Actrix Newsletter November 2003

This newsletter has been produced to help you get the most out of the Internet,
and to keep you, as an Actrix customer, informed of developments and services within the company.
Past newsletters may be viewed at http://editor.actrix.co.nz/
Newsletters are now archived by article at http://editor.actrix.co.nz/byarticle/
Questions and comments about the newsletter can be e-mailed to editor@actrix.co.nz
Other inquiries should be e-mailed to support@actrix.co.nz

This series of articles is mainly the brainchild of one of our customers, Roger from Lavender Pathways. Not being in any way a computer or web guru, Roger had been through all the pain of organising a web site from scratch. He therefore suggested to me that other customers might benefit from being able to read about some of the basic questions that occur to someone who knows little or nothing about the web, but who wants to organise a personal or business web page.

In September's issue we dealt with seven introductory questions that attempted to provide an overview of what's involved with getting a website online from scratch. In October's issue we began to deal with some of the specifics.

In this issue we'll finish up with seven more general questions. Legal matters covered here are done on a best-endeavours basis. I have no expertise in that area, and if you have real concerns about web site related legal matters, you should conduct your own research or seek expert advice.

Question 15: Is there a limit to the amount of web sites one can have, and the content that is used in them?

The short answer to this is no. You can have as many web sites as you have time for and can pay for. Of course, most web hosting fees are charged by the megabyte, so a bigger site may mean you have to rent more space from your ISP for the hosting of your images and pages. The Internet is wonderfully unregulated, so there is no central group or body anywhere monitoring who has how many web sites and nobody (other than your ISP, perhaps) has set any limits in terms of how many you can have or how big they can be.

Question 16: Can I copyright my web site?

Sure you can, at least as far as its content goes. My understanding of intellectual property rights is pretty rudimentary, but I think that anything you write and publish in New Zealand is automatically copyrighted. This means that any original content you put on your web site belongs to you, and it is illegal (at least in New Zealand) for anyone else to take that content and use it themselves without your permission. It would be a good idea (if you're concerned about it enough) to put a copyright warning on your page reminding people that they shouldn't steal your stuff, but you don't need to have such a warning in order to have copyright over what you write and design.

The problem is going to be with enforcing your copyright. It is likely that not all countries have the same copyright laws as we do, and if someone in Hungary copied your information onto their web site, I don't like your chances of getting much help from their local police.

There's not much you can do in real terms to stop people copying and pasting from your site or printing your pages out. That's the risk you take when you publish web pages. You can add special code to make it so that people can't right-click and save your images, but anyone with a little web-savvy will be able to get past that, and they can always use a freely downloadable screenshot catcher program anyway, so I wouldn't bother.

Question 17: What legal issues surround setting up a web site?

I think it's probably safe to say that the development of legal laws specifically for the Internet is a process that is still in its infancy. That is not to say, however, that laws don't apply. As a general rule, they do. Copyright laws are a case in point. It is illegal to offer copyrighted material e.g. images, copyrighted music files etc, at your web site without permission from the copyright holder. You also cannot display images that are considered illegal in any other media, such as child pornography or other content banned for reasons of indecency. As yet, however, there is no legal requirement to offer warnings about your pages if they contain material within the bounds of adult content deemed acceptable to non-minors. Trademark infringement would be another case in point. You can't use logos or colour schemes from other businesses as if they were your own.

Recognised brands in domain names is not on. You wouldn't get away with registering mcdonalds.co.nz for example and using it to sell your own hamburgers, even if you changed your surname to McDonald. Cybersquatting is another interesting case in point. Some people tried to register domain names that would be sought after by big companies or music stars, in the hopes that they would be able to sell them to the company or star for lots of money at a later stage. In New Zealand you can't get away with this sort of thing, and you'd be forced to hand the name over unless you could prove that you had an established right to the name yourself at the time that you registered it.

The Consumer Guarantees Act also applies to your online content. You can't advertise falsely online and get away with it just because you're on the Internet. Product right-of-return laws all still apply just as they would for any other business advertising and selling goods in other ways. There are also laws about credit card transactions and your legal requirements to establish that the person using the card is legitimate. These apply just as much online as they do to supermarkets and other non-online vendors.

These are all issues that you would want to investigate and be careful about before you started conducting business online, and you'd be well-advised to conduct your own research beyond the general coverage given here.

Question 18: Is there a place for the small business or personal web site without being blitzed by the big boys?

Yes, of course there is, but the reality of the situation is that it is going to be harder for you to get recognised if you're in an industry that's dominated by big players. Companies with money are going to be able to pay search engines for "sponsored links" that will display more prominently in web searches, or they're going to hire crackerjack web designers to provide them with amazing sites that you could never compete with on a small budget. The reality is that things usually come down to money in the end.

