Reflections of A ModemJunkie by Leonard Grossman Between Federal holidays and a brief period of medical leave (not serious), I have had way too much time to fool around with this machine. And of course the more time to play the more time to screw up . . . meaning more disasters . . . meaning less time to sleep than if I had been at work each day. To make a long story short, in the midst of all the changes and reconfigurations, somehow I acquired the Stoned virus, which had me entirely puzzled. But things appear to be working now and I have purchased a 420 meg tape back up to save me from my midnight deletions. The Internet remains a wild and wooly place. Flame wars between local providers plague the local newsgroups (although Karl Denninger is on his honeymoon as this is being written so things should calm down for a while). But the infinite variety of the net continues to amaze me. One of the nice features of the Netscape browser is that when you find a site that interests you, you can add it to a list of "bookmarks" with a click of the mouse so that you can go back again without having to remember the URL (Universal Resource Locator or WWW address). I thought I would discuss my favorite places so I printed out my bookmarks tonight. Imagine my amazement when I discovered that my list was more than three pages long. Over 130 sites. And as you will see, many of them are lists of lists. There is no way I could discuss them all here, but I will highlight a few. The first group tools for further surfing. Among these are search forms. These are places where you can enter a term and search the Web for sites of interest. I find the Lycos form the most useful but there are may others as well. Then there are the lists. There is one called All Topics and another called The Whole Net at Your Fingers, even one called Fun Stuff and Multimedia. A favorite of mine is Today's News, a collection of on line news sources, including the Voice of America, the Electronic Telegraph (London) and the St. Petersburg Press. Getting beyond the surfing tools, there are the home pages themselves, the actual destinations of Web Surfers. Many of these are created by individual users and include arcane information as well as more, often eclectic, collections of lists. Among the more useful of these is Harold Driscoll's page which is a collection of useful tools and addresses. But pages span the gamut from, a fascinating tour of the Louvre, to a brief display of famous works at the Art Institute. You can download, view, and even [sacrilege] edit the great masterworks and then print them out on your color printer with a few key strokes. The entertainment world is well represented on the Web, especially alternative music. But Prime Time T.V. holds its own. My daughter Sarah's favorite page is dedicated to saving "My So Called Life," a now defunct T.V. show. With a click, I was able to download the entire opening sequence of the show. I was warned it would be a large file... Even so, I did not expect nearly 20 megs. It played for all of 60.2 seconds. Last week I printed out thumbnail pictures of the cast in black and white. Sarah stared at the tiny picture of Jared Leto, who plays Jordan Catalano, the bad boy teenage idol on the show. "Couldn't you find a color picture of Jared?" she implored. A few minutes later he smoldered from a full page color print still wet from the Deskjet. And Sarah was jelly. On a more practical level there are sites which connect you directly to software collections, such as CICA. Don't bother buying their CD-Rom-- its all available free on the Net. And Microsoft?? Did you spend ten bucks to by the DOS 6.22 stepup? Its available free on the Net--just click. To come up for air for a moment, the Dupage Computer Central Show was a mob scene in February. The long lines snaking around the gymnasium lobby and out into the open not deterred by the signs posted on every door. "Adult Material Not Available, by Order of the College of Dupage." Heavy duty porn is disappearing from the Net as well. Some providers refuse to carry certain newsgroups, not out of propriety but out of fear of litigation. And the fear is related to copyright as much as obscenity. Formerly popular X-rated sites on the Web are also disappearing, victims of their own success. Demand was so great that servers were being tied up by lechers in the night. One site in Finland limits full access to natives. Another only allows one video download per week. A recent R-rated site with some swimsuit shots was closed by the computer ethics committee of the university where it was posted. Still, if you are desperate, there is the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit page with stills and videos and if you really can't sleep, the Cindy Crawford Concentration Game. Try to match all of the swimsuit poses. At the end you'll even get a compliment from Cindy. (BTW, You can capture the images and convert them to any graphic form you want). On a more sophisticated level there is an online magazine called Urban Desires, with sensitive articles and more. (My wife says this paragraph sounds like a lament, but the research was conducted solely in the interest of science.) On a more serious level, there is the Zimmermann Legal Defense Appeal page, dedicated to assisting the genius who invented a major method of public encryption, who has been indicted for violating domestic laws regarding the sale of certain types of encryption software overseas. The Internet has destroyed geographic boundaries. The consequences are not yet clear and the solutions are not easy--no matter what Mickey Cantor did in China. Finally, another kudo to George Matyazek, who is in the process of completing a major upgrade of Syslink's BBS software. Sometimes the Web is too big. When I need a driver or a special file, its much easier and faster to search George's board first. He remains truly responsive to user suggestions and complaints. Thanks again, George. grossman@mcs.com -=-=-= leonard.grossman@syslink.mcs.com Copyright Leonard Grossman 1995