Tools for the TEKS Update: 9-27-2001

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In this Issue:

1- Educational Websites
2- 9-in-10 School-Age Children Have Computer Access; Internet Use Pervasive,
Census Bureau Reports
3- Cheating's Never Been Easier
4- Microsoft stands by IIS despite Gartner recommendation
5- No Harmony on Streaming Standards
6- Separating Students From Smut
7- College Education Online: Pass? Fail?
8- New front opens in Web standards war
9- No Longer Feeling @Home
10- The Kids Are Alright: Regulating Minors' Access to the Internet Can
Backfire
11- Microsoft releases controversial new Web browser
12- Intel to ship higher-speed wireless tech
13- Microsoft's new twist in error messages
14- Napster Eclipsed by Newcomers
15- Open source, Microsoft, and Apple
16- Anyone for Photoshop Tennis?

-----> 1- Educational Websites

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/features/terror/terror.html
The War on Terror: a discovery.com special report. Learn about the rise of
Bin Laden, 10 countries to watch in the conflict, and about Islam in a Q&A
format. Great info with superb multimedia features.

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2810853,00.html
How to win the war against spam, scourge of the in-box

http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/computer.html
Computer Use and Ownership: Statistics from the US Census Burearu

http://www.fearofphysics.com/
Fear of Physics: Want to find out how you can make your jump shot every
time? Check out this site that shows you physics in action. Learn the laws
of physics behind sports and everyday activities.

http://www.beritsbest.com/
Kid-friendly portal, created by librarian Berit Erickson: an annotated list
of sites by and for kids

http://www.zoo.nsw.gov.au/taronga/gorilla/index.htm
Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla Website- Get wild with the gorillas at the Taronga
Zoo in Australia! Learn about different species, meet the zoo's animals, or
try out some related

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/world/0109/ws_main.html
Girls Rule! Three queens of Egypt rocked the ancient world. See what girl
power is all about. Then take a virtual tour down the Nile.

http://www.sorenson.com/web/products/vcast.jsp
Vcast- Vcast is a personal streaming service that allows people to easily
and affordably deliver content to anyone, anywhere. Streaming events on the
Web is becoming more critical as the infrastructure and bandwidth for
communication becomes more pervasive. Vcast eliminates the complexities that
are inherent with streaming today.

http://heritage.stsci.edu/public/gallery/galindex.html
Hubble Heritage Gallery of Images: The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a
research tool dedicated to scientific studies of nature. Enroute to
illuminating the forces shaping our cosmos, HST has accumulated a cosmic
zoo. The Hubble Heritage Project sees this instrument also as a tool for
extending human vision, one that is capable of building a bridge between the
endeavors of scientists and the public. By emphasizing compelling HST images
distilled from scientific data, we hope to pique curiosity about our
astrophysical understanding of the universe we all inhabit.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/africa/
PBS: Africa- Take an online tour of Africa from the Sahara to the Serengeti.
View photo essays, explore the continent's regions, play thumb piano tunes,
and much more. See how diverse Africa really is!

-------> 2- 9-in-10 School-Age Children Have Computer Access; Internet Use
Pervasive, Census Bureau Reports

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2001/cb01-147.html

SEPTEMBER 6, 2001

A ratio of 9-in-10 school-age children (6-to-17 years old) had access to a
computer in 2000, with 4-in-5 using a computer at school and 2-in-3 with one
at home, according to a report released today by the Commerce Department's
Census Bureau.

The report showed that 54 million households, or 51 percent, had one or more
computers in the home in August 2000, up from 42 percent in December 1998.

"Since 1984, the country has experienced more than a five-fold increase in
the proportion of households with computers," said Census Bureau analyst
Eric Newburger, author of Home Computers and Internet Use in the United
States: August 2000. "In addition, Internet use is rapidly becoming
synonymous with computer availability."

In 2000, more than 4-in-5 households with computers had at least one member
using the Internet at home (44 million households). When the Census Bureau
first collected data on Internet use in 1997, fewer than half of the
households with computers had someone who was able to go online.

The report measured the influence of the Internet on how people access and
use information. Of the total U.S. population, about 1-in-3 adults used
e-mail from home in 2000, and nearly 1-in-4 used the Internet to search for
information about topics such as business, health or government services.
Nearly 1-in-5 used the Internet to check on news, weather or sports. And
1-in-8 adults performed job-related tasks using a home Internet connection.

Other highlights:

- Nearly 9-in-10 family households with annual incomes of $75,000 or more
had at least one computer and about 8-in-10 had at least one household
member who used the Internet at home.

- Among family households with incomes below $25,000, nearly 3-in-10 had a
computer and about 2-in-10 had Internet access.

- Two-thirds of households with a school-age child had a computer, and 53
percent had Internet access.

- E-mail is the most common Internet application at home, used by 88 percent
of adults and 73 percent of children who are online.

- Single-person households were the least likely to have a computer (30
percent) or Internet access (24 percent). In households with two to four
persons, 58 percent had a computer and 47 percent had Internet access.

