Published October 06, 1999
This installment marks the completion of the third year (156 weeks) of Internet computing news and information, brought to you in the pages of the Park County Weekly. What a ride it has been and still accelerating.
The diversity of topics discussed, over the past 52 consecutive weeks, have swayed widely, a depiction of the unfolding electronic landscape in these latter days of the millennium. The categories are: Education, Speed, Environment, Inventions, Biographies, News, and Computers on the Web. Incidental segments: Seasonal, Medical, Cultural, and E-commerce.
The national growth of Internet, statistically, exceeds the percentage of local computer owners using and learning it [Internet Blips of 1998 & Internet Forecast 99]. However, the public library computers are fully used by self-guided explorers. Thanks to many generous contributors and public support, our library computing network is expanding. Also the alliance of Livingston-Park County Library and the Livingston Internet Group continue Internet orientation to those interested [Internet Talks].
From home or office, for pleasure, education or business, the need to communicate faster and more effectively has been a natural phenomenon [Home Automation; New Home Wiring; The New Workplace; Faster Please, Faster]. A dozen access providers (ISPs) are a local phone call to Park County, up 40% from last year.
Twice the Widening-Our-World Van has visited Livingston with free hands-on guided sessions to the Internet [WOW Internet Training & WOW-Van Returns]. The first Bozeman Internet Festival was held, and plans for the next one is underway.
Universities and virtual colleges offer credited courses via the Internet in various forms of remote learning [Classrooms on the Web]. Graduating classes ready themselves for job prospects, often researched over the Net [Graduates for 2000].
Students and staff are urged to prepare our higher education students to think how to acquire new information and apply it quickly [Adapting Quickly to Computer Change]. And older discarded computers have a use, not refuse [Computer Salvage].
In rural areas like Montana, the ultra-fast transfers of information, the awaited Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), is still out of reach. A discussion of the structure of bandwidth is the size of the pipe [Web Wait]. Elsewhere communities are turning to radio-linked Internet [Wireless for Ruralists].
The editorial staff at the newspaper choose a subject theme. To the issue, an abundance of current information online wells to the surface [Growing Things, Water Fit to Drink & Unusual Lightning], relating to the environment, in these examples.
Inventions and inventors have been popular over the last twelve months. Reynold Johnson, Inventor, is credited with the practical design of the modern hard disk drive for computer information storage.
The processes to manufacture electronics smaller, to accelerate their performance, involved many brilliant minds over many decades [Mighty Miniatures]. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce are The Chip Inventors who separately designed the microcircuit that evolved to become the central processor chip for computers and other electronic devices.
Advanced research by government and universities has continued, but a New Internet 2 is their new, more secure and faster network of interconnected computers. Internet 2 is not likely to link with the present Internet anytime soon.
Speech recognition has failed to deliver as promised. The funding continues, but younger scientists search for another way [Say What?]. Modern Code Breakers cracked, in a day, the DSA’s acceptable encryption process (scrambling). A stronger scheme is needed.
At the theater, a new type motion picture replaces film with digital storage [Digital Cinema]. And last week, FireWire, an invention by Apple Computer, standardizes a simplified interconnection of consumer electronics with live video and audio into any computer.
With considerable effort to demonstrate workable, positive, and inspiration examples of Net-available resources, the spotlight falls upon Christopher Reeve, Real Life Hero. His tragic accident has been focusing world attention. Regenerating spinal chord injuries is scientifically feasible within five years.
Jerry Yang and David Filo are Chief Yahoos!, the first Internet-made billionaires. Their amazing success story of building a prominent search engine was a consequence of circumstance and a fresh idea.
Along North Carolina coast, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was pushed nearly 2800 feet inland away from the eroding shoreline. Further out to sea, old transatlantic telephone cables are converted to network seismic sensors of both mid-Atlantic and Pacific earthquakes [Rumble in the Deep].
Sixteen contributing nations are assembling the first International Space Station. Russians announced deployment of a solar flashlight to illuminate Siberian cities at night [Russian Space Mirror]. The spacecraft did reach orbit, but the mirror did not unfold, and the mission was foiled to the relief of naturalists.
Another rumor: supposedly, the FCC was secretly planning to raise prices for telephone service to pay for Internet access [Congress to Reform FCC]. William Kennard stated, “As long as I am chairman, we will not regulate the Internet.”
In computing news, the newest Intel chip has been designed with an identification tracking feature built-in [Pentium III Has Your Number]. And a new company, ICANN, is taking over for InterNIC, the people who issues computer names for web sites [Web Domain Names].
A growingly popular replacement for Windows operating system has been adopted as a functional and less expensive alternative [Linux in Mexican Schools]. Several other topics rounded out the year’s line-up, including Drugs by Wire, the advent of pharmacies online. Fulfilling the newspaper’s topic of “historic nostalgia,” came a summary of the Amish.
What will next year bring? Let’s discover it together. All 156 and counting Internet articles published by the Park County Weekly are available now online at our community’s web site, Livingston Montana Online, <http://www.livingstonmontana.com/access/dan/>. Thanks for riding along.