There are some things you can do, though. My first suggestion would be to register your site with lots of search engines. Actrix has a service, for example, where you can be registered with around 1400 search engines for the fee of $29.95. But if you have the time, visit as many search engines as you can and look for their submit feature. You should especially register your site at New Zealand search engines such as NZSearch and SearchNZ. If you operate a plumbing business or pizza delivery business, it is less likely that people are going to search for your type of service on an international search engine such as Google. You have a better chance of being returned near the top of a search at a local search engine site.

Many local communities or suburbs have their own web sites. Some examples would include www.wainuiomata.co.nz, www.stokesvalley.co.nz, and www.wairarapa.co.nz. If you're running a business I would seriously recommend contacting such sites (webmaster@whateverthesiteis.co.nz will usually work if there isn't a contact page) to ask about the possibility of advertising. You're better off getting your name out in front of people who would probably be predisposed to using the services of someone local. My impression is that people are still woefully ignorant of the types of services they can find and use over the Internet, but this will change with time and is changing (it won't happen overnight, but it will happen). The more businesses that advertise their services online to their local communities, the faster that change will be!

One more thing that should be mentioned here is the use of good meta tags. Meta tags are just simple pieces of code that you can add to the headers of your web pages that contain a list of keywords that you think are relevant to your site. They would include your business name, your locality and the sorts of things you do or products and services you supply. Search engines will use your meta tags when they serve your site up at someone's web search. Even if you don't register your pages, search engines will usually find you by means of the robots they send out to trawl the web following links and reporting back on the pages they find. You can also use meta tags to provide a short description of your site which the search engine will also dish up for the searcher when they search on a keyword associated with your site. Again, the Internet abounds with information about how to use and write good meta tags.

Question 19: What are some more design issues I should be thinking about?

We mentioned a couple of these already in answering Question 11. Make sure your information is easy to follow and that there are plenty of links on each of your pages to all your other sections. Ideally, these links should be in roughly the same place on each page. If visitors quickly become bored or lost at your web site, they will move on without much of a second thought.

Many pages on the web are confusing or unclear in terms of how to find stuff. Common mistakes to avoid are overwhelming the visitor with too much information all at once. Make your opening page reasonably simple with just a paragraph or two about what your site is all about. Then provide links to other pages. Visitors should understand pretty much what those links are about after reading your introductory paragraphs.

Think to yourself about what exactly you want visitors to do, and then make it very easy for them to do just that. Lead them to your products page like a horse to water if you can. Don't cram any page with so much information that the visual senses just can't take it all in. If there's too much information there and it isn't clear what's important and what's not, then most visitors will move on to a page they can more speedily make sense of.

One good idea might be to explore by surfing around the web for a while. Look at pages you like and understand, and think about what made those pages work well for you. Try to duplicate those processes in the pages you are designing. You might also find all sorts of interesting design ideas while you're there.

Keep it simple. It's tempting, when you're starting out, to try to impress visitors with extra bells and whistles. Think about a colour-scheme before hand that includes no more than three or four well matched colours. Too many colours will sometimes come across as an assault upon the senses, and may well make your page look quite amateurish. (An excellent colour page can be found here.) Similar principles apply to fonts. My advice is not to use too many different ones. Usually, the simpler things are, the easier they are on the eye.

It could come down to personal preference but one other thing I advise you to avoid is the providing of music. You can add scripts to your site that will cause music to play while someone is logged into it. While this may seem like an impressive idea at first, it usually involves large sound files that would have to download onto the visitor's computer, and I have yet to come across anyone who ever found music at a web site anything but an annoyance. As a friend of mine recently stated: "I'm surfing the web. I don't want to feel like I'm in an elevator!"

Question 20: Is there any way for me to get an idea of how many and what sorts of people have visited my site?

Yes, there is. Most ISPs, and certainly Actrix, will give you a place that you can log into to find out statistics about your site organised by month or day. The sort of information available to you comes in graphs and charts that reveal how many unique visitors you've had, the most popular page links they clicked on, where in the world they were when they were accessing your site, and so forth. This can be very useful for gaining an idea of how successful certain aspects of your site are. No specific personal knowledge about visitors can be gained, however.

Question 21: What can Actrix do to help me set up a web site?

Well, we'll certainly give you lots of encouragement, and I am happy to answer brief or general questions. You may also find a couple of the help desk staff willing to give you suggestions and a bit of quick trouble-shooting. However, sorting out html problems, why images won't load, etc, can be a very time consuming process, and it is really beyond the job description of the help desk. I guess our approach is that we'll assist you to find answers to your html problems, but we can't really solve them for you. That's part of your learning process.

When it comes to explaining how your domain and e-mail will work, you'll find our sales representatives all ears and helpfulness.

