. They later confirmed that it was a scam.

The intention of this spoof email, is to get your eBay logon id and password to gain control of your account. They change the password and email address to their own, list items for sale, and sit back, waiting for bids. Once the auctions are finished the buyer will send them the money, but never receive the goods. And, you are the one who gets the blame.

It is not just eBay that is singled out. Paypal also gets the treatment. With Paypal it can affect your wallet directly. Once the offender has access to your Paypal account, you can say goodbye to all the cash in it.

Have no fear, with a little care, and the help provided by eBay (1,2) and Paypal (1,2,3), you need not become a victim.

October 9 2003 – The Hi-jacked Internet

In Internet on October 9, 2003 at 9:19 pm

The Internet has been hi-jacked. An American company called VeriSign has replaced the normal process for giving you a missing site message (known on the Internet as a 404) with their own web page.

VeriSign are the people who are now responsible for looking after the .com, and .net website addresses. Wherever, and whoever you register your domain name with, the ultimate database is held by VeriSign. This responsible job was entrusted to them by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Site Finder, as this new service has been called, is now the subject of at least two law suits in the USA (a, b), and much discontent among the Internet’s tech-elite.

The reason for this disruption to the normal tranquility of the web, would appear to be profit. VeriSign is able to sell advertising on the Site Finder service, thus generating itself a healthy profit from your mistypings and misspellings. There are an estimated 20 million instances of mistypings, or misspellings per day, that’s a great deal of potential for catching the eye with an advert.

Site Finder may also be causing problems with spam detection software. It is known that spammers will use non-existent domain names in their email addresses. Some spam detection software checks the validity of the incoming email address. This all worked fine until the new VeriSign initiative. Now, because of the way Site Finder works, all domain names are valid, even ones that do not exist!

There is also the question of privacy. An email sent to a non-existent .com, or .net address would, before leaving the senders ISP and entering the Internet, normally be returned to the sender. With Site Finder switched on, those emails will now end up at VeriSign. So mistyped and misspelled email addresses could mean that VeriSign are reading your mail.

Search engines, such as Google, will also face problems. A search engine builds its database of sites, by sending out robots to trawl the web for links to websites. If these links contain a non-existent .com, or .net address, we are likely to see long lists of entries pointing to VeriSign’s Site Finder service.

In an effort to get VeriSign to revert back to the way things used to be, there is a petition on the Internet. ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), who are ultimately responsible for the Internet domain name system, have asked VeriSign to stop Site Finder. VeriSign have replied, that it is too soon to decide if it is necessary to switch Site Finder off.

It is ironic that so much chaos can be caused by, possibly, the best solution for the average Internet user, to the non-existent site problem. It obviously makes more sense to have an explanatory page about the error, rather than a weird error message. VeriSign may have had a good idea, but they should have fully researched the effects, before implementing Site Finder. Also, it should definitely be up to each individual Internet user, to choose which search engine, or web page, they wish to see when this error occurs.

UPDATE ON VERISIGN.

I am happy to say that it has been foiled. VeriSign shut down SiteFinder (1, 2), the weekend of October 4, after ICANN threatened court action. The Internet now behaves the way it was designed to, and I guess we all all have to get used to those weird error messages.

August 28 2003 – Sites To Surf

In Internet on August 28, 2003 at 8:16 pm

Watching TV is as about as much fun as watching paint dry, so keep yourself amused with the cliche finder. There are more cliches stored in this database than you can point a stick at.

Why not use the last days of winter to build a water rocket with plans from The Water Rocket Index. It has over 71,000 words on the subject with a further 21,500 words to download. It must be the ultimate reference point on this subject.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, someone was bored, and decided to build tableaux recounting the Star Wars Trilogy, using Lego. The website consists of three series of 60 pictures each, and took 2,500 hours to complete.

In Startrek, the Ferengi are the ultimate capitalists. Their whole civilisation is based on The Rules Of Acquisition. There are over 200 of these rules. They range from “Once you have their money, you never give it back,” to “Don’t trust a man wearing a better suit than your own,” which is probably good advice. Rule 284 is a little disturbing, “Deep down, everyone’s a Ferengi.”

When you watch science fiction programmes on TV, and at the movies, do you ever wonder how big the spaceships really are? At Spaceship Dimensions you can find out. By using scales such as 10 pixels to a meter and 1 pixel equals two kilometers, and including familiar structures like a Jumbo Jet, and buildings like the Eiffel Tower, you can get some idea of the vastness of these ships.

Along the same lines is The MegaPenny Project. Visualising one million of any thing is difficult, but how about one quintillion, or to put it another way, 1,000,067,088,384,000,000? The MegaPenny Project has tried to make it easier by building scale pictures of US 1 cent pieces against recognisable objects. For some weird reason they also provide similar pages showing Harriet, a cow, and also 1,002,239 other cows.

If nostalgia is your thing, then visit Pieter’s Oldies’ Drive-in. The site provides a music history lesson covering the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, through to Glamrock of the seventies. You can even find out what song was the favourite for any year from 1950 to 1979. Although some years are still to be made available.

Wallace Trickett, from Waikanae, has written to me about his website, which displays some of the paintings that he has created, based on the transport industry. There are paintings of buses, trucks, trams, trains and ships. (http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/sue.g/)

Don’t forget if you have a website, or perhaps, a favourite site, you would like to share with others, please let me know by email

July 10 2003 – Music On The Web

In Internet on July 10, 2003 at 8:47 pm

The days of free MP3s are nearly over. The recording industry has dealt a heavy blow to the illegal file trading sites. Napster, possibly the most famous of them, was sued in the US courts, went broke, and is now owned by Roxio, who intend to make it a fee paying service.

Fee paying MP3 services have become very popular, with the recording industry, since Apple Computers proved that it could work. Apple first released a portable digital music player, the iPod, in October 2001. Since then, it has become very popular, despite, what some consider, the high price.

Early this year came stage two of Apple’s plan, the iTunes music store. There, you can download tracks for 99 US cents. For some reason, this became an overnight success, where other attempts by the global record corporations to do the same, failed miserably. iTunes uses the MPEG-4 AAC format, which is sonically superior to the MP3. The problem is iTunes is only available for USA residents.

Riding on the tail of Apple’s success with iTunes, the record companies are trying again. AOL Time Warner have recently announced that they will entering the market this year, once again restricted to the USA.

PressPlay was originally owned by record companies, Sony and Universal, but last month was bought by Roxio as part of its Napster strategy. Offering a more complicated pricing structure, it, again, operates only for USA residents.

Sony has now signed a contract with OD2, a company started by Peter Gabriel, famous as co-founder of the band Genesis, and for his involvement with WOMAD. OD2 also has deals with EMI, Universal, Warners and BMG, and is set up for use in Europe.

Fortunately there are several alternatives available for those of us in the rest of the world.

eMusic allows the download of unlimited MP3s for a one-time charge of US$9.95 a month. Once you have downloaded the MP3 it is yours, to do what you like with. What can you get for your money? Louis Armstrong, The Kinks, The Fall, John Coltrane, and many more.

Artist Direct has free MP3s available both at iMusic, and at listen.artistdirect.com. Rather a nice range to listen to here, with artists including Madonna, The White Stripes, Tricky, Motley Crue, and Natalie Cole.

epitonic have a large selection of jazz, rock, and just about every modern genre from electronic, through to 2-step, to no wave. The good news is that the downloads are all free. There is also an option to stream the music rather than download it. The artists appear to be a mixture of well known and the obscure.

Ampcast provides a mixture of free, and purchasable MP3s. The range of genres covers everything, from classical through to world music. Don’t expect to find anyone well known here, they all appear to be emerging artists.

Amazon.com is a good place to get well known artists on MP3 for free. Just go to the search box, click on the arrow, and select Music Downloads, then click on Go!

New Zealand artists on MP3 can be found at Noizyland, and nzmp3.

There should be enough music there to soothe your savage breast.