- Households in the West were the most likely to have computers (57 percent)
and Internet access (47 percent). Those in the South were the least likely
to have computers (47 percent) and Internet connections (38 percent).

- Ninety-four million people used the Internet at home in 2000, up from 57
million in 1998.

- Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of all children 3-to-17 years old lived in
a household with a computer in 2000, up from 55 percent in 1998. About
3-in-10 children used the Internet at home, compared with about 2-in-10 in
1998.

- Schools have "leveled the playing field" by giving computer access to
children who do not have one at home. Computer use at school was more nearly
equal across various income, race or ethnic groups than was access at home.

- About 77 percent of White non-Hispanic and 72 percent of Asian and Pacific
Islander children lived in households with computers, while only 43 percent
of African American children and 37 percent of Hispanic children did.

The report uses Current Population Survey (CPS) data obtained from about
50,000 U.S. households. The data should not be confused with results from
Census 2000, which did not include questions on computer access and Internet
use. Statistics from sample surveys, such as CPS, are subject to sampling
and nonsampling error.

-----> 3- Cheating's Never Been Easier

http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45803,00.html

By Kendra Mayfield
2:00 a.m. Sep. 4, 2001 PDT

Plagiarists have vexed school officials since the dawn of the term paper.
But only recently have students been armed with what might be the ultimate
cheating tool.

And if the fears of university professors prove true, cheating on papers
will rise significantly in the near future.

"There is just so much information out there, readily accessible in an
anonymous fashion, that faculty (and students) see it as a very strong
temptation," said Donald L. McCabe, one of the founders of the Center for
Academic Integrity.

In a survey underway at the University of Virginia, faculty cited the
Internet as the No. 1 societal force leading students to commit acts of
plagiarism.

"It's not so much that the Internet is causing (cheating), but it enables it
and the ease with which it's done versus the way it used to be," said John
Workman, an associate marketing professor at Creighton University who is
conducting the survey.

But while some educators view the Internet as the greatest plagiarism tool
since the copy machine, others say that the Web hasn't had a major impact in
the rise in cheating -- yet.

"My research suggests the Internet is not yet responsible for a dramatic
increase in the number of students who cheat but is responsible for a
more-than-trivial increase in the amount of cheating done by those who do
cheat," McCabe said.

In a survey of 4,500 students at 25 high schools, McCabe found that over
half of the students admitted they have engaged in some level of plagiarism
on written assignments using the Internet.

But the number of self-described "new cheaters" who use the Internet is
relatively low, McCabe said. He estimates that 5 to 10 percent of students
who had not previously engaged in some form of plagiarism from written
sources have been attracted by the Internet.

That number is expected to grow as students who grew up using computers in
high school enter college.

"The problem is obviously greater in high school, and this does not bode
well, in my view, for colleges," McCabe said. "Students growing up with the
Internet as a research tool are going to find it hard to change behaviors
they acquire in elementary and high school when they reach college. At least
in terms of plagiarism, I would predict that cheating is likely to increase
at the college level."

The rise in Internet plagiarism can be partially attributed to the ease of
downloading essays from online term-paper sites, such as SchoolSucks.com and
The Evil House of Cheat.

But cut-and-paste plagiarism -- by students who don't attribute sources --
may be an even greater problem than commercial term-paper mills.

In McCabe's high school survey, 52 percent said they had copied a few
sentences from a website without citing the source, while only 15 said they
had submitted a paper obtained in large part from a term-paper mill or
website.

While technology has made it easier for students to cheat, it has also made
it easier for teachers to detect cheating.

Some faculty turn to search engines such as Google where they type in key
phrases to determine the original source of suspicious essay content.

Others use online plagiarism-detection tools such as Turnitin.com, CopyCatch
and the Essay Verification Engine.

Business is booming for Turnitin.com's founder John Barrie, who calls his
service "the ultimate deterrent" and "the next-generation spell-checker."

The service digitally fingerprints test papers and analyzes them against an
internal database of course papers and millions of other Internet sources,
providing an originality report to instructors within 24 hours.

The prospect of being caught submitting papers to multiple classes is often
enough to deter any undergrad from cheating, Barrie said.

"Every high school student, when going to college, will have to face us,"
Barrie said.

Turnitin.com has over 20,000 registered users in 20 countries. In addition
to high-profile universities such as Duke and Rutgers, the entire University
of California system has signed up to use the service.

"By Christmas, we'll have just about every university in California signed
up," Barrie said.

Recently, incidents of digital plagiarism have gained national attention.

The University of Virginia recently expelled one student after a physics
professor used a computer program to catch 130 students who turned in
duplicate papers.

"If cheating is that bad in the school with the No. 1 honor code in the
country, it begs the question: What's it like at our school?" Barrie said.

"Administrators haven't the slightest idea what's going on. Students are
using the Net as a 2 billion-page searchable, cut-able encyclopedia."

Honor code schools that use plagiarism-detection software are often met with
student backlash.

"Some students feel this is a violation of their trust," Workman said.

