By PETER SINCLAIR
The waste-basket yawns invitingly. The groaning clipboard - a millennial slush-pile of ideas that never came to anything, neglected bookmarks, wild-eyed prophecies, all the columns I didn't write - cries out for euthanasia.
I never got round to the $US183 billion ($429.5 billion) AOL/Time Warner merger, mostly
because I still have not got my head around the full implications of this mega-marriage of new and old media.
With the Microsoft case, and the current temper of American regulators, I had tentatively decided that this massive exercise in miscegenation probably would not be allowed to go ahead, but kept putting off saying so. A few days ago the approval lumbered through after all, heavily smudged with the thumbprints of the US Government.
It will be interesting to see how the new monolith manages to emasculate the restrictions placed on it in order to strangle the little guy in the broadband marketplace, if you will join me in a mixed metaphor.
Then there was the "year of the hacker" piece which was never written - shame, really, because when the Microsoft database itself gets hacked it surely deserves at least a small snicker.
And speaking of hackers, the "Cult of the Dead Cow" - the hackers' group, now so long established (16 years) that it is almost respectable, responsible for creating the "remote administration tool" Back Orifice - has developed Napster-like software that will circumvent the net censorship imposed by countries such as China, Cuba and Iran (feel free to pencil in Singapore and Australia here).
Founder/spokesman "Oxblood Ruffian," who cites the freedom of information clauses in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, says the as-yet unnamed software will let users bypass local servers which block access to certain websites.
The program is small enough to fit a single floppy, and by March will be available to human rights organisations for distribution.
Then there was Liverpool University announcing what it claimed was Europe's first net-only IT degree course for 20 students a year at £8000 ($27,870) for the 18 to 24-month course. Fairly steep, but then there were no living costs to take into account.
This prompted the idea of a think-piece on why it was taking so long to realise the educational potential of the net. I wonder why I never wrote it? Boredom, probably. You had a narrow escape.
Still no sign of micropayments - long a hobby-horse of mine - as the key to unlocking the real wealth of the web.
The nearest we got to it this year was the launch by World Online, a British internet provider, of pre-paid cards to reach the 50 per cent of Britons who do not use credit cards to lure them into shopping online.
Jalda cards have a unique pin number and are available at newsagents, petrol stations and supermarkets in denominations of £5 and up.
Wonder how they are going? It does not say, but it WAP-enabled (wireless application protocol) them last month. Someone should license it here for internet protocol-telephony.
Privacy was the year's burning issue, and there is always an opportunist for every bandwagon.
Zimtu hopped aboard by claiming to have developed software to foil the attempts of e-commerce firms to gather data on you - with a twist: you select which personal information you want released to marketers, and Zimtu will sell it for you. And give you half.
That was months ago, and their website is still not finished.
And e-Envoy - an ill-defined bureaucratic initiative by the British Government to advise its ministers and inform people on the development of IT strategies. I think I planned to ring Maurice Williamson about it but the tedium proved too suffocating.
In fact, I'm out of space, so let's do the rest of them the same favour [hit Delete for a sudden gust of freedom].
Now 2001 stretches ahead, completely blank, a tabula rasa awaiting tomorrow's enthusiasms, fresh misjudgments, new mirages.
As we close the book on the year just gone, WebWalk wishes you and your computer a crash-free Christmas.
BOOKMARKS
MOST DELICIOUS: Cuisine
Beautifully designed, this new website enshrines the exceptional production values and glamorous food that have made the print edition an international standout. Daily drop-dead recipes and a meal-maker that really works - local food stars wave a magic wand over whatever odds and ends happen to be in the fridge and presto! a gourmet meal ...
Advisory: cyber-yum!
MOST SECURE: LeakTest
Steve Gibson, the man responsible for the ShieldsUP! internet security test, protects you against everything from Trojan viruses to commercial spyware. Even some of the best-known, most expensive personal firewalls are as full of holes as gruyere - check yours now to make sure nothing's phoning home.
Advisory: "Your internet connection flows both ways ... so must your security."
petersinclair@email.com
Links
Clipboard
AOL/Time Warner merger
Federal Trade Commission
Microsoft attack adds fuel to hacker crackdown
Cult of the Dead Cow
Back Orifice 2000
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Liverpool University
Jalda
Zimtu
e-Envoy
Cuisine
Leaktest
<i>Peter Sinclair:</i> It was a good idea at the time ...
By PETER SINCLAIR
The waste-basket yawns invitingly. The groaning clipboard - a millennial slush-pile of ideas that never came to anything, neglected bookmarks, wild-eyed prophecies, all the columns I didn't write - cries out for euthanasia.
I never got round to the $US183 billion ($429.5 billion) AOL/Time Warner merger, mostly
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