May 29 2003 – RSS and News Aggregators

In Internet on May 29, 2003 at 9:04 pm

I have a new toy called a news aggregator. I can log on to the Internet, and, in a flash, be up-to-date with the latest news, catch up with on-line magazine articles, and read my favourite blogs.

Screendump of Amphetadesk using AmphetaFramesAll this is available from one program, in one window. No more typing in long URL’s, or clicking on favourites. The window divides up like an Outlook window. On the left I have a list of all the syndicated sites that I want to get information from. On the right, in the upper panel, is the name and details of the current site I am reading, and in the lower panel are the items from that site. The syndication list has a little indicator, by each site, that tells me when there is a new item to be read, I just click on the site name and the information appears in the right-hand panels.

What makes this all possible is XML (eXtensible Markup Language), a way of structuring the information in a file, and RSS.

RSS doesn’t appear to stand for anything, or rather, it means lots of different things. The two most common are, Really Simple Syndication, and RDF Site Summary, where RDF stands for Resource Description Framework, a method of describing information about information.

Used together XML and RSS provide a format for syndicating news, and the content of web sites. There are seven different formats for RSS, and there is a certain amount of factional fighting between them.

RSS was introduced in 1999 when Netscape released the 0.9 format, to enable the syndication of Netcenter channels. When an idea is good, you can’t keep it to yourself, and many web sites soon joined Netscape in syndicating their content.

Of course having syndication feeds is useless without the public having a way of reading them. Hence aggregators, there are many aggregators available on the Web.

If you are using Windows, I can recommend Awasu, it is free and easy to install, once you have read this page. If you want to ante-up with some cash, you can pay US$24.95 for Newzcrawler.

If you are using Mac OS X, the one for you is NetNewsWire Lite, once again free.

I use Amphetadesk. It is multi-platform (works under Windows, Mac OS, and Linux). Of course it is free, easy to install, and has the nice ability to be “skinned”. That means that people, other than the writer of the original code, have released different “looks”. I use AmphetaFrames, which gives the look I have described above. There is also the very popular AmphetaOutlines, of which, I am not fond.

Once you have your aggregator, you need to find some syndication feeds. Most aggregators come with a list of available feeds. You can also find lists at Syndic8, NewsIsFree, newsfeeds, and Moreover. Sites that provide RSS feeds often have this little graphic XML button, somewhere on the page.

So, save some time, and install an aggregator for the winter.

May 15 2003 – Safety And The Internet

In Internet on May 15, 2003 at 9:02 pm

The real world provides a myriad of dangers, about which, responsible parents must teach their children. We teach them to cross the road safely, to wear cycle helmets, that the heater is hot and should not be touched, and about stranger danger. The PC and the Internet has introduced a new set of dangers that children must be taught about. Dangers not even some parents are aware of. How can parents make this cyberworld safe for children to play in?

In 1998 The Internet Safety Group (ISG) was formed in New Zealand. It is an independent non-profit organisation whose members include, amongst others, the Police, Judiciary, and educators from all levels. The ISG is the Ministry of Education’s ‘agent of choice’ for Internet safety education in New Zealand.

ISG has spearheaded several initiatives. In 2000 an Internet Safety Kit was sent to every school and library in New Zealand. In 2002, together with the University of Auckland and the Police, a 2 day symposium, “NetSafe: Society Safety and the Internet”, was held. On 29 April this year, the new NetSafe Kit for Schools was released, and once again, will be mailed to every school and library in New Zealand.

Following on from the 2002 Symposium, ISG is holding “NetSafe II: Society, Safety & the Internet”, in Auckland from July 9-12. Up to 500 delegates, from New Zealand and overseas, are expected to attend and discuss safety issues relating to modern technology. For more information visit the conference website.

Meanwhile ISG, on their website, provide information aimed at schools, children, young adults, and parents. Parents will particularly be interested in the section on “Monitoring and filtering at home”. The young adults’ section covers topics such as “Harassment and Bullying [on the net]“, “Internet and Text Chatrooms”, and “Sexual Predators on the Net”.

What else can parents do to make the Internet experience safer for their children?

Google provide a filtering mechanism, SafeSearch Filtering, for their search engine. Using Google preferences you can set blocks on web pages that contain explicit sexual content, preventing them from appearing in search results. There is a choice of filtering both explicit text and explicit images, explicit images only, or no filtering at all.

Microsoft Internet Explorer contains a filtering option, Content Advisor. It has been included with every release of IE since version 3. It works by using labels created by website owners using Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS). Sites such as The Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA), SafeSurf, and the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRBi), provide you with a means of accessing these labels. To utilise IE Content Advisor follow the instructions provided by ICRA, SafeSurf, or ESRBi

Content Advisor is unable to display sites that have no PICS ratings. You will see a message telling you the site cannot be displayed. It is possible to view these sites by setting “Users Can See Sites That Have No Ratings”. However as porn sites will not have a rating, it does open the door once again.

This flaw in Content Advisor proves that there is no substitute for making the Internet experience a family one.

May 1 2003 – Surfing After Sunset

In Internet on May 1, 2003 at 8:59 pm

Long winter evenings are coming and you may find yourself with nothing to do. At www.jethros.i12.com there is an answer to your boredom. Build your own powered model plane. This plane is made from matchsticks and flies. Guess it is not for the squeamish.

Something that probably has less “urrgh!” in it than a flies and matchstick aeroplane, is fish. That is the tropical and gold variety. Tetra a name that has, according to the website, “become synonymous with ornamental fish keeping”. The company started in Germany 50 years ago, pioneered the development of flake fish foods, and now manufactures products and publishes books for those who have aquarium fish keeping as a hobby.

If you find fish too icky, then turn to buses. At the Bus Station is a comprehensive collection of links to websites that feature bus, coach, tram and trolley bus sites from around the world. I particularly like the page about “buses on screen”, which tries to gather all sightings of buses, in films or, TV into an informative web page.

If you have salt in your blood, Brendon Tarrant has built an interesting site for you. It covers all things maritime. He has called it The Quay because that is where all journeys on the sea start. The site covers shipwrecks, divers resources, and historic research.

There are no sea shanties at NZmusic.com, but just about every popular Kiwi band is covered, with music news, and music videos for you to watch.

Perhaps you like to read. Project Gutenberg has been in existence since 1971, and since the inception of the Internet has been making books, that have moved out of copyright, freely available for anyone to download and read. Books from authors such as Louisa May Alcott, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, and Emile Zola. You don’t need special software to read the books, you use a normal text editor or viewer, or even your web browser.

Back in 1952, American publication “Colliers Magazine” ran a series of articles by a team of experts, scientists and space-advocates painting a picture of how humans could explore and exploit space. Man Conquers Space is a film based on these articles. At the website you will find movie clips and stills from the project.

When I was a small boy back in London, there used to be special cinemas that showed newsreels. These were films of current events and topical items. TV news eventually made these places obsolete. One of the film companies was British Pathe. They now have a website, where you can access their archive of over 75 years of film. The clips are either in low quality preview for free, or high quality for a fee.

A fascinating site is the Wayback Machine. Collected in the database of this machine is an archive of more than 10 billion web pages dating back to 1996. Each month about 12 terabytes of information are added as the machine collects more pages from around the web. Go and see if if your early website is there.

Lastly, would you like some free computer training in areas such as word processing, spreadsheet, Powerpoint, or just computer basics? At Wintec Active you can book yourself on a free course.

April 17 2003 – DNS and IP Addresses Explained

In Internet on April 17, 2003 at 8:13 pm

Ever wondered why you type www.stuff.co.nz to get to the Stuff website, or www.google.com to get to the Google search engine website? Andy from the Wairarapa sent me an email asking this question.

The string of characters you type to get to a website is part of the Domain Name System (DNS) that enables the translation of those characters into the Internet Protocol (IP) Address.

