 On The Net - Computing News
with Chris Goh
Back in my school days, I hung out with the computer 'geeks' (as we were known). Most of my time was spent in the library, with the occasional chess game or writing a small basic program.
I didn't know what to expect at my school reunion. My close friends have remained close, and as we moved around one said, 'We're not geeks anymore," since many former classmates now worked in IT. 'We still are, but now it's fashionable," I replied.
Watching the room, it was interesting to see the strong characteristics people had in high school amplified in later life. Those who were loud then, were louder now, and those who were kind then, were genuinely warm now.
I couldn't help wondering how things would have developed if I had never encountered a computer in my life, would I have still been so reclusive? I couldn't help thinking a similar thing about my friends. One had flown all the way from London to be here.
Within a couple of hours, we'd set up our computers in network and were playing network games, laughing and cursing each other with the merriment that should have been part of the reunion. My London friend tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'Now this is a school reunion". We sat and reminisced later about all the hours we've spent on computing since school. We realised how our hobby was the thing we had in common and the most important part of that was sharing.
HotNews
It was 75 years ago that TV was demonstrated for the first time, when the self-taught 21-year-old inventor Philo T Farnsworth transmitted a horizontal line. Of course everyone knows the likes of Edison and Graham Bell, but litigation and dirty tricks campaigns masked the real inventor of a medium that allows television networks to broadcast the same horrifying terrorist footage ad infinitum in the hope of ratings.
In an interesting move, China has banned access to the search engine Google, which is currently the undisputed top search engine. Amusingly, anyone who's really subversive will still be able to access banned sites via free Proxy services. The crackdown on Google follows in the wake of a number of other search engines, including Altavista, being blocked by China this year.
Gene Kan II, one member of the pioneering group that matured the Gnutella protocol, has committed suicide. Kan helped develop the protocol, which paved the way for the P2P (Peer to Peer) revolution, which allows file and music sharing and has gone from strength to strength since Napster was shut down.
A German man who held up a security van and stole $15.4 million was caught after he and his accomplices chatted away about the robbery in an unsecure chat room. Obviously he's a better robber than IT expert.
While NSW pets are microchipped, for the last year the US has been trialling a waterproof bracelet on released inmates which continually tracks them to an accuracy of 1.5 metres. Any attempt to tamper with it raises an alarm which lands you back in the slammer.
Recent advertisements for Palm touted the new M130 device outputs, offering more than 65,000 colours. In fact, it uses the Red, Green and Blue filters to produce only 4096 colours. Palm has offered a full refund to people who want to return their Palm Pilot, or a game if they decide to keep it (alas, the offer is only in the US so far).
IBM's new X30 Laptop boasts eight hours of battery life. This new IBM Thinkpad cheats - it actually has an additional battery inside, but it's still thin and light.
The legendary iPod, a Macintosh-only storage device, will soon be part of the Windows world. This mega storage device has grown in popularity, and gained cult status in the last eight months.
Orange has teamed up with UK bank Abbey so prepaid mobile phone users can top up their accounts using an ATM.
HotSites
- www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/treasures.html
- Britain is now home to a number of rare artefacts that once belonged to the rest of the world. In a recent positive step, a 700 year old Koran was released on the web allowing people around the world to view this holy text. The British Library also has some of the world's most famous texts online, and is working to provide the chance to browse these beautiful documents page by page. Personally, I can't wait until they do Leonardo Da Vinci's notebook, known as the Codex (Hudson Hawk fans will know).
- www.ugotafriend.com
www.wow4u.com
- This week reminds us of our mortality and responsibilities, and how important they are. These sites offer something positive and a little bit of hope. I particularly like the latter one, which has a great story for mothers and their children called 'A mothers love'.
- www.lcch.co.uk/phobics.htm
www.ojohaven.com/fun/phobias.html
- This week's unusual links are pretty simple - a list of phobias - so if you're afraid of something and just want the scientifically correct term, these two sites should help.
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