Of course, we do provide you with some free web space on our servers at which you can put up your own personal content. Each and every Actrix customer is entitled to that. We provide you with an upload web page that you can log into so that you can put your pages up without having to worry about FTP (see Question 4), but this is for personal web space only, and won't work with a domain named web site. You can find out more about user home pages at http://www.actrix.co.nz/domestic/userhomepages.php. Because this is an Actrix service that everyone is entitled to use, our help desk will gladly assist you with how to make the system work if you are confused by the instruction page.

Lastly, Actrix does provide a web design service where we can design pages for you. We have various packages and options available starting at $599.00. You can find out more about Actrix Web Services at http://webservices.actrix.co.nz/.

If you'd like to ask a question or request some help on any Actrix or Internet-related matter. Simply send me an e-mail with the word "forum" in the subject line. I'll try and answer your question by return e-mail, and will also post the answer here for the benefit of others who may have a similar question or problem. By the same token, if you read something here and think you may have something to suggest, please feel more than free. Please also note that questions and answers may turn up under the Helpful Tips section on the Actrix home page (www.actrix.co.nz).

I'm really grateful to the Actrix Support Team, too, for their input here when some of the questions also have me a little stumped.

Allen asks, I was wondering if you could at some stage cover 'pinging'. What is it, why do people do it, can you do anything to stop/minimise it? Over recent weeks I have noted constant 'pinging' from when I first log on right through until log off. I would like to understand this 'phenomenon' and if it can be stopped.

This is a good and interesting question about which lots could be written. I'll try and cover the main parts of your question, and add extra detail where I think it might be of interest or assistance.

A ping is probably the quickest way one computer can talk to another over the Internet. Basically, if you use your computer to ping another one, you are sending that other computer a very small amount of data and asking it to respond by sending that small amount of data back to you. Typically, a ping is one packet of data, which amounts only to a few bytes (normally 32).

Anybody can ping. If you have a Windows machine, click Start/Programs/Accessories and then click either DOS Prompt or Command prompt. Make sure you are online and then type in ping "www.google.com" (without the quotes). When you hit enter, your machine will ping the Google server four times. Your machine will then report to you that it sent Google four packets. It will tell you how many times Google successfully sent the packets back, and give you an average number of milliseconds it took for each of these returns. Technicians use this process to see whether a certain machine or web site is up, and to get an idea of how good the traffic flow between their network and the other machine is.

This is the typical legitimate use of the ping process. People can also use pinging for the purposes of evil. Sending 4 pings to Google is not a problem. Web servers can handle responding to many many pings at a time, but they aren't eternal in their capacities. You can perform a denial of service (DoS) attack on another machine by pinging it very fast and relentlessly. If you "flood ping" a web server, for example, it becomes so busy answering your pings that it can't serve web pages up anymore. You are tying up all of its resources. Typically, a denial of service attack will be co-ordinated so that lots of hijacked machines are flood-pinging the same poor victimised computer. Note also, that there are other ways of performing DoS attacks besides using pings.

Getting back to your question... I assume you are using Zone Alarm or some similar type of firewall program and it is reporting to you that you are being pinged. Most machines connected to the Internet are probably being pinged from time to time and if people aren't running a firewall such as ZoneAlarm, then they probably don't even know, because a computer won't usually report when it is answering pings. It is just something it is programmed to do.

Why might you be receiving these pings? There could be any number of reasons.

Firstly, if you're connected to a peer to peer (P2P) network such as Kazaa, you will probably be getting pinged a lot. This is so that others who may want to download files from you can get an idea of how well they would be able to connect to you before they decide whether or not to do so. Depending on which P2P program they are using, you may be getting pinged by the network every time someone searches for a file you have, or by the individual user at the other end. You might get a similar result from being connected to IRC (Internet Relay Chat).

Secondly, you could just be part of a "scatter-ping" which could hit you even when you aren't connected to any of the above. If you're on the Internet, your computer has an IP Address which is a series of numbers used to identify it. A hacker looking for potential victims might be pinging a whole range of IP Addresses looking to see what sort of returns he gets. This way he knows what machines are out there and which ones have fast connections (cable or DSL). Computers with fast connections make much better hacking targets for all sorts of reasons.

Unfortunately, you can't really do much about it. There is no way to stop other people pinging across the Internet. However, you can use a firewall program such as ZoneAlarm that overrides your computer's natural willingness to answer pings. ZoneAlarm and similar programs will absorb the pings sent to you and refuse to send any data back. This means that the person doing the scatter-pinging gets no indication you are there at all, making you much less likely to be a target. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that ZoneAlarm will often be popping up the little window informing you that you've just been pinged and that it has been of great service to you by denying an answer.

In Outlook Express I can empty the deleted file in one go by selecting --empty deleted box-- however this does not seem to be available in the inbox or in the sent items file, where I have to delete the items one by one. Is there a way in altering the settings, so I can empty those files in one hit as well? I use WindowsXP and outlook express 6. Looking forward to your answer, Bert.