Each computer on the Internet has at least one IP Address. This usually consists of 4 groups of numbers strung together with dots, called IPv4. For example 203.167.247.164 is the IP Address of the computer where the website for www.stuff.co.nz resides. Since 1999 it has been possible to have a much larger group of numbers, called IPv6, e.g. 1080:0:0:0:8:800:200C:417A. As you can imagine it can be very difficult to remember these number, whereas www.stuff.co.nz is not difficult to remember at all.

As you join the Internet you are assigned an IP address by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs are given blocks of IP Addresses from a Local Internet registry (LIR) or National Internet registry (NIR), or from their appropriate Regional Internet Registry (RIR) There are four RIRs for the whole world:

  • APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre) – Asia/Pacific Region
  • ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) – Americas and Sub-Sahara Africa
  • LACNIC (Regional Latin-American and Caribbean IP Address Registry) – Latin America and some Caribbean Islands
  • RIPE NCC (Re’seaux IP Europe’ens) – Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and African countries located north of the equator

The master list of IP Addresses is controlled from the USA by a non-profit corporation called The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Before this organisation was set up the U.S. Government contracted the work to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

Unlike phone numbers which work form left to right, the DNS works from right to left. Using www.stuff.co.nz, the DNS identifies that it is in New Zealand database (.nz), and that, there, it will find a .co database which contains the IP Address of “stuff”. Then, eventually, the page is displayed in your browser.

In a host name like www.google.com, the .com part is called a Top Level Domain (TLD). There are 14 generic TLDs (gTLDs): .com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net, .org, .biz, .info, .name, .pro, .aero, .coop, and .museum. When you see a 2 letter TLD it is called a country code TLD (ccTLD). Some ccTLD have been divided up into, what are known as, sub-domains by that country’s registrar of domains. For instance .nz has .co, .org, .net, .school, .govt, .gen, .maori, .iwi, .ac, .cri, .mil.

Just because a website has a ccTLD it does not mean that that website resides on a computer in that country, as an example, www.ebay.co.nz actually sits on a computer in the USA.

Controlling the DNS are only 13 computers based around the world. These computers are called root servers and carry a database of IP Addresses for each of the many computers that contain the gTLD and ccTLD registry databases.

Andy, does that answer your question?

For more information see:

April 3 2003 – Mozilla – Internet Explorer Alternative

In Internet on April 3, 2003 at 8:12 pm

During the late 90s a war raged between Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and opposition browsers, like Netscape.

In 1998 it become obvious that Microsoft had won the browser wars. Netscape, unable to commit the resources, released their source code to the community. In March 1998, one month after the code was made available, a new browser, Mozilla, was released.

By 2000 most users had deserted Netscape and the war looked almost over. But toiling away, in the dark of the night, the part-time developers working on the Mozilla project may have come up with a way to finally fight back against Microsoft’s dominance. This month Mozilla 1.3 was released.

Mozilla is a complete online package, in that it comes with browser, email & newsgroup client, address book, Chatzilla allowing Internet Relay Chat (IRC), and an HTML editor called Composer. There are options to allow you to choose to install all, or just some, of the software. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

To install just a click on the downloaded file’s icon, and you are guided through the process. If you are just trying out Mozilla, be careful you do not answer yes to the questions about making either the browser, or the email client, your defaults.

So what does Mozilla give you that IE doesn’t?

Firstly there is tabbed browsing. If you have never experienced tabbed browsing you are in for a treat. Within the one Mozilla window you can open up several tabs each pointing to a different site, and be able to switch between them easily. This also allows you to run several Mozilla windows, with each window devoted to a different function. One could be news pages, one could be blogs, one could be shopping sites, and then within these windows you could tab to different sites. So the news Mozilla window could have the BBC, CNN, and Stuff sites, all open at once

A sidebar facility allows you to do your searching, view your history, and bookmarks easily. This sidebar also provides a whole host of other functions, adding to the browser experience.

You are also able to use “skins” to change the appearance of the browser. A quick click dispenses with those pesky pop-up adverts. It is just as easy to manage your cookies.

The email client could be a worthy replacement for the security-hole-ridden Outlook. You can have multiple in-boxes, allowing you to have multiple email address. A neat feature puts all emails from addresses not in your address book, into a Junk mail folder. Remember to check it just in case the odd one, you want, sneaks through. Filters allow the distribution of mail through folders and can also exclude the spam you receive.

If you install the email client, remember to have the information your ISP gave you about your Internet account, at hand, so you can set up the email address. This information will also be available in Outlook. If you are just trying it out, set the option to leave the mail at the server, so that you can get a copy into your Outlook folders.

An interesting feature of Mozilla is the ability to run all sorts of programs, like word processing, within the browser.

Can Mozilla defeat the mighty IE? I don’t think so, but it may start eating away at the edges of the Microsoft monster.

January 9 2003 – Surf Some More

In Internet on January 9, 2003 at 8:22 pm

While you have been surfing and searching the net, the crew at Google have been coming up with more ways to make your web-experience enjoyable. There are four new options you can try out. Google Viewer lets you watch your screen, as each entry Google finds for your query is displayed, before your eyes, in a slide show. Google Glossary will find definitions for words, phrases and acronyms, and then display the findings like a normal Google search result. Google Webquotes displays your search results and adds quotes from other sites about the pages it finds. Lastly, Froogle will help you shop by giving you comparative prices at various on-line shopping sites.

A while ago the Internet was a buzz with gossip about something called “It” or “Ginger”, and what this amazing new product would mean to us mere mortals. Well “It” turned out to be the Segway. Segway is a two-wheeled human transporter. Although not generally available in the USA until March people have already built fan sites, like The Book Of Segway. By the way, if you want to buy one, they are available, unfortunately, only in the USA from Amazon.com for a cool US$4,950.00, S&H extra.

When I visited the doctor as small boy I always read one particular book in his waiting room. It was called “Struwwelpeter” by Heinrich Hoffmann, and was about naughty children and what happened to them. Why I didn’t have nightmares about Slovenly Peter, and his unruly hair and long dirty nails, I don’t know. You can read the book in English and German, thanks to the Virginia Commonwealth University.

An ex-work colleague emailed me about a site that should interest quite a few of us, The Dull Men’s Club. Described as “a place, in cyberspace, where Dull Men can share thoughts and experiences, free from pressures to be ‘in and trendy’ to enjoy instead the simple, ordinary things of everyday life.” I particularly enjoyed the database of airport carousel directions, whether they go around clockwise or anticlockwise. Thank you Graeme.

This next site is especially for Graeme. He mentioned that he had lost his link to a site that documented the delights of hidden underground stations in London. Hywel Williams, moved to London and was fascinated by the Underground, in particular the disused stations. His site is totally absorbing for us dull men.

A neighbour was kind enough to introduce me to an extremely comprehensive site of links to news sources around the world. Refdesk will take you to any on-line news site anywhere in the world. From Nairobi to Nagoya, or Birmingham to Bogota, they are all there and more. Links to search engines, dictionary sites, share market, and reference sites abound, making you understand its self-billing as “the single best source for facts on the net”. It certainly impressed Colin Powell, it’s his favourite site.

Fed up with spam? I know I am. A new web site is requesting that you send it your spam. Spam Archive is trying to build just that, a massive database of spam, from which it will be possible to build and test tools to combat the menace. The site gives information on how you can help the fight.

December 12 2002 – Popups, Popunders, Adware and Spyware

In Internet on December 12, 2002 at 5:42 pm

The cyber-jungle in which we surf, has a new villain that wants to break the sanctity of your PC. The advertising industry! They are doing this by the use of Popups, Popunders, Adware and Spyware.

Popups and Popunders are similar in their operation. You visit a web site and another window either, pops up over, or under the one you are reading. Invariably, these rogue windows are adverts. Always, they are annoying.

