************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** Another YEAR IN CYBERSPACE Well, kids, the Internet fad is into its third year. Below are some of my favorite albeit slightly obscure hits and misses of '96: MOST USEFUL WEB SITE: Hotbot (www.hotbot.com). A large search engine with a full-featured, drool-proof interface. WORST NON-USE OF A WEB PAGE: America Online. A lot of people were looking for some answers from AOL after receivng a massive pornographic email spam. I searched AOL's web page for three days looking for some kind of annoucement. Not a word. Just shiny, happy people over there. WORST NON-USE OF A USENET GROUP: alt.frank.magazine. A dumping ground for Make Money Fast spams but not much else. Where's the dish on local celebs and trough bound politicos? STILL THE BEST CANADIAN WEB SITE: The Nizkor Project (nizkor.almanac.bc.ca) BEST SITE TO FIND CANADIAN SITES: Yahoo! Canada (www.yahoo.ca) ODDEST YAHOO CATEGORY: /martha stewart/parodies BEST NEOLOGISM: Bisk: free internet membership disks some mega providers ladle out like a thick soup. DUMBEST INTERFACE METAPHORE: Attention software and net developers, quit trying make my computer just like TV. The reason I like my computer is because it is about the most un-TV like thing I can do with a cathode ray tube. MY MOST TRANSPARENT TROLL: On rec.arts.movies.current I complained bitterly that the movie adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma was nothing more than a rip off of Amy Heckerling's Clueless. Aside from one flame, most users emailed to tell me my message was too well puncuated to be the genuine article. So noted. MOST GROWING REALIZATION AMONG NET USERS: "Unlimited" access doesn't necessarily mean unlimited. BIGGEST BORE OF THE YEAR: Quake. Id software's long awaited Doom sequal is no Duke Nuke'em 3D, that's for sure. LOOK INTO IT: You get handed some crumpled, offical looking papers proporting Ted Kennedy used a stinger missile to shoot down the Stay Puff Marshmellow Blimp during the St. Pattys Day parade. Before you contact CNN, do a search of Usenet at www.dejanews.com. You might find a copy on alt.conspiracy and save your career. WHAT THE COOL GEEKS ARE WARE-ING FOR 96: USRobotics Pilot 5000 -- the Apple Newton for the rest of us. Fits in a christmas stocking or, as you might expect, a front shirt pocket. WHAT THE COOL GEEKS WILL BE WARE-ING IN 97: Apple eMate 300. Basically a Newton turned sideways with a hinged on keyboard. It's about time someone figured out a lot of us don't need a $5,000 Pentium notebook to do some basic text editing and collecting email. FUTURE CAN OF WORMS: So we've got Windows 95 and soon we'll have Windows 97 and then probably Windows 99. What are they going to call it in 2001? Windows 1? Windows 101?