Yes, the Edit/Empty 'Deleted Items' Folder command is a handy one for permanently deleting the entire contents of your Deleted Items in one go. Unfortunately, that command cannot really be duplicated for other folders within Outlook Express.

However, all is not lost. You don't have to delete items from your inbox and/or other folders one by one.

If you want to select several e-mails to be deleted, select one by clicking on it. Hold the Ctrl key down and click on another one. You'll see that both become selected. You can keep going, selecting as many more as you like by keeping the Ctrl key held down while you click to select more e-mails. Once you've done that, click the Delete button and all the selected e-mails will be moved to your Deleted Items folder.

You can also use the Shift key to select a block of e-mails. Say you had ten e-mails in a row that needed deleting. Select the first one, then hold the Shift key down and select the tenth e-mail. You will see that all the e-mails in between get selected as well. They can then be sent to your Deleted Items folder all at once by clicking the Delete key.

Lastly, if you do want to send the entire contents of your inbox (or another folder) to the Deleted Items folder, select any e-mail in the folder by clicking on it once. Then, using your keyboard, hold down the Ctrl key and press the A key. This is the Windows "select all" command. Every e-mail in your folder will now be selected, and you can use the Delete key to send them all to your Deleted Items folder in one go.

Once you've gotten everything into your Deleted Items folder you can use the Edit/Empty 'Deleted Items' Folder command to delete everything permanently. Once this last step is done, though, you can never get those e-mails back.

Actrix has available a product that allows customers to monitor incoming calls while on the Internet, and answer them online. The product has been developed here by NEC New Zealand and is called inContact, Answer Online (AOL). It costs from just $5.95/month which is much cheaper than a second line. At this stage the service is only available for those in the Wellington and Auckland free-calling areas, and customers wishing to purchase the service will need to have call diversion activated on their phonelines.

The Benefits: Instead of someone receiving a busy tone or being forwarded to voice-mail when they try to call you while you're online, inContact AOL will notify you by triggering a pop-up on your PC advising you of the call and who is calling. You will then have the following options to help you stay informed and in charge while online:

Catch the call: Don't miss the important calls while surfing the net. It may be a call from one of your children out on the town needing to get home. It may be a sales opportunity for a business run from the home. You can now be aware of these calls and deal with them without having to disconnect.

Control: You decide what to do: See who is calling and you choose how to handle it. Answer the call online, forward it to a mobile, answer it on your normal phone, ignore it, record a message from the caller and have it e-mailed to yourself while you stay online.

Convenience: Get the message quickly: Send the call to voice-mail and get it delivered by e-mail while still online. You won't need to disconnect from the Internet, dial into your voicemail etc to get your message. You may not need other voicemail products now.

Keep it simple - automate it: Set up different automatic responses for all calls. based on who is calling; eg forward work calls to your mobile after five seconds, or automatically drop your Internet connection and answer calls from your kids, partner, best friend .... or mother in-law!

Flexibility - surf anytime: You don't have to delay connecting to the internet if you're expecting a call, or conversely you don't have to disconnect if you're expecting that call from the UK. You have more flexibility in when and how long you surf.

Flexibility - personalise your settings: Create your own phone book, choose your own alerting sounds for when you receive a call. Set up your own automatic responses.

Save money: inContact provides several services all in one, Call Waiting, Caller Line Identity, Voicemail, Call Logging and on-line control of call diversion on a caller by caller basis.

Interested?: If you're interested in this inContact Answer Online service through Actrix, then head on over to www.aol.net.nz. There you will find a lot more information about the product, how it works etc. Then, if you think you'd like to order or if you just want to know more, you can click the link to the Actrix online info request form. Fill this out to let us know when a good time for us to contact you by phone would be. We'll give you a call and answer your questions or we can sign you up right then and there.

All you have to do after that is download the software and install it. It's easy to understand and install, but if you like, we can talk you through that process too.

Sign-up now and Actrix will waive the $9.95 set-up fee, PLUS you will receive a free Internet headset/microphone!

For more information on this service and/or to place your order, please go to www.aol.net.nz.

Please note: Actrix supplies links to these sites for your interest and possible use. We cannot endorse or take any responsibility for their contents. Got a site you think would be neat to share with other readers? Let me know and receive a free Norrie the Nerd chocolate bar courtesy of Actrix!

Quisdom
www.quisdom.com/ - This encyclopaedia of trivia includes such things as the definitions of acronyms and abbreviations, flags of the world, entertainment milestones, concise information about sports and religion, and so forth. Lots of categories, and brief well-presented information. Have a look and discover you're interested in all sorts of things!

World Beard and Moustache Championships
http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/ - Yes, well this one beats me! "The World Beard and Moustache Championships will take place in Carson City, Nevada, on November 1, 2003. ?A panel of distinguished judges will determine which beards and moustaches in seventeen separate categories merit their owners the championship trophies and the coveted world champion titles. Special prizes will also be awarded to the youngest contestant, the contestant who travelled the farthest to attend, and the people's favourite."