There is help at hand. Fight back by using software to remove them. Those of you using Internet Explorer should go to Webattack. Several pieces of software are listed there, from which you can choose one to stop this intrusion on your Internet use. If you use Mozilla or Netscape 7, you are able to switch off the popup/unders using the preferences in your browser. Choose Edit/Preferences/Advanced/Scripts & Windows. Uncheck the box “Open unrequested windows”. Netscape 7 users may have to apply a “fix” to their system as this function has been disabled for some reason.

Adware is software that, while running, displays advertising banners. The software is usually free or very cheap and the banners are seen as way to recoup cost, while providing a needed service to the user. Examples of this are the Eudora email client, and the Opera browser.

Most people seem very happy to use either of these products without paying, and are not concerned about the advertising. It is just like the interruptions to your TV viewing, or the adverts in Contact. They allow you to enjoy something for free, and in some cases, benefit from the knowledge of a new product or service.

Some advertisers have taken things one step further, and, in doing so, have crossed the line of acceptability by breaking your privacy. Programs you download may contain code that has been specially written to watch the way you use your PC or the web. This information is then sent to the advertiser. This is Spyware.

Justification for this violation of privacy, is that it allows the companies advertising to fine tune their campaign to the individual. Imagine, as you type your letter to Mum and Dad telling them about the pain in your back an advert pops up advertising a pain killer. Perhaps as you order a CD from one on-line store a little box pops up telling you it is cheaper at another.

Not all Spyware is Adware, and not all Adware is Spyware. Spyware can also end up on your PC as a result of a virus, rather than you downloading it yourself. This turns Spyware into a nasty, completely unwanted guest. With a virus version of Spyware, your personal details such as credit card numbers, bank account balances, and passwords to on-line banking sites, etc. can end up in the hands of unscrupulous people.

Fortunately there are ways to stop this happening. Viruses can be thwarted by the use of a good virus checker. Other Spyware can be removed by installing special software. Spywareinfo will keep you informed about Spyware, while Spybot – Search & Destroy will help you remove the unwanted intruder.

For more information visit Counter exploitation where there are many interesting links and articles about Popups, Popunders, Adware, and Spyware.

October 31 2002 – Surf To These Sites

In Internet on October 31, 2002 at 8:07 pm

I am not a sporting sort at all. Often I don’t even know that New Zealand is battling against all odds to win a cup, medal or shield, in a contest somewhere on the other side of the world. Recently, though, the name of Phil Tataurangi came to my notice. Phil plays golf, and has just become the 15th first-time winner on the PGA Tour. Golf is a very popular sport among New Zealand men and women of all ages and Kay Wall has taken a rather humourous approach to it on her web site, Golf Humour. Kay also recommends The Immaculate Stroke, for those fanatics of the ancient art.

I prefer a different sort of art, just like our Prime Minister. You can find out just exactly what Helen Clark thinks about things, both local and overseas, on the Prime Minister’s web site. If you ever wondered just what the PM’s days are like, an example from her diary is available. You can also read about the official residence, Premier House. There is a special section just for students who can ask the PM questions, and read answers to previously asked ones in the FAQ.

Helen would probably like Bomb Magazine, which for 20 years has been facilitating conversations between painters, actors, poets, directors, musicians, novelists, and sculptors. Bomb is available online and you can read conversations with such people as Donald Marguiles, Steve Earle, John Zorn, Joan Mitchell, and Lydia Davis.

I am not sure if you would call dance music art, but it does have it’s place in modern culture. Biggie.co.nz lets you plan your trip to the next event, talk with other members in the forum, and view photos from previous big-nights-out.

If your tendency is for music that is more mainstream and local, perhaps NZmusic.com is what you require. You can check the gig guide, watch music videos, read artist biographies, and catch up with music news.

Of course all this “hi-brow stuff” can be a bit much for the old gray matter and you may need to turn to something a little lighter. There are women’s magazines and there are men’s magazines, but the content is, usually, somewhat different in the latter. For a more all-round approach to maleness I may have found the answer. Emale is an online magazine for the New Zealand male. It features articles based on health, relationships, fashion, work and play. Examples of articles are: “Keeping meetings under control”, “Prostate cancer”, and “Buying lingerie”, for your partner, not yourself fellas!

One of the most difficult things a man or woman can do is be a parent. No one trains you for this experience, its more a learn-on-the-job thing. By the time you’ve completed your training, the offspring just off and leave you. Parents’ Centres are located around New Zealand and provide help with: childbirth education, parent support groups, parent education, and advocacy/lobbying for parenting, birthing and families. The Parents’ Centres website will explain in greater detail what can be gained from joining their organisation.

August 22 2002 – Surfs Up! – More Interesting Links

In Internet on August 22, 2002 at 10:03 pm

From your emails it is plain that you enjoy the columns dedicated to surfing the web. So let’s take the opportunity to try out a few websites together.

Frank Zappa recorded a whole album to its memory. Meanwhile people all over the world misuse it. What is it? The humble apostrophe. The little ‘ that so often causes people to write letters to the editor. In the UK John Richards is the chairperson of The Apostrophe Protection Society. The site has simple clues on where and when to use, or not use, the apostrophe.

While we are on the subject of grammar, one of those words, in our ever changing English language, that won’t die is ‘whom’. To find out how to use it correctly visit 0format. Simple rules to help regain the use of our rich cultural heritage, enabling you to use ‘whom’ and ‘whomever’, are there.

Do you know what an oxymoron is? Visit the Oxymoron List and you can see a the largest list of oxymorons in the world. It made me chuckle that at the top of the oxymoron twenty was ‘Microsoft Works’.

Population growth is one of the world’s problems. To keep an eye on the current number of people who inhabit the globe visit the global population counter. The speed at which it turns over is frightening.

I know that a lot of Silver Surfers (people over 50) read this column, and I include this next site especially for them. Eldernet lists organisations and services that may be of interest to older people. Ranging from housing, to health care, to scrabble clubs.

Yamaha have taken origami to new heights at their Papercraft site. Here you can download the plans for motorbikes, animals, and seasonal images, to make out of paper. They are all pre-coloured so there is no need to paint them. You will need Adobe Acrobat to download them.

Skulls Downunder is the work of George Holley, and a good job he has done. George sells animal skulls and skeletons via the Internet. The site presents an interesting array of bones from native and exotic creatures. My favourite is the little skeleton of a hedgehog, which make it look more like a greyhound.

Mike Warman, also new to the art, or should that be science, of building websites, presents a very interesting set of pages dealing with the incident involving the S.S. White Swan. On 29th June 1862 the ship was holed by a rock while steaming down the New Zealand coast from Napier to Wellington. Captain Allen Harper deliberately ran the ship aground on Waiorongo Beach, at Uriti Point, in order to save the lives of those on board. It was good job he did, because among those on board were leading politicians and civil servants travelling to Wellington for the first meeting of the General Assembly (colonial parliament) to be held outside Auckland – the capital at that time. It is interesting to imagine what may have happened to New Zealand history if the ship had sunk, taking those on board with it.

June 27 2002 – Someone is reading your email

In Internet on June 27, 2002 at 5:56 pm

Most of us assume that the telephone is a relatively secure means of communication. To all intents and purposes, it is. Special equipment is required to tap or scan phone calls. It may be because of our feeling of security, when using the phone, that many of us have carried this over to the Internet and especially email.

Those of you who think email is secure, think again! Email is no more secure than using a postcard. You wouldn’t think of putting your credit card details on the back of a postcard, so why do it in an email?

What makes email insecure, is the Internet. The Internet is a collection of interconnected computers and routers owned by individual organisations throughout the world. The number of these computers that your message goes through depends on where your message is going, and how busy the Internet is at the time. The same message to the same email address could travel through a different number of computers if sent at a different time. Any of the computers that your message goes through could be used to snoop into the email that passes through it and then store it, alter it, or delete it.

Not only do you have to contend with outlaws reading your email but also with government agencies.

