Published October 04, 2000
This installment marks the conclusion of the fourth year, 208 consecutive weeks of Internet computing news and information, brought to you in the pages of the Park County Weekly. We can be proud that our small Montana community is awakening to the greater use of the Internet in this new millennium.
A recap of the past 52 consecutive weeks is a benchmark of advancements, a montage of changes. Subject categories included: agriculture, finance, security, privacy, medicine, biographies, and computing history.
The Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft, twenty-eight years after launch, were still functioning as they traveled beyond Pluto; Edge of Our Solar System. Closer to Earth, NASA’s attempt to soft land on our nearest neighbor crashed; Mars Polar Lander D.O.A. And a quarter million dollar prize has yet to be won by any privately funded group to rocket a two kilogram weight to 125 miles; Vault into Space.
Mergers and acquisitions of small companies by larger ones continues. Venture capital incubators pump huge investments and management guidance into upstart companies; Venture Gold.
An international rescue to save the 118 Russian submariners of the ill-fated Kurst arrived too late; Russian Sub Sunk. Evidence and testimony from soldiers defending Kuwait refuted the official US position that neurological agents were never used in that military engagement; Gulf War Gas.
Europeans are concerned about the Internet passing them by; Global Net-Neighborhood. Remaining accessibly connected while away from the office is good business and essential for rural localities like ours; Traveling Wireless. Verbal instructions may not completely replace keyboard entry to a computer, but the capability of talking over the Internet is improving; Voice online.
Digital music, over special circuits like Napster, is a controversial subject polarizing the recording industry’s objection to unrestrictive distribution of artists’ songs; MP3 Music, and Freenet.
Electronic Frontier Foundation and others are engaging the lawmakers of various jurisdictions that made specific Internet usage illegal but is not restricted in other places, Crime and Puzzlement. The conventional news/press media continue to misidentify good techies from mischief-makers; Hacker or Cracker. Denial-of-Service attacks by these misfits disrupted Yahoo and CNN among others; Web Portals Attacked.
Annoyances like unsolicited email advertisements and untruthful pass-along-to-everyone notices are subjects keen to many readers of this paper. Practical advise on handling these discourteous behaviors were outlined in Hoaxes, Cons and Other Falsehoods, and Outlawing Spammers. Those who write the malicious programs that damage computer files are being identified and prosecuted; Hunting the Virus Programmers.
Dial-up subscribers need not be overly concerned that their data or computer functionality is endangered by outside attacks, but those who are full-time fast-Internet connected should protect themselves with Firewall Security; also Web Browsers’ Security. Encrypting and authentication messages is easy to do; Digital Signatures, and Protecting Your Privacy Online.
Fifty native American tribes encountered Lewis & Clark during their four year scientific expedition; Jefferson’s Corps of Discovery. Men of character, intelligence, wealth and position risked it all for independence; Sacrifices for Liberty.
Computers think by toggling billions of tiny electronic switches; Why are Computers Binary? The evolution from mainframe to the personal desktop separated companies on their way to advancements; Micro Computer Evolution. Yet, the eventual cooperation among differing American companies produced the AIM Alliance.
Interesting biographies are sources of encouragement, such as Florence Henderson; co-creator of Netscape, Marc Andreessen Rebounds; and Dr. James Clark, Founder of Silicon Graphics.
For all our agricultural friends, meat, poultry and farm products are finding new and profitable outlets on the Net; SellMeat.com, and Farm Markets Online.
Articles for operating your computer on the Internet characterized the responsibility and privilege to know your equipment and the Internet environment; Essence of Bit Happiness and Save a Copy. The responsibility for courtesy and computing capability rests with each user; Captain of Your Computer and Computing is Empowerment.
To say that 80,000 networks and hundreds of thousands of branches connect millions of nodes isn’t as sufficient as a map of the Internet. A Bell Labs team did it; Mapping the Internet.
Sometimes reality defies logic, the true story of the Magic Switch. It wasn’t connected to anything but would crash the MIT mainframe computer if flipped to the “Less Magic” position.
And there were other topics too. The emphasis in presenting these installments to you has been to instill the positive, revealing, and purposeful examples that depict all that is good and beneficial of this amazingly powerful tool, the Internet.
Our economic and educational opportunities include the Internet. Let’s explore them together.