Medical History of American Presidents
www.doctorzebra.com/prez/ - This site "tabulates the illnesses of American Presidents and other notable people" in hopes of opening up wider discussion of the issue. Every president hurts; and maladies range from malaria, smallpox, and tuberculosis; through to colour-blindness, being afraid of dentists and being "bald and short."

HTML Goodies
www.htmlgoodies.com/ - This HTML Guide on the Web is one of those spoken of most highly. The page starts with some newsletters about helpful HTML topics, but over to the left there are lots of links to tutorials and information. If you've been following recent articles on getting your own web site and you're thinking of trying an online tutorial, this might be the place to start. Try the HTML primer or the Getting Started Tutorial, but there's also plenty of more advanced stuff.

Dave's Web of Lies
www.cs.man.ac.uk/~hancockd/dwol.htm - I enjoyed this site despite its low-budget look and feel. "There is a lot of information available on the World Wide Web. Not all of it is as it seems. Everywhere you look there is out-of-date information, popular misconceptions, and even mistruths presented as fact." This site reportedly digs up all the lies it can find on the Internet, and then adds a few of its own. Some are quite believable, some are just a good laugh. Guest and celebrity liars also feature. Be careful when reading or believing the things the site tells you about itself, or even about lies.

NewPet.Com
www.newpet.com - Here you'll find resources for new and soon-to-be pet owners including choosing the right pet, care and ownership costs, discussions, safety precautions, pet adjustment, housebreaking, feeding, grooming, travel, names, photographs, and stories. The site concentrates mainly on dogs, and might be a good resource, especially for kids.

Couple of Personality Sites
- Find the man's head: (http://beatniksalad.typepad.com/photos/email_attachments/20030623_kmfdm543_135435.html)
If you can do it within three seconds you're a genius!
Personality Test: (http://users.rcn.com/zang.interport//personality.html) - Chose the image that appeals most to you and discover what it says about your personality.

Despair.Com
www.despair.com - This hilarious site (complete with wickedly funny product catalogue) seems to have been designed for those who have realised that life is just a pointless string of disappointments and failures, and who have decided they might as well have a good time whilst giving up and resigning themselves to mediocrity. Click the links on the left. Start by browsing the demotivator posters, and then move on to other products and merchandise. Don't forget their wailing list and customer disservice section!

Spy Audit
www.webroot.com/services/spyaudit_03.htm - "At no cost or obligation to you, Spy Audit scans your system registry and hard drive space for thousands of known spyware programs. Spy Audit shows you what spyware is on your system. It will not remove or modify any files. Spy Audit takes seconds to run. Try it now." See the June 2003 Newsletter for more information on spyware.

Official City Sites
http://officialcitysites.org/ - "Ever wonder what the Vikings ate when they set off to explore the new world? How Thomas Jefferson made his ice cream? What the pioneers cooked along the Oregon Trail? Who invented the potato chip...and why? Food is the fun part of social studies! The tricky part is finding recipes you can make in a modern kitchen, with ingredients bought at your local supermarket and bring into school to share with your class. This page is for you! "

Oliver the Talking Robot
www.oliverbot.com/ - Oliver's a pretty good example of what can be done with web pages these days. Type stuff in and he'll type back to you. Ask him questions and he'll answer them in an instant. He's reasonably good at conversing and pretty hard to stump. Tick the box if you'd like to hear him speak, but this tends to slow things down. Kids will especially enjoy this. Adults will probably distract them selves trying to trip the scripting up...

Shopping Online Guide
www.shopping-online-guide.com/ - "Shopping online is becoming an increasingly common and convenient way to find products or services, also you can easily compare prices from the comfort of your home or office. Don't be put off going online for your shopping by horror stories about card fraud. Shopping online can be a safe and pleasurable experience if you follow a few simple rules and use your common sense."

ISP code of practice gets closer: About InternetNZ expects 90 per cent of Internet users will be covered by an Internet code of practice within six months of its launch early next year. Click here for more.

CRIMES AMENDMENT BILL NO 6 NOW LAW: After the passing of The Crimes Amendment Bill No 6, the provisions of it will come into force on 1 October 2003 as The Crimes Amendment Act 2003. This act, amending the 1961 Crimes Act, may potentially affect many internet users and providers. It has been commonly known as the anti-hacking bill. Click here for more.

Police not equipped to enforce new computer laws, says National: New laws to deal with computer crime, which came into force yesterday, will not work unless the police have the resources to enforce them, says National MP Tony Ryall. It is now an offence to access a computer for dishonest purposes, damage or interfere with a computer system, access a computer without authorisation or make, sell, distribute or possess software to commit a crime. Click here for more.

Blast from the past for cyber cafes: A law created to deal with the space invader craze is being dusted off to help police tackle problems with youngsters spending late nights in internet cafes. A report by Waitakere police says one of the city's internet cafes in New Lynn often has "five to six persons collapsed over computers asleep". Click here for more.