In the USA the FBI run a snooping system that they call Carnivore. Carnivore is a computer and its software that connects into an ISP’s system to sniff out criminals using the Internet. For more information see How Stuff Works and the Carnivore FAQ.

Meanwhile throughout the rest of the world the ultra secret Project Echelon watches over us all. There are two listening posts for Echelon in New Zealand, Waihopai, near Blenheim and Tangimoana, just up the road from Himatangi. You can read more in Nicky Hager’s book. Echelons job is search for keywords in emails and other telecommunications. Keywords that terrorists and criminals may use like bomb, nuclear, anthrax, president, assassinate, cocaine. Personally if I was a terrorist or criminal I would use code words rather than the correct one.

If you still want to risk your sensitive information in emails, then you may want to encode them to ensure privacy. There is an excellent piece of software for this called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) for information see the FAQ. Also available is software developed with the help of the German Government called the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG).

Do I use it? No, I am not paranoid.

June 13 2002 – Let’s Go Surfing!

In Internet on June 13, 2002 at 5:56 pm

DVD players and DVDs themselves are getting cheaper, no doubt they will become as ubiquitous as the VCR. You can find out more about what DVDs are, explanation of those annoying region codes, and even purchase DVDs at I Love DVDs.

Extreme sports are very popular world wide and at www.wake.co.nz you can find out all about wakeboarding. It like water-skiing but you use a board like a snowboard. Looks like fun.

Ever wondered where you could buy a clock with the numbers that go backwards, a flying pig or even your very own Chucky doll? Then Things You Never Knew Existed is for you.

We all know that nutrition is important. At nutrition.wellington.net.nz you can read about an anti-stress nutrition programme that claims to improve mood, health, behaviour and learning.

As the site says “Ordinary people can be drop dead funny.” At Things People Say is a collection of all those gaffes that ordinary people have come out with, like – “What time does the 7 o’clock ferry leave?”

You’ve seen them on the road and wondered what they would be like to drive. At Ugly Ducks Down Under all will be revealed. The 2CVs are those funny little cars that French company Citroen have been building since 1937.

Lost contact with a friend from work, school, church, or even kindergarten try oldfriends you are sure to be able to find them listed, or list yourself and wait for them to find you.

www.findsomeone.co.nz is a site where you are able to meet new people. In the 15 months it has been running a real online community has developed and a lot of lonely people have a new circle of friends.

Are you a bird fancier? www.birdnetnz.com is the New Zealand site for keepers and breeders of caged and aviary birds, whether it be a Cockatoo, or a Galah. You can buy birds online and read articles about the birds and caring for them.

A megaphone. You think you know what I am talking about? What about crapinon? They are just molecules. At Molecules with Silly or Unusual Names you can find many more funny names and they all exist.

Old packaging can be used for many things. Most of us just throw it away, but in the UK they have come with a way to use old Pringles tubes. The BBC report that hackers are using them to act as directional antenna to gain access to wireless networks.

Want to know how to get from A to B in New Zealand? MapZone is the site for you. You can put in the street name and number of the building and get a map showing banks, petrol stations, fast food outlets and ATMs.

Regular readers of this column would know that I am a fan of Google. You can download, for free, a special toolbar for your IE browser. It will allow you to use Google to search from any website location, without returning to the Google home page to begin another search.

Don’t forget that if you have a website that you want to share with other people, whether it be your own one, or one that you visit a lot, email me for future inclusion in e-stuff.

May 2 2002 – Goodbye Free Internet?

In Internet on May 2, 2002 at 7:53 pm

The wild frenzy to make money out of the Internet is over. For a while it rivalled the South Sea Bubble of the 18th century or the Dutch Tulip Boom of the 17th century.

Since the dot.com crash in April 2000 you may have noticed that your favourite site no longer exists. All over the world Internet companies have been closing down. From Flying Pig in New Zealand, to Boo in the UK, to eVan in the USA.

Sites that provided free services are now charging for them even those lifetime email addresses are not immune.

The way sites are charging is also interesting.

Teoma is a new search engine that charges you to list with it. I can understand if Google started charging for site listings, but Teoma is such a poor search engine in comparison to Google that it hardly seems worth it.

Yahoo has a games section which is currently free. They are now taking subscriptions for an extended games service, which includes the ability to host tournaments and game leagues, voice chat, and removes adverts. This is an example of just one of the extra charges and changes that Yahoo is making to ensure it stays in business in the current market.

Salon is an online magazine which has a two tier service. You can read what they provide for free, or pay for Salon Premium, and get extras such as access to news, politics, and columnists.

The statistics for visits by New Zealanders to websites provide us with some interesting information. XtraMSN is the top site for March with 73.59% of Internet users viewing the pages. Coming in at number two is Yahoo with 36.58%, under half that of XtraMSN. In fact, even if you add Microsoft’s viewing figures (they came third) of 33.27% you still have some way to go to beat XtraMSN.

Looking at the rest of the world is interesting as well. In the USA the top 3 are grouped closely in the 40% area, but number four is way down at 18.67% MSN may be out in front in the UK, but the next three are bunched closely. Across the Tasman the Australian figures follow those of New Zealand, with NineMSN slightly in front of Yahoo.

These figures tell us one thing, the majority of people who use the Internet visit three sites more than any other. If you add the viewing figures for the countries above, AOL Time Warner is first, with Yahoo a close second, MSN is not far behind but, Microsoft is way back, and Google is even further behind.

Site Visits
AOL 46,919,129
Yahoo 46,163,460
MSN 44,706,116
Microsoft 23,566,127
Google 17,608,617
Top five Internet site in US, UK, NZ & Australia.

The crash may have occurred two years ago but the web is still in a state of flux. The large corporations are grabbing the lion’s share of the market, but it would appear that they can not make the free/advertising model pay. Smaller companies look set to either charge or disappear.

Meanwhile the hobbyists are still plugging away with their own homepages, blogs, or fan sites. Deep in the underworld of the Internet the porn sites make money, and the pirate software, or warez sites, are still there, despite efforts to eliminate them.

In the future we are going to have to pay-up for the commercial sites, or visit the growing number of interesting independent hobbyist sites. That’s forgetting the Internet underworld of course.

March 21 2002 – Son Of The Internet

In Internet on March 21, 2002 at 6:00 pm

Americans enjoy sequels. First came Startrek, then Startrek The Next Generation, and so to Deep Space 9, Voyager and now Enterprise.

This desire to have a follow-up has come to the Internet. In development in the USA and several other countries is Internet2.

The original Internet was developed by universities, research organisations and the US military to allow unbroken communication between interconnected computers. The Internet2 project improves on the original by making it faster, ensuring quality of service and expanding the range of applications that can be run.

Like Internet1 you can be sure that the general public will eventually be using this new framework for work and play. If that is the case what will it mean to us all?

The current top speed of Internet2 is 3 gigabits per second. This would allow the whole contents of the Bible to be downloaded, uncompressed, in about 1½ seconds. So faster downloads will be possible but, that is not what it’s all about.

With the increased bandwidth the way you do business and personal computing will change dramatically. It will be possible to hire applications by the hour. The programs you use for word processing or spreadsheeting would download into your computer via Internet2. Your own data file could be stored in vast disk farms on the other side of the world.

That is not all. Uncompressed High Definition TV could be available via Internet2. This will bring competition from overseas to cable and satellite TV companies. You could watch BBC1 instead of SKY1.

There will no more trips to the video shop to hire tapes. You will just watch the latest release on Internet2. This will bring changes to cinemas. No longer will films be distributed by sending copies of the movie to each cinema. Instead every cinema will be connected to the Internet and the film will be downloaded in minutes to a harddrive in the cinema for playback at a latter stage. The increased quality in both picture and sound will be marvellous.

Have you noticed in those crude videophone sequences on CNN how the sound and the video are out of synch? Internet2 will fix this so that personal videophone calls via your PC will be common.

A company called Teleportec has already demonstrated a conferencing system that projects a 3D holographic-like image using the Internet2 for transmission. It has been used by the Texas governor to address an audience in Dallas from his office in Austin, 291 Km away.

