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*                                                            *
*                         CYBERSPACE                         *
*         A biweekly column on net culture appearing         *
*                in the Toronto Sunday Sun                   *
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* Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer                                  *
* Free for online distribution                               *
* All Rights Reserved                                        *
* Direct comments and questions to:                          *
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*                                                            *
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Let's take a look at my favorite hits and misses of '97.

WORST BEST BUT MOST IMPROVED WEB SITE: Every couple days, I like to 
check out the Canadian Ticketmaster site at www.tickmaster.ca and scan 
for interesting up-coming concerts. For most of 1997, the site was slow, 
unresponsive, or unavailable. The site seems to have moved to a new 
server and it has been running quite smoothly.

AN UNDESERVED REPUTATION: A recent survey of Internet providers rated 
America Online as the worst. Oddly enough, unlike Compuserve and most of 
the Baby Bell ISPs, American Online is the only mega provider I don't 
have in my killfile. Whatever AOL's sin are, they seem to have the best 
handle on the spam problem. I just wish they'd share their solution with 
others.

ODDEST YAHOO CATEGORY: "Smoking" found under "Recreation and 
Sports/Hobbies and Crafts".

BEST NEOLOGISM: Crapplets: Cheesy spinning logos, messages telling you 
what you already know (e.g. the time of day, what browser you're using), 
and other Java applets that makes using a web page one big bother.

NEOLOGISM NEEDED: Long ago Apple users dubbed that strange clover-leaf 
control key the "Splat" because it looked like a crushed bug. I think PC 
users need a smiliar cutesy name for the "Flying Windows (tm)" key found 
on those new fangled Windows 95 keyboads. My suggestions: "Skid" (it 
looks like a skid mark), "Flounder "(it also looks like an ungainly 
fish), "Fly Swatter" (it sort of has a fine mesh like a fly swatter and 
can be interpreted in various ways in relation to the Apple "Splat" 
key).

MOST GROWING REALIZATION AMONG NET USERS: Spam sucks.

BIGGEST BORE OF THE YEAR: Push technology. Reading the daily headlines 
is fun at first but it gets boring quickly. Why do I want to read a 
newspaper online? Newsprint is far more resliant to Sunday morning 
coffee spills and biscotti crumbs.

A PAGE I ACTUALLY READ ONLINE: Magician Penn Jillette's bi-weekly 
dispatches for Excite (www.excite.com).

ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH: Netizens spent most of the year accusing InterNIC 
-- the domain registration company that seells domain names like .com -- 
of general incompetence and lousy record keeping. Maybe it's just sour 
grapes, but InterNIC (internic.net) was at a loss to explain how they 
could let another company register "internic.com" right under the `NIC's 
nose.

IF ONLY CANADA'S HATE LAWS APPLIED IN THE USA: Ben Phelps, a "christian" 
in Topeka, Kansas, registered the domain name "godhatesfags.com". Unable 
to find a legitimate ISP willing to host his domain, he turned to Cyber 
Promotions, which is owned by Sanford "spam king" Wallace. Wallace was 
happy to cash his cheques. Following the death of Princess Diana, a 
dedicated worker for AIDS charities, Phelps paid his own special tribute 
to her good works by publishing a flyer calling her "a royal whore, now 
in hell". (To be fair, Phelps also suggested Mother Teresa might be in 
hell. I'm not making this up.) Phelps claims he's not a hate monger (he 
told /Wired/ magazine "Most of my friends are not white") and, shucks, 
he's more suprised than anyone as to why neo-nazis keep emailing him 
asking for links to their pages.

TURN ABOUT IS FAIR PLAY: For a brief time Spam King Sanford Wallace 
claimed he was going to offer spammers free software called Hypocrite. 
Wallace claimed Hypocrite would generate fifty emails for every 
complaint email sent by a victim of spam. Yes, it seems spammers were 
upset that their own email inboxes were filling up with unsolicited 
messages. Boo hoo.

MOST INACCURATE STATEMENT OF THE YEAR: Wallace (it was a banner year for 
him) stated in a press release that his junk email friendly ISP "is not 
in business to annoy people." Could have fooled us. Following AOL's 
introduction of a "preferred email" service, which automatically 
filtered out email from Cyber Promotions, Wallace issued another press 
release instructing AOL users how they could configure their e-mail to 
receive spam again. I bet AOL users got right on it...

A WEB EXCITING ONLY TO ME: Fabric Swatches 
(www.custommadesuits.com/html/swatches.htm). Nothing gets me more 
excitied than glen plaid and houndstooth.

HARD TO FEEL SYMPATHY: I thought it common knowledge that you don't run 
apps available from strange web sites. I guess not. A gaggle of men 
downloaded special "viewer" software from a site called Sexy Girls. The 
viewer ostensibly let men transfer loads and loads of free porn from the 
Sexy Girls web site. What the viewer really did was silently disconnect 
the modem and call a special toll line in Moldavia. The scam rooked in 
over a million dollars. It might have failed if users asked themsevles 
one of two questions "Free porn? How can a site make any money doing 
this?" or "Shouldn't I really be spending time with the wife and kids?"

MORE PROOF OF THE NET'S UBIQUITY: I was amazed three years ago when I 
noticed band posters slapped on the side garbage cans on Queen street 
featured net addresses. Today, I'm somewhat surprised Toronto condo 
developers are advertising buildings wired with T1 lines. Hmmm....

    Source: geocities.com/lapetitelesson/cs/text

               ( geocities.com/lapetitelesson/cs)                   ( geocities.com/lapetitelesson)