'Kissme' Carol admits internet fraud: A woman who preyed on lonely single men in internet chatrooms defrauded two of them of nearly $500,000, Christchurch District Court was told yesterday. Carol Elaine Teika, 40, adopted the user name "Kissme" when she befriended men over the internet, claimed to be a model, and forwarded nude photos of herself. Click here for more.

Spammer gets off the hook: Authorities won't take action against Christchurch spammer Shane Atkinson, who reportedly admitted sending out up to 100 million emails a day worldwide, promoting penis enlargement pills. Click here for more.

Net 'worth little to many Brits': Access to the internet is easier for most Britons, but many still need a reason to use it, says a study. Some 59% use the net regularly and only four per cent have no access to somewhere with web connection. Click here for more.

More men looking for love online: survey: Australia's Bridget Jones's are happy being singletons, but our swinging bachelors are becoming increasingly lonesome and are more likely than women to surf the net looking for love. That's the surprising result of a survey of online singles conducted recently. Click here for more.

Meeting examines how to regulate internet: International negotiations have begun on how and whether to manage the Internet, along with associated problems such as junk e-mail and pornography. Organizers said a two-week meeting which runs to the end of September aims to narrow differences among countries... Click here for more.

Firm bans e-mail at work: John Caudwell, the multi-millionaire owner of high street retailer Phones 4u, has banned staff from using e-mail, he has said. The tycoon -- who does not use e-mail -- told more than 2,500 employees Friday they would have to swap cyberspace for face-to-face. Click here for more.

Music industry misses beat of Web 'e' factor: As a child, I loved a TV cartoon showing a deranged yokel trying to kill a housefly with a shotgun. He shot out all his windows, blasted the walls, put holes in the roof. His home ended up in shambles but, in the end, the fly was still there to pester him. Click here for more.

Is life the key to new tech?: Years have been spent trying to crack life's genetic code with high-powered computers. Now scientists are looking at things from the opposite angle, and are harnessing life itself to generate a new strain of computer devices. Click here for more.

Ten technologies that deserve to die: Technologies die rather routinely—seen a Conestoga covered wagon lately?—but it’s rare for them to be singled out and righteously put to death. Some technologies, however, are so blatantly obnoxious that the human race would rejoice if they were obliterated. Click here for more.

Music industry weighs its options: Should the record industry license its music to online sharing services in return for a user fee? The concept, which has been proposed for college students and will be tested on a handful of campuses this spring, is likely to be one of the options floated Tuesday when the major labels and file-sharing services are summoned to Capitol Hill to seek an alternative to the current wave of litigation. Click here for more.

How to get your website seen: YOU love your family. So much so that you've spent hundreds of dollars on digital cameras, video cameras and computer software just to put up a website dedicated entirely to the Tan, Lim or (insert your family name here) clan. You upload audio clips of your first born's first words, pictures of Uncle Pek's 80th birthday and videos of your clan's outing to Sentosa. Now all you need is for people to come to your website. Tough! Click here for more.

Internet use may damage teens: A university lecturer studying the effects of the internet on teenagers believes the technology may have damaging psychological consequences. Click here for more.

Britons still 'scared' of computers: Britons are still scared of computers, the net, e-mail and shy away from newer things like MP3s, research shows. More than half are nervous about using e-mail and the net, says a survey published on National Computing Day. Click here for more.

Worker blogs raise some company concerns: An explosion in online diaries by workers is creating headaches, and opportunities, for employers. There are an estimated 1.2 million blogs, or Web logs — Web pages that function as personal publishing forums. But few companies have blog policies, and they run a risk should their employee divulge confidential company information or make statements that compromise it financially or legally. Click here for more.

Woman sentenced for reading e-mail of husband's ex-wife: DENVER, Colorado (AP) -- A judge sentenced an Arizona woman to 60 days home detention for intercepting her husband's ex-wife's e-mail, saying the penalty is a warning to others who might be tempted to do the same. Click here for more.

Teaching computers to think: Computers might seem smart, but they have no common sense. Two Carnegie Mellon University researchers using a Web site called the ESP Game are among a growing number nationwide tapping into human brains for common knowledge that can be programmed into computers to improve artificial intelligence. Click here for more.

Windows iTunes sparks mixed reactions: A large number of Windows users have jumped at the chance to try Apple Computer's iTunes jukebox software--and reactions are ranging from unabashed praise to complaints of bugs. Apple won't say how many people have downloaded the free software, but an executive said that it has been extremely popular since Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced it Thursday. Click here for more.

PC rage turns the air blue in UK households: Computers are damaging our health, thanks to rising stress levels induced by so-called 'PC pests' like spam, pop up ads and viruses. More than four in five (86 per cent) of British computer users get irritated and stressed by PC problems, according to a survey commissioned by security firm Symantec. Only 14 per cent of those quizzed had the Zen-like calm to say problems with their PCs never irritate them. Click here for more.