Trips to the doctor will become a completely new experience. It is likely that the doctors surgery will be connected to Internet2 to allow examinations and perhaps even surgery to be done remotely, by doctors in another part of the country or the world. That trip to Christchurch or Wellington by West Coasters for medical treatment could become a thing of the past.

There is concern that New Zealand will be left behind in this rush to adapt for Internet2 capability. This could mean that companies look towards Australia and Asia where progress is being made in conversion to Internet2. To help promote Internet2 connectivity in New Zealand a web site has been set up.

All this sounds wonderful, a bit scary and more like those Sci-Fi books you used to read as a teenager. I guess our great-grand parents thought that about putting man on the moon

March 7 2002 – Surfing Again

In Internet on March 7, 2002 at 5:58 pm

Some of you may remember that this column grew out of a smaller one called Surf Report. I have attempted to keep the surfers happy by having a Site Of The Week, each fortnight. Pressure for space has meant that I have been unable to do this recently. I hope that this special surfers’ column will rectify that.

Turners and Growers have got together with Sunshine Books and produced the Eat Right Project. Children are able to learn the benefits of eating fruit and vegetables. There is also a fascinating page on the meaning of flowers. We all know that roses mean “I love you”, but did you know that orchids mean “you are beautiful”?

It is interesting the varying organisations and businesses that have web sites. Wellington Airport presents a site that lets you know, among other things, how to get there by car or public transport. Did you know you can also hire space at the airport for conferences?

If you’re interested in things that fly, visit Airside TV. This site carries videos of all sorts of aircraft. The latest video is of the Queen’s RNZAF B727-100 and BA B777-200 leaving the country.

There are over 130,000 people of Dutch ancestry in New Zealand. They and others seeking information about the Netherlands will find The Royal Netherlands Embassy site a good starting point.

Do you follow NZ Tennis? Then the New Zealand Tennis Inc. site is for you. They have got news, a fixture calendar for all levels, school tennis and more.

Maybe football – or should I say soccer? – is more to your liking. Try Football Kingz. Check out their results, future matches, news and even order tickets. Provided of course you can get to either Ericsson or North Harbour Stadiums.

If the other-shaped ball is your passion and you have lost heart with the Hurricanes try Fantasy Rugby. There you make up your team to participate in virtual Super 12 games with other teams. Sounds like fun.

Like to discuss New Zealand news and current affairs? These two sites are for you: Soapbox has channels from gardening, through politics, and entertainment to technology. Regular postings come from people like Wyatt Creech Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne. The other is Newsbox where the latest news can be discussed.

A concept of Kevin Roberts and Brian Sweeny, The New Zealand Edge is a truly fascinating site. You may remember Roberts from his involvement with Team New Zealand. The New Zealand Edge is about creating pride in yourself and in New Zealand. There are pages devoted to NZ heroes, pictures, achievements and inspirational speeches from Roberts and Sweeny.

gmn.com is your pathway to the arts on the Internet covering jazz, opera, ballet, theatre, and classical music. News, reviews, downloads; you will find them all here, including webcasts of concerts.

Meet all your old friends, Charlie, Matilda, James and The BFG at roalddahl.com. It’s another world at this site where Roald Dahl lovers of all ages will find something to interest them.

Every Good Boy Does Fine are the notes represented by the lines on the treble clef, bottom to top. While FACE are the notes represented by the spaces on the treble clef, bottom to top. These little memory jerkers are called mnemonics. Amanda collects them, she has so many she has started a web site Amanda’s Mnemonics Page where you can find out how to remember the six wives of Henry VIII in the correct order.

February 7 2002 – Maori On The Net

In Internet on February 7, 2002 at 5:44 pm

(2) this week, is an opportunity to investigate what Maori are doing on Te Ipurangi (The Internet).

The Government offering has been set up by the Te Puni Kokiri (Ministry Of Maori Devlopment). The Ministry was established to provide policy advice to Government and other agencies. It also helps Maori to “achieve their development aims”.

Maaori.com claims to be the have been the first Maori presence on the Web. Established in 1995 by Ross Himona it details “the magic of being Maori the indigenous Maori people – their culture, history, mythology, legend and whakapapa”

Maori.org.nz was possibly the second Maori site to be set up. Kamera Raharaha, the site owner, has collected together plenty of links to help find books, Kapa Haka, Purakau and more.

The main aim of The Maori Internet Society is to obtain a second-level domain name – maori.nz. This would allow Maori sites to register domain names such as waiata.maori.nz. The society are still seeking approval from ISOCNZ for this. In the meantime the site promotes the Maori presence on the Internet.

maori.culture.co.nz provides a wonderful portal into the cyberworld of the Maori. There are hundreds of links to Maori-specific sites available. It is not to be confused with culture.co.nz which has a similar number of links to sites of interest about Maori on the Web. Another portal to Maori sites is at Piperpat. While The National Library make available their database of links. If you want to keep abreast of Maori news, as well as find links to other sites, then Maorinews is for you.

The Ratana church is represented on this personal page. It is not an official Ratana site. Julia, the owner, lives at Ratana Pa, the home of the Ratana church. Piri Wira Tua movement has their own web site. The history of the Ratana Church is detailed here along with their aims to gain an “administrative self-government of Maori, by Maori, for Maori through the legislative aim of Parliament.”

Maori art and taonga are celebrated at (1) or (2) where you can view works by Maori artisans. At Ta moko there is a site dedicated to ta moko, or facial tattoos. The site has articles which explain the origins and reasons for the existence of moko along with a picture gallery. A slightly more commercial angle is taken by Wakahuia. Styling itself as “The online Maori treasure chest” it offers for sale DVD/videos, pounamu/bonecraft, waiata and software.

Bennion and Melvin, a couple of barristers & solicitors, have gone to extensive trouble in maintaining a site called The Maori Law Review which provides an index of law affecting Maori.

Another side of Maori culture is represented by the Black Power (Sindi) Auckland site where you can checkout the history of the chapter, and see some photos of the bikes and cars the members own.

Learn about the history of, and continuing Maori political activism at the last site in this surfing expedition Tino Rangatiratanga.

January 10 2002 – Blogs

In Internet on January 10, 2002 at 5:49 pm

New Year resolutions seem to have gone the way of milk deliveries and typewriters. You would faithfully make a resolution only to forget about it before the end of February? Diary keeping has always been like that for me. I am no Pepys (1, 2) scratching away at the paper with the HB for years on end. Sadly, come February, the diary was forgotten and found some time next year in a drawer.

Keeping a diary, or journal is not a lost art, and thanks to the Internet there is a new breed of writer documenting, for posterity, life in the 21st century. These online journals are called Blogs, which is a contraction of Web Log. They started life when the internet first came of age and were sites that monitored the web looking for new and interesting pages, for example the Honeyguide Web Log. Sites soon started listing links to news items, like The Guardian. It was only a matter of time before journal blogs evolved. Now people use them for all manner of things from news sites, to sites that keep dispersed family members in touch.

For an example of a journal visit Eatonweb. This site is maintained by Brigitte Eaton (no relation). Brigitte has also gone to the trouble of listing other blogs so that they are easy to find. Weblogs keeps track of blogs that have been updated, so you can read your favourite blog as soon as it has been added to.

It is possible to blog yourself (Yes, it is a verb as well as a noun.) There are two ways to go about this.

You can add a blog to your existing web site by using software such as Greymatter. You install this on your web site and blog to your heart’s content.

The other way is to use a blogging service such as Blogger or Live Journal. You use these services either from the web or by using a client on your own PC. The updated blog entry appears on your own web site.

If you don’t have a web site Blogspot provides a web hosting service for Blogger powered blogs.

I have used both Blogger and Greymatter and found them both easy to use. Although you would not want to use Greymatter unless you have an understanding of the software.

