Internet Safari

Column for week of Sept. 26, 2004:

Lots of subjects to cover this week. I’ll start
off with the news that Yahoo has purchased the
online music service “Musicmatch Jukebox”, that
deal cost 160 million dollars. Now from what I’ve
read on the Web, Yahoo is about to launch its own
branded online line music service and operate it
in addition to Musicmatch. I’m not exactly sure
what the thinking behind that move is though.
Travel discount sites on the Web, I’ve written
about them in the past. I’ll have to mention one
now. Jump over to “Orbitz” at www.orbitz.com , and
you’ll find some of the best deals on the Web.
I’ll be visiting Clovis soon, in fact, as you read
this column today I should already be in town. I
was in need of a one-way ticket to Lubbock, from
Florida (I’ll be driving back to Florida). I
scoured the Web, visited most of the popular
travel discount sites and Orbitz provided the best
deal by far. And no, I’m not running from the
hurricanes, I’m coming out to visit Ms. Susie Q.
and the rest of the family for a few weeks.
Have you seen any good movies lately? I’ve got one
to recommend to you. You should go see “Sky
Captain and the World of Tomorrow”; it’s an
awesome film. The Web site associated with the
movie is also really great, very interactive, nice
graphics, and the site contains lots of video
clips that include commentary by the film’s
producer. The URL for site is www.skycaptain.com ,
fly over there as quick as you can.
Speaking of movies, have you tried out the
Movielink movie download service yet? If not, go
check it out at www.movielink.com , and you won’t
be disappointed. The Movielink library of
available films continues to grow weekly. Prices
for viewing the movies run anywhere from .99 to
$4.99 per film. This is how the service works; one
downloads the free Movielink interface and
installs it. Once the program is installed, movies
are selected for viewing and then downloaded
(after paying for them of course). A user is
allowed to view any of the downloaded movies an
unlimited number of times within a 24-hour period,
that period begins the minute you start watching
the film for the first time. After the viewing
period has expired, the movie file becomes
inaccessible. Of course the service requires
high-speed broadband access, the movie files are
around 40 megabytes in size. One doesn’t have to
wait for the entire file to download before
viewing it either, after a certain percentage of
the film has downloaded; it begins playing (if you
want it to do that). I’ve watched a film or two
using Movielink and I’ve been impressed with both
the image and sound qualities.
I mentioned a few months ago, that the folks at
Amazon.com were in the process of developing a
search engine of their own. They had made claims
such as that their search engine would be much
better than Google.com, I guess they’ve changed
their minds though. If you will jump over to
www.a9.com , you will find that Amazon has simply
created a different user interface for the Google
search engine. That’s not a bad thing though, I
like the interface. Amazon has basically improved
upon an already excellent search service. Go give
it a whirl and you’ll be impressed.

Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance newspaper columnist, he can be reached via
www.trackertom.com

Column for week of September 19, 2004:

The evolution of the Internet, it continues onward and in some cases the changes are quite visible. Sometimes though, the changes sneak up on us and catch us by surprise.
For years I’ve suggested to folks that they should use free Web based e-mail addresses; and that I believed the benefits of using those types of accounts far outweighed the negative aspects. There are some developing issues though, that are beginning to change my mind about those types of accounts. Just recently, when I attempted to make an online purchase, I was instructed that I could not use a free e-mail account such as one from Yahoo or Hotmail, as my e-mail of record with that company. It stated on the product order page that because of the amount of credit card fraud being perpetrated over the Internet through the use of free Web based e-mail accounts, the company could no longer accept orders under those conditions.
It wasn’t but just a few days later, that after not receiving a response from a particular individual that I had e-mailed earlier in the week, that I found out that the e-mail service the person utilizes, blocks incoming messages generated from free e-mail services such as Yahoo. After some research on the Internet, I found quite a few articles about this subject. It appears that "e-mail prejudice" is actually a growing trend. With the rising tide of identity theft and credit card fraud, the amount of anonymity that you and I have been afforded in the past, seems to be quickly eroding away. To access the Internet (at least from home), we must register with our Internet service provider, that is the way it’s always been. When it gets down to brass tacks, if we do something wrong while on the Internet, such as credit card fraud or send a threatening e-mail to someone, we can pretty much expect a knock on our door within a few days. I would expect no less from our government on that issue. But, when we place an online order, or request information, or sign a guest book, we should be able to do so using a "throwaway" e-mail address if we so desire. By "throwaway" I mean a free Web based email account that we freely give out, knowing full well that in return for providing it, we will be receiving a bunch of SPAM on that account. The "throwaway" comes from being able to log into that particular e-mail account a few times a month (or week), and to just dump all of those junk mail messages. That’s always been my primary reason for telling folks to use free Web based e-mail accounts. Now I’ve got to re-think this issue and come up with some alternate solutions.
Off the top of my head, I think maybe people should register a domain name for themselves, through a service such as GoDaddy, at www.godaddy.com. The cost to register a new domain name through GoDaddy is only $8.95 per year. For an additional $20 a year, one can purchase five e-mail addresses based on that new domain name. All a person would have to do is to set up one e-mail account as the "throwaway", and then a second account as the primary e-mail address. If that person has additional family members, those folks could use the additional e-mail addresses that are left over.

Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance newspaper columnist. He can be reached via www.trackertom.com

Column for week of Sept. 12, 2004:

Ahoy there landlubbers, I just wanted to let you
know that this part of the “Sunshine State” (yeah
right), has weathered (pun intended) yet another
weak attempt by Mother Nature to let us have it.
This part of Florida, the extreme western side of
the panhandle, has been relatively untouched so
far, we residents who believe in prayer, will
continue to keep praying.
I’ve been busy this week, out making my rounds,
attempting to meet the “movers and shakers” of
this fair community. By the way, so far in the
past three weeks that I've been here, I've met no
less than five people who are former residents of
New Mexico.
Did you know that Freedom Newspapers (owner of the
Clovis News Journal), owns the three newspapers in
this area of Florida? I was privileged to meet
both the Publisher and the Editor of the Northwest
Florida Daily News a few days ago, and in fact,
now stand a real good chance of writing a weekly
column for that newspaper as well. You can read
the front page of the paper by going to
www.nwfdn.com –
to get past that page though, you’ll need to buy a
subscription. Unless that is, the presses go down,
like they did just a few nights ago. Because the
newspapers were going to be delivered late, free
online access was offered to anyone who wished to
read the paper (in its entirety) that way. I think
that might be a good idea for the Clovis News
Journal, although access to the site is already
free, not all parts of the newspaper are
available. Maybe, just maybe at times when
technical difficulties arise, the entire paper
could get posted to the Web?
Well, it was just a thought.
Speaking of newspapers, did you know that there is a one-stop
Web site that you can visit to access almost any
newspaper that offers an online edition? Just hop
on over to
www.newspapers.com -
and you’ll see what I mean. There is something for
everybody on that Web site, besides newspaper
links, there are links to trade journals and to
most of the press associations.
How about taking a trip down nostalgia road with
me? I love to watch old television commercials and to
listen to old radio spots, I get a real kick out
of them. Some bring back memories of my childhood;
some make me laugh because they seem so corny now;
and some of them just make me feel warm and fuzzy
all over. Well, maybe that feeling was caused by a
middle-age hot flash, but anyway, I’ve found a few
good sources on the Internet for old commercials,
first stop is
www.movieflix.com –
here you will find a very big assortment of videos
to view. Most of the video segments on the site
will cost you, but there is a pretty good
collection of commercials from the 1950’s, that
don’t cost anything at all to view.
The next Web address (URL) is a little long, but it’s worth
typing it in:
www.reelradio.com/je/index.html#spots5070 –
here you will find a link that will provide you
with almost an hour’s worth of old radio
commercials spanning from the 1950’s through the
70’s. The Dr. Pepper spot really cracked me up,
take a listen for yourself to see what you think
of it.

Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance newspaper
columnist, he can be reached via www.trackertom.com

Column for week of September 5, 2004:

Have you heard of "The Clovis Experiment"?
It’s an endeavor to locate and catalog every single Web site that is associated with Clovis. That my friends is a massive endeavor, even for a small community. As the directory is built and the activated links are provided, one will not only have access to commercially built Web sites, but those of non-profit organizations, local government, and also personal Web pages. Another unique aspect of the project is that it will even provide links to Web sites/pages that are located all over the globe, they just have to mention Clovis in some way, shape, form or fashion. I’m really anxious to see how this whole thing will pan out. The project is strictly non-commercial, and the originators (who wish to remain anonymous for the time being) assure me that it will never cost anything to be listed within the directory.
There is something that you can personally do to help with this project if you’d like to, just jump over to:
www.theclovisexperiment.com
and then click on the link for the online submission form. Use the form to submit as many Clovis related Web site addresses as you can. You don’t even have to provide your name or your e-mail address if you don’t want to – even though there are places for them. Just type in a Web site title, provide a brief description, and then the Internet address (URL). You’ll not have to worry about being added to anyone’s SPAM list or anything like that if you leave out your contact information. The link submission form is provided free of charge by Bravenet, a Web site hosting and service company that does offer a lot of free services and quite a few very reasonably priced paid services as well, you can check them out at
www.bravenet.com –
I’ve utilized their services off and on throughout the past four or five years, so I’m familiar with them.
I’d like to see everyone who reads this column really pitch in and help with the endeavor, I think it will most definitely benefit everyone in the long run.
Have you ever wished that you could just hop onto the Internet and quickly learn how to do something new - quickly? Say you are having problems with some Internet or computer related issues. It’s 2 a.m. in the morning and you don’t dare call up your local computer guru friend and wake him up, he just might not want to help you out anymore after that right? Have I got a Web site for you, just navigate on over to
www.ehow.com
and you’ll be amazed. The creators of the site claim that there are over 15,000 solutions to problems of all types, not just the computer and Internet kind. I counted 15 main categories and most of them had three or four sub-categories. I was impressed, you’ll be impressed, and a whole lot smarter if you start using the site.
I’ve written about "Blogs" in the past, they are Web based logs or some might call diaries that are read by anyone who just happens upon them. During last weeks Republican National Convention a lot of "Blogs" were created by those who feel that they had something to say in response (both good and bad) to what was taking place. A Web site was created to provide direct access to the content of the most popular convention related "Blogs", you will find lots of very interesting things to read at
www.conventionbloggers.com/.
Please plan on voting in November.

Tom DiFrancesca III is a freelance newspaper columnist and author of the book "Mastering Internet Explorer". He can be reached via www.trackertom.com

Special Announcement:

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I wrote the book in a very easy to read and understand format. The "Wow" factor for the book is pretty high - that is, as you are reading through the book you'll find yourself stopping and saying to yourself "Wow, I didn't know you could do that with Internet Explorer!".

Please, check out the Web site and purchase a copy of the book.

Thanks,

Tom DiFrancesca III
Tracker Tom's Internet Safari