An Internet that's smart enough to defend itself: A consortium of university and industrial scientists has created a computer network designed to test a new generation of tools that may one day lead to a smarter, more secure Internet that can spot problems like congestion and viruses before they affect individual computers. Click here for more.

Study: Most movies leaked on Net tied to biz: Pirating movies for distribution on the Internet is mostly an inside job. That is the conclusion of a new study that found that 77 percent of all popular movies being illegally traded over the Internet initially came from people who worked inside the movie industry. Click here for more.

Microsoft Dissatisfaction Running High, Users Contemplate Switch: Almost two-thirds of respondents to a recent InternetWeek Reader Question said they are dissatisfied with Microsoft software, and 41 percent of respondents are at least thinking about switching away from Microsoft software. Only 28 percent of users responding to the poll described themselves as satisfied Microsoft customers. Click here for more.

Call to saddle up cyber posse: Microsoft Corp has likened the threat of computer viruses to bank robbers in the Old West. The software giant's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, yesterday called for a redoubling of innovation to keep the spread of malicious computer code at bay. Click here for more.

Gates, Ballmer get slight pay raises: Microsoft's top executives all saw slight increases in salary and bonus last year, according to the company's annual proxy statement, filed Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. CEO Steve Ballmer and Chairman Bill Gates each received $551,667 in pay and $313,447 in bonus last year... Click here for more.

Few celebrate this defeat for Microsoft: Some people are never satisfied. For years, the enemies of Microsoft Corp. have been praying that somebody, anybody, would finally pin the giant software company to the canvas. And now it's happened, at the hands of a tiny, hitherto unknown outfit in Wheaton, Ill. Yet hardly anyone is celebrating. You'd think the entire software industry, with a single voice, would sing hosannas to Mike Doyle... Click here for more.

Microsoft to Settle Windows Lawsuit: Microsoft Corp. agreed Tuesday to pay about $10.5 million in cash to hundreds of thousands of consumers who accused the software giant of overcharging for its flagship Windows computer operating system. The settlement applies to about 550,000 people who bought Windows directly from Microsoft through its Web site or a direct solicitation. Click here for more.

Watching Microsoft like a hawk: Microsoft new and commentary, no bias and no agenda. The good, the bad and the indifferent. Aggregated, edited and posted by real, live humans and hawks. Click here for more.

Gates answers cop’s plea for help: A “really rotten day” at work in late January prompted a just-about-had-it Toronto police officer to e-mail a spontaneous plea to the world’s richest man for help fighting child pornography. “To be real honest, I didn’t expect anything back. I didn’t even save the e-mail,” said Detective Sgt. Paul Gillespie, a 25-year veteran of the Toronto force. Click here for more.

Developers gripe about IE standards inaction: Web developers want to light a fire under Microsoft to get better standards support in the company's Internet Explorer browser, but they can't seem to spark a flame. Gripes have mounted recently over support in IE 6 for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), a Web standard increasingly important to design professionals. Web developers and makers of Web authoring tools say the software giant has allowed CSS bugs to linger for years... Click here for more.

Microsoft smears lipstick on a pig: In the run-up to this week's Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft sent out the top guns from its enterprise management division to get the community juiced about Redmond's "securing the perimeter" initiative. Well, you can smear lipstick on a pig, but it's still a swine. Click here for more.

Microsoft launches 'leak-proof' e-mail: The latest version of Microsoft's popular Office software will, the company claims, allow users to send e-mails that will "self-destruct" after a set time. The development is designed to improve security - and avoid potentially embarrassing messages coming back to haunt senders. Microsoft says users will also be able to restrict who is allowed to read an e-mail - and prevent recipients from forwarding messages to other users or printing them off. Click here for more.

Thai schools reject Microsoft: Concerns about intellectual property rights and software costs have prompted 18 Thai schools to switch to an open-source productivity suite, according to officials at the country's National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec). Click here for more.

Microsoft, Lindows scrap over claims site: Microsoft has demanded that Linux seller Lindows.com take down a Web site that offers to process customer claims from the settlement of a California class-action suit against the software giant. In a letter sent to the Linux seller on Friday and reprinted in a Lindows announcement Monday, attorney Robert Rosenfeld said Lindows' MSfreePC site includes false and misleading information and encourages filing of fraudulent claims. Click here for more.

MP Tanzcos almost a geek: Green MP Nandor Tanzcos is a borderline computer geek who likes to get into the source code behind the applications he runs on his Dell laptop computer. "In the same way that I like to be able to change the oil and look after the motor in my vehicle I am fascinated by how the software behind the systems work," Tanzcos says. Click here for more.