Once you have your blog up and running it would be an idea to publicise it. Unless, of course you are running a private blog for family use. You can list your blog at Eatonweb and also Bloghop. You can also send requests to Weblogs each time your blog is updated.

November 22 2001 – Online Auctions

In Internet on November 22, 2001 at 8:19 pm

eBay, the online auction house, has provided auction services to the world since 1995. It now has 29.7 million registered users, and has clocked just under 17 million visitors in February 2001.

You can see what is for sale, or list your items by going to eBay. eBay also has 15 international sites around the world. From Australia to the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. It should be noted that although the Australian site is a separate one, the NZ site is just a gateway into the US site with prices, and charges in US dollars.

Any item listed on any of the eBay sites is available to anyone, anywhere in the world, or the seller may choose just to list locally. Most buyers live in the USA, but I have sold items to people in Australia, UK, Spain, and other parts of Europe. Listing or buying an item is easy with eBay providing a tutorial on just about any subject you could think of.

Judging the right price for an item is simple. I use the eBay search facility which allows you to search current and past auctions to see the prices people are askingand getting for their goods. You can also use Strong Numbers a site that uses 5 million online auctions to find the price. For instance you can for search a 1971 National Geographic and see that it has fetched about US$3.

Once you have your item listed you will want to see how many people have visited the auction. This is made easy by eBay allowing you to choose a hit counter from Honesty.com, now owned by Andale. Andale make it easy to see all your auctions on one page and monitor the number of visitors and current high bid.

If you are confused about converting from one currency to another Oanda make it very easy with 164 currencies listed.

Most people worry about payment. With the charges for bank cheques being fairly high and the security problems involved with sending cash Paypal would seem the best bet. Here you can register your credit card and then make and accept payments through their service at no cost. They even transfer money direct from your Paypal account to your New Zealand bank account.

Another method of making and taking payments is to use Bidpay. This is run by Western Union, and works by sending the seller a confirmed International Money Order. This is accepted by my bank, so I assume all banks take them.

Using Paypal and Bidpay will allow you to ship your item to the buyer as soon as payment has been confirmed by them. If you use another method it would be best to wait until the money has arrived, and been banked before you post the goods.

Don’t forget to pass on the postage and packing charges to the purchaser, NZ Post provide a site where you can work out the postage.

If you decide to stick to doing business within New Zealand, Sam Morgan started Trade Me and this site is the major auction site in New Zealand. You could also try Trade and Exchange, not an auction site but still a good place to dispose of stuff, or to obtain that hard-to-find item.

Site Of The Week

Two sites in this column, both for the keen reader in the younger age group. Kidsreads is a site that lists books and reviews for the young reader. At Teenreads the older child and young adult are catered for.

September 13 2001 – Your Own Web Page Part 3

In Internet on September 13, 2001 at 8:22 pm

This is the last in the series on building a web page. In it I’ll deal with uploading your page to your host and tell you about some sites that provide services to enhance your web site.

One method of uploading and downloading data is known as FTP. FTP actually means File Transfer Protocol and is a standard that allows the transfer of files from one computer to another across the Internet.

Uploading a web page to your host is easy when you use one of the hundreds of shareware, or freeware programs written for the job. See a list of what is available atTUCOWS.

There are several very good freeware programs available:

Highly recommended is CuteFTP. This is shareware and willcost you about $93. So try the freeware programs first and save some money.

The programs are very easy to use. Most work by dragging, or double clicking thefiles you want to copy. Tutorials are available for CuteFTP here or here. Much of this information will be the similar for the freeware programs.

Once you have your web page uploaded you will want people to visit it. Most surfersuse a search engine to find the page they want. You could sit there and wait for thesearch engine to find you, or you could tell them you exist.

Several sites provide the means to register with multiple search engines in one go. Ican recommend Siteadd. They provide registration with 15 search engines for free, including Google and Alta-Vista.

You will have to register with the New Zealand search engines yourself:

Yahoo also requires special registration. See the following pages for information onthe process required, for Australia and NewZealandor for the rest of the world.

To find how many visitors you are getting requires a counter. Sitemeter provide a free service with a variety ofcounters. Those of you who have been to estuffonline.wordpress.com will have seen one of the styles available in the bottom left of the page. Extreme also provides the same sort of service. Both give you a great deal of information about visits to your page.

You may also want your visitor to email you by using a form on your page, or perhapsmake an entry in a guest book. There are scripts available at Bignosebird orMat’s Script Archive to perform many different functions. First check with your host that you can run these scripts.

Lastly you may want a search engine for your site. Atomz provide a free, fully customisablesearch engine called Atomz Express Search.

I have only scratched the surface of HTML and what you can do with it. Search theweb for more details, or use a book like “HTML 4 for Dummies” by Ed Tittel andStephen N. James, available from the library, to further your knowledge.

If any of you have used the information from this series to build a web page please letme know by email.

SITE OF THE WEEK

Want to see into the future? It doesn’t give you next week’s lotto results, or the winner oftomorrow’s race 3 at Ellerslie but it does attempt to map out the next 50 years or so.

August 2 2001 – Search Engines

In Internet on August 2, 2001 at 2:05 pm

Trying to find what you are looking for on the Web can sometimes be like looking for an honest politician. There are lots of web pages out there (well over 800 million at the last count!) Finding one amongst them that contains the right information can often seem impossible. Especially as, it is thought that the World Wide Web search engines only manage to index 25% of that 800 million or so pages.

The roots of the modern search engine can be traced back to before there was world Wide Web. There was still an Internet and people needed to find the information stored on the connected computers, so the search engine was born. This was such a long time ago in “Internet-time” that histories have already been written (1, 2).

There are now so many search engines that it is difficult to know which one you should use. The University Of South Australia Libraryhas a page that might help. If you are looking for specialist topics try Searchability who provide details of specialised search engines. Cyward also try to assist you in your choice, but in a more tutorial fashion.

Having found your search engine of choice, you need to know how to drive it. It is no good using “car” as your search string when you really want to search for “Toyota Corolla 1987 New Zealand assembled”. Terry A. Gray has written a guide that should help dissolve the mystery of the driving a search engine. Most major engines do provide assistance,such as Google, and Alta Vista.

You may wish to search just New Zealand sites. There are now several home based search engines that address that requirement. SearchNZ provides fuzzy logic searches. To see what they mean try “beat on” as a search string. Alta Vista have an NZ based engine where you can switch between NZ or the rest of the world. A recent new comer is SearchNow.

Another method of finding what you want on the Web is to use a directory. Think of these like “Yellow Pages”. In fact both the Yellow and White are on the Web.

The best known Web directory is Yahoo. Yahoo use a vast team, would you believe, of humans to compile the directory from entries suggested by site owners. They consider that this gives their directory more chance of being correct. Google also run a directory compiled using the latest computer technology. Google have just won The Best Practices Award Webby, sort of an internet Oscar, so they must be doing something right.

Once again New Zealand has its own directory inAccessNZ. Yahoo also run an Australian and New Zealand directory, but I find this more Australian biased.

Whether you use a directory, or a search engine really comes down to personal choice and finding what works for you. You will find the right tool for the job, it just takes time and experience.

Now if only there was a way to search for an honest politician.

Site of The Week

Wilma Millar, Leader of the Upper Hutt La Leche League write to inform me that World Breastfeeding Week runs from 1 -7 August each year, and this year’s theme is Breastfeeding in the Information Age. Visit the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action for more information.

World Breastfeeding Week 1 – 7 August 2001
Breastfeeding In The Information Age
Websites of Key Resource Centres
World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action
Lactnet
La Leche League International
Linkages
Nursing Mothers’ Association of Australia
National Breastfeeding Media Watch Campaign, Texas, USA
United Nations Children’s Fund
UNAIDS
World Health Organisation
Cochrane Collaboration
Dr Thomas Hale, Breastfeeding Pharmacology Page
Pub Med
Stop POPs

July 19 2001 – Your Own Web Page Part 2

In Internet on July 19, 2001 at 8:08 pm

In this, the second, in a series of occasional articles about building your own simpleweb page, I want to explain about Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML).

