Issue 818

On The Net

with Chris Goh

Throughout history, when a society or government believe something is wrong, they often search for ways to repress it or make it illegal - sometimes to the extent of persecution. Voltaire's famous quote 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,' has been a point of conjecture for those who think society should be defended from its 'ills' (subjective though they often tend to be).

I watched a recent biography on author Stephen King, who withdrew his novel, Rage, from circulation. It was about a boy trying to find a way to massacre his school peers. King withdrew it after police investigating one US high school massacre found the book in the kid's locker. King believed it was possible that his books have the potential to be accelerants to such tragedies.

So what do you do when you can access the whole world at the touch of a keyboard? Do you ban the whole world? Do you put filters on your computer to protect children? It's an ethical dilemma that plagues conscientious parents. I've seen children who are home schooled and barred from television, except for news and documentaries. Their parents are appalled by the filth on TV (though in that case I'm not sure why they're allowed to watch the news).

I've also seen parents who deal with their children the opposite way, letting them face the world head on. Others try to find a middle ground between censorship and exposure.

My own belief is that we're born to learn about our world and how to exist in it. Above all the common thread that runs through us is finding our purpose. How we choose to live our life is every person's right. But with that self-determination, also comes self-responsibility. Everyone wants to grasp the opportunity to be in control, but that also requires restraint and discipline. It's a lesson children take time to learn, and sometimes they have to figure it out for themselves.

Children now live in a more complex world and making sense of it is a lifelong journey for most of us. Some just turn their back to the maze. But really, you have to teach and help young people interpret the information they receive.

Our children who get practical exposure apply what they've learned along the way. How they manage it - tactfully, skilfully or otherwise, depends on how much they know of the world and the support they get.

Our role is not so much about telling children what they can and cannot do or see, as building an aptitude in them to manage, in the best possible way, whatever experiences they face.

HotNews

The US National Research Centre, after marathon research effort and lots of dollars, has declared in their report 'Youth, Pornography and the Internet' that neither tougher laws or new technology can solve the issue. The report, supported by the US National Law Centre for Children, will be used by judges as reference material in rulings dealing with Internet and porn.

The wedding of the century happened yesterday with the official merger between Compaq and Hewlett Packard. HP started its new life with the changing of it's stock symbol from HWP to HPQ to mark the merger. HPQ will be announcing its three year plan for products later this week. Not surprisingly, they believe the road ahead is rosy.

With MacWorld Tokyo coming up, Apple is in a nice position - with its new beaut flat screen iMac selling over 220,000 units in the first three months of release. With a net profit of US$40 million Apple has been one of the more successful PC companies this fiscal year (although Mr Gates seems to make that in a week). There are rumours that Apple are going to pick up where they left off with the Newton - another design that was ahead of its time. If you're not familiar with the Newton, it was the first commercial PDA with writing recognition and did the job very well - although it was bulky compared to today's Pocket PC and Palm. I reckon they should call this new PDA 'iThink' and if they did, I'd buy one. I can already see the Marketing logo, 'iThink, therefore iAm'.

Obviously, I have too much spare time.

For those who like to keep abreast of developing Internet standards, the much-awaited Vector graphics standard for web 1.1 quietly snuck through this week. It will hopefully see a marked improvement in the speed for accessing images. The W3C, who are responsible for developing things like HTML standards released SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), which paves the way vector graphics to be standardised on both PCs and most importantly mobile devices with smaller screens.

Rumours that Telstra is about to raise broadband prices abound. An article in The Sydney Morning Herald last week highlighted that Telstra will give bonuses to staff if they can sell this new plan effectively.

Hotsites

Real Estate websites have come along in leaps and bounds. This is one sector where the commercial imperative quickly weeded out the unsuccessful sites. I remember doing this review last year and being disappointed. Now it has all changed, and for the better.

www.eac.com.au/multilist.asp: The ever popular EAC has finally gotten its act together and created an exceptionally good website for buying and selling property. They've done a good job, but if it has one small flaw, it's a tad on the red side.

www.realestate.com.au: If you're after property, then this is quite a good site to look for that dream home. It offers pictures, a legend of facilities and the market rates of the sort of property you're looking for.

www.propertylook.com.au: If you're after commercial property for business or investment, PropertyLook has a number of commercial agents hooked up, offering virtual tours of some premises and thumbnail images that you can scroll through.

www.echonews.com/realestate/: Don't forget The Echo's own site, which is part of Byronrealestate.com.au, which features a wide selection of properties around our area.

www.countryhomes.com.au: This looks very similar to realestate.com.au, but focuses on regional areas. It's well done, like the rest of the sites mentioned here.

www.bbc.com: The only reason I'm mentioning this popular site is that the BBC (the British broadcaster - not the hardware chain) recently launched its own lean and mean search engine. I did a couple of comparative tests between it and Google. The BBC engine compares reasonably well with similar search results.