Apple Doin' the Logo-Motion: For the first time in several years, Apple looks poised to refresh its famous logo. One of the world's most recognizable corporate symbols -- the Apple logo -- is about to get a silvery chrome finish. Click here for more.

Apple's New Bid for Insane Greatness: Before the year is out, Apple Computer plans to launch a Windows version of its well-received iTunes Music Store (iTMS). The store's success thus far -- Apple has sold 10 million songs through the Mac-only version -- has renewed enthusiasm about the ability of legitimate digital music sellers to make inroads against the Kazaa juggernaut, especially in light of the RIAA's lawsuit campaign against users of the free file-sharing service. Click here for more.

Apple: 1 million iTunes copies, songs in three days: Last week Apple introduced its long-awaited iTunes for Windows software. The software provides Windows PC users with the ability to buy music from the iTunes Music Store, and it sports the same features and capabilities as its long-running Macintosh counterpart. On Monday Apple announced that more than a million copies of the iTunes for Windows software have been downloaded in the first three days following the software's release. Click here for more.

California law will try to banish e-mail spam : California is trying a deceptively simple approach to the problem of junk e-mail: It is about to ban spam. Governor Gray Davis of California said on Tuesday that he would sign into law a bill that outlaws sending to anyone in the state most commercial e-mail that had not been explicitly requested by the recipient. Click here for more.

Spams may force e-mail users back to snail mail: Roshni Sen, a fresh graduate, regrets her decision to switch from snail mail to e-mail. Ruchi, her best friend who now lives in Australia, nagged her into giving up the inland letter for the Net. Now, she spends more time deleting junk mails than correspond. "It's a nuisance," she says. Click here for more.

Cloaking Device Made for Spammers: Call them spackers -- they're the new breed of computer crackers who earn a living in cahoots with spammers. The latest innovations developed by such mercenary hackers on behalf of the junk e-mail profession are techniques that enable spammers -- or scam artists for that matter -- to create websites that are essentially untraceable. Click here for more.

Spam fighters focus on new approach: Software engineers helped create the spam problem. Can they solve it? As politicians have been racing to find ways to ban the junk e-mail known as spam, Internet providers have been boasting about filtering technologies capable of identifying the sort of messages typically sent by spammers and disposing of them. Click here for more.

Australian lower house passes anti-spam bill: Australians may soon get relief from annoying, unsolicited emails after the House of Representatives today passed a bill to combat spam emails. The bill will give the Australian Communications Authority the power to issue formal warnings, seek injunctions and seek warrants to investigate and monitor suspected spammers. Click here for more.

Spam beginning to hurt email use - US report: The billions of spam messages that cross the internet daily are beginning to erode users' faith in email communications, a report released this week says. Half of all internet users say spam has made them less trusting of all email in general, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found. One in four say they now use email less because of spam. Click here for more.

Microsoft monoculture allows virus spread: The world's reliance on Microsoft operating systems is leaving critical computer networks unnecessarily vulnerable to attack, claim security experts. Click here for more.

Microsoft moves beyond patches: Conceding that its strategy of patching Windows holes as they emerge has not worked, Microsoft plans next week to outline a new security effort focused on what the company calls "securing the perimeter," a company executive told CNET News.com. Click here for more.

EBay thief reveals tricks of the trade: Kenneth wrote. “I could tell you stories.” And so he did. Kenneth claims he’s spent the past two years as one of eBay’s most notorious scammers. Here’s how he does it. Click here for more.

Un-patchable IE vulnerability "in the wild": Experts: The "object type" vulnerability, which was first acknowledged publicly by Microsoft on 20 August this year, allows an attacker to take control of a system by embedding malicious code in a Web-page. If the Web page is viewed by an Internet Explorer browser -- even a fully patched browser -- the malicious code embedded in the Web-page will execute, experts say. Click here for more.

E-spying on your mate? Watch out: A company calling itself Lover Spy has begun offering a way for jealous lovers — and anyone else — to spy on the computer activity of their mates by sending an electronic greeting, the equivalent of a thinking-of-you card, that doubles as a bugging device. Click here for more.

Internet Explorer full of holes, unsafe: Security experts: The reputation of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser has been mauled by security experts. The comments come after a glut of critical vulnerabilities were discovered in Internet Explorer and a delay of nearly four weeks between the very public disclosure of a critical vulnerability in the browser and the roll-out of a software patch. Click here for more.

Microsoft warns of 'critical' flaws: Software giant Microsoft has warned of seven security flaws in its programs, describing five of them as "critical". The alert applies to a wide range of Microsoft software and the critical flaws could let hackers break into computers. Click here for more.

Bidding for a bucket on eBay, water included: For the eBay fanatic who has everything comes the chance to bid for a "fabulous bucket of Bristol tap water". "This is a unique opportunity for all water collectors out there who want some(thing) refreshing or cool," says the seller, who goes by the name of Bucketman on the popular Internet auction site. Click here for more.