What you see when you use your browser to view a web site is the result of thatbrowser interpreting the document that someone has written. To do this the browseruses a simple set of codes called tags that were invented in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee. These codes are calledHTML, and are now a standard administered by The World Wide Web Consortium(W3C).

Like all standards not everyone (including me) follow them. As anyone who hassurfed the web can tell you, some pages just don’t look right in some browsers. Thisis a shame as W3C go to a lot of troubleto ensure that the standards are available to all and can be adhered to.

The first thing you need to create your page is an editor. There are many availableand they range from expensive What You See Is What You Get (WYSISYG) editorslike Microsoft’s FrontPage orMacromedia’s Dreamweaver to freewareWYSIWYGs like CoffeeCup. Youdon’t need a WYSISYG editor, in fact I would recommend that to start with you use anormal text editor. You can use Notepad, it comes with Windows. For an example ofwhat you can do with Notepad visit rowlandweb and theirNotepad page.

I prefer to use a text editor that has been designed to highlight the HTML tags andprovide other nifty features to help code your web page. Take a look at

Once you have your editor you must learn HTML. This is possible very quickly andeasily from the following sites

While you are writing the page Idocs or Barebones can provide a good online reference.

Now before you start coding you need to have a sense of style. Whilst all those fancyHTML tags might look to be an extremely good idea they can be very annoying to aviewer of your page. There are several sites that can teach you “HTML style”,including one from the master himself, Berners-Lee,, or Jay from Hawaii. Jakob Nielsen haswritten two pages detailing the top ten mistakes in web design at 1, 2.

To show you how easy this all is I have coded a page. This is a very simple pageincluding a graphic and two links, one within the site and one to another web site. Icoded it all “by hand” using a text editor.

Now that you have your page ready you are going to need to unload it to the host thatyou chose from my last article. You will have to wait until the next time I visit thissubject for that information.

Site Of The Week

John from Upper Hutt sent me this site.An amazing site for all news junkies. The news has been split into 10 major headingsand each heading has many sub-headings. There is regional news from the fourcorners of the world, and if you are a soccer fan you will be delighted by theircoverage segregated by English team, division, league, and they even cover Europeansoccer.

May 24 2001 – Your Own Web Page Part 1

In Internet on May 24, 2001 at 8:15 pm

Ever thought of having your own web site? I bet you have. Thousands of people all around the world have a web presence. Some just put up a site about themselves and their family (eg.) to help relatives overseas keep up to date with what is going on. Others publish their own stories and poems(eg.) for all to read, another group will expound on politics (eg.). Then there is the person who is a fan of a certain artist, actor or writer (eg.)and creates a fan site. Others will wax on about their hobbies or sport(eg.). Yet another will publish a site aboutthe club or organization to which they belong (eg.).

Just about anyone can do it. So how do you go about it? In this and future articles Iwill show you how to publish a simple page using the resources the Internet canprovide you with.

The first thing you need for your own web site is somewhere to host it. “Host” is theterm for where your web page will reside so that other people will be able to see it.

Most of you will be able to have your page hosted free by your Internet serviceprovider (ISP). Certainly if you are with ihug, Xtraor Clear this will not be a problem. Check with your ISP if you areunsure if they provide this service. If you are unable to obtain hosting from your ISPthen there are free hosting sites available. In New Zealand, Orcon allow 10Mb of space, or you could use sites such as Virtual Avenue or FreeServers. Do be careful which siteyou choose and read all the Terms and Conditions. Some sites have clauses whichmay trap you. Yahoo Geocites have the following clause “Bysubmitting Content to Yahoo for inclusion on your Yahoo GeoCities Site, you grantYahoo the world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify,adapt and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting your Yahoo GeoCities Site on Yahoo’s Internet properties.” which you maynot want to do.

The next thing is to decide on the content for your site. Be careful when choosing pictures and graphics for your site that you do not infringe on copyright. Just because the stuff is on the web does not mean that you can steal it for your own site. The person who published the site owns the copyright to the content of that site.

There are places you can go to on the web for copyright free pictures and graphics. One of the golden rules of web page design is not to overload your page with graphic content. All those fancy flashing graphics and photographs take a while to download. If you don’t like waiting for a page to load neither will the people who surf to y our site either.

In the next article in this series I will explain about Hypertext Markup Language(HTML) and how to write your own page. So keep watching and reading.

Site Of The Week

Artland. View the work of New Zealand artists onthe web. Unfortunately this site suffers from too many graphics on some pages so they take a while to load but it is well worth the wait. You can buy the artwork and have it delivered to your door.

April 26 2001 – Bandwidth & Streaming

In Internet on April 26, 2001 at 9:00 pm

Bandwidth and streaming are two pieces of techno-babble that you could be hearing a lot of.

Bandwidth is the amount of information you can get to or from your PC and the Internet. Imagine that your PC is an empty swimming pool, and that the information being transferred to it is water. If you only have a garden hose it will take ages to fill up, but if you had a big fat pipe connected directly to the water main, it would fill very quickly. For a computer that is where Jetstream, and Paradise Broadband come in.

What are they? Basically they are trade names for fast access to the Internet. You can get Jetstream from various Internet providers like Xtra’s Jetstart, while Paradise Broadband is available only to Saturn customers.

Why would you require more bandwidth? Using more bandwidth will make web pages appear on your screen in seconds not minutes. MP3s download about 3 times as fast.Large video files come down in minutes not hours. A 15Mb file would take about 1 hours with a 56K modem, but with more bandwidth you could be watching in a minimum of 2minutes.

You get the most from your bandwidth by using streaming. With web pages only what you see on the page is transmitted to your PC, but with streaming there is a constant flow to your computer from the Internet.

So if you are fed up with the same old stuff on the radio? Let the Internet, and streaming bring you the world. Listen to BBC Radio 1,2,3,4 or the World Service, ABC from Australia, CBC from Canada, or National Public Radio from America. Perhaps you are an immigrant and want to catch up on local news from Iran, or Korea. Maybe you are a sportsfan, it’s all there for the taking.

If radio is not to your liking. No worries, video is available as well. CNN and the BBC provide video newscasts. At wwitv.com you will find links to live TV from Angola to Yugoslavia, orwww.freespeech.org provides an open minded view of world events. Even the Catholic Church has an Internet TV and Radio site.

It’s not only the existing broadcasters who make use of the Internet. There are Internet-only-casters who provide an alternative view of the world. www.antennaradio.com provides music for marginal tastes, whether it be classical, hillbilly or even psychedelic rock. In Australia there is www.digitalone.com.au providing everything from news to sport to music. For heavy metal fans there is www.hardradio.com.

In the spirit of the Internet even the amateur can, and does, do it. live365 provides links to anyone that streams music.

All of these sites have produced a new bred of search engine, radiotower, Internetradiolist, and radio-locator all let you search for that elusive station that plays Klingon opera 24/7. At broadcast.com you can not only find radio and TV sites listed, but also select whole CDs and audio books to listen to and videos to watch.

What software do you need for all of this? If you have Windows you are already likely to have either the Windows Media Player or Real Player. Both are free to download if you haven’t got them already.

Where is this growing bandwidth and streaming going to lead? Imagine a time when allergy screen TV and hi-fi in your lounge is connected to an extremely large storage device. In turn this is connected to a computer that knows which programmes and music you like. The computer seeks them out on the Internet and downloads them tithe storage device. When you are ready, not when the TV stations say you have to,you can watch the news, or the latest Brad Pitt movie, or listen to the new CD by The Mambo Rambo All Stars. Maybe watch the Robbie Williams concert live, or the English FA Cup Final as it happens.

All of which leads to the question – Will TV and radio exist as we know it? Maybe not, see kerbango and replay.