But Barrie insists that even honor code schools have an obligation to use a
service such as Turnitin.com to level the playing field.

"Most students aren't cheating," Barrie said. "But they know who is
cheating. Those people have an unfair competitive advantage to get to the
next level."

Even so, some educators don't believe that codes of conduct need to be
changed to address Internet plagiarism.

"This is an age-old problem," Workman said. "The Internet is an enabling
technology. The principles of ownership and attribution have remained the
same for hundreds of years."

----> 4- Microsoft stands by IIS despite Gartner recommendation

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/09/27/msoft.supports.IIS.idg/index...
l

September 27, 2001 Posted at: 3:16 p.m. EDT (1916 GMT)
By Jaikumar Vijayan

(IDG) -- Microsoft says its Internet Information Server (IIS) is as secure
as comparable products from other vendors. This follows a Gartner
recommendation that enterprises hit by both the "Nimda" and "Code Red" worms
look at alternatives.

According to the advisory from Gartner -- which is based in Stamford,
Connecticut -- the success of the Nimda worm and of Code Red before that
"highlights the risk of using IIS and the effort involved in keeping up with
Microsoft's frequent security patches."

Gartner's advisory was issued in the aftermath of last week's attack by the
mass-mailing Nimda worm that infected systems running Microsoft Windows 95,
98, Me, NT and 2000. (See the link below: "Nimda worm hard to fight, but
patches are available.") Unlike other worms and viruses, Nimda spread via
network-based e-mail, as well as through contaminated Web browsers and
exploited back doors left behind by previous malicious codes as Code Red and
Sadmind.

As it had with Code Red, Microsoft recommended installing patches and
service packs on virtually every PC and server running the Internet Explorer
Web browser, IIS Web servers or the Outlook Express e-mail client, said John
Pescatore, a Gartner analyst and author of the advisory.

Such constant patching and maintaining has resulted in a high cost of
ownership for IIS, he said. For that reason, Pescatore recommended that
enterprises hit by both Nimda and Code Red look at alternatives such as Sun
Microsystems Inc.'s iPlanet and the Apache Web server software.

"The Gartner recommendation overlooks the fact that security is an
industrywide challenge and that serious vulnerabilities have been found in
all Web server products and platforms," a Microsoft spokesman said. "It is a
folly to believe that if you switch from one product to another, you are
protected."

Instead, the emphasis should be on ensuring safe security practices and
making sure that all recommended patches are installed, he added. "Those
customers that installed all the [recommended] patches were protected from
Nimda," the Microsoft spokesman said.

But Gartner's recommendation seems to be resonating with at least some
users.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based law firm Fenwick & West LLP is planning on migrating
off of its IIS servers to a Linux operating environment running Apache's Web
server software.

The decision was prompted by the continuing security concerns related to
IIS, said Matt Kesner, the firm's chief technology officer. Also driving the
move is cost: It's cheaper to run Apache on Linux than it is it to run IIS,
Kesner said.

The law firm escaped being hit by last week's Nimda virus because it had all
the appropriate patches in place. But the experience of dealing with a
previous IIS-related vulnerability and the continuous effort needed to keep
it secure aren't worth it, Kesner said.

Moving to Apache is going to be difficult, and it will offer less
functionality than IIS, Kesner predicted. Even so, "we think it is a smaller
target," he said. "For whatever reason, virus writers are not targeting
Linux and Sun as much as they have been targeting Microsoft."

"Apache is a bit more difficult to set up, but it is much easier to maintain
once the setup process has been completed," said Pat Quick, an information
systems specialist at Planogramming Solutions Inc., a space management
company in Jacksonville, Fla.

Because of security concerns, "we have considered trashing our MS
BackOffice/ColdFusion development and are looking at a possible [Linux]
setup," he said in an e-mail to Computerworld.

"I know that Windows, Office and many other packages are very popular and
have a wide reach that makes them the target to get to," Quick said. "But to
be the biggest should carry some responsibility to be the best. This is,
sadly, not the case."

Not everybody shared those sentiments, though. "To be fair, Microsoft has
responded well in every case," where its software has been attacked, said
one user at a large Seattle-based company who requested anonymity. "Why
would you move to [Linux] with effectively no support, running a web server
that doesn't have as much functionality [as IIS]? There's a hidden cost of
ownership in that model as well," the user said.

"There are problems with Microsoft software, but there are problems with
other software as well," said Joel Snyder, CEO of Snyder Associates, a Long
Island, N.Y-based management and engineering consultancy. The diffference is
that the pervasivness and popularity of Windows makes it a more available
hacker target, he said.

Security measures taken against the Code Red worm and the availability of a
cumulative patch have also "significantly improved the security" of servers
running IIS, according to a Web server survey by Netcraft Ltd., a U.K.-based
network consultancy. The number of IIS servers with a vulnerability that
allowed crackers to take administrative control of systems dropped from more
than 27% in October 2000 to a little more than 10% in August 2001, according
to the survey.

Similarly, the percentage of IIS servers with a hole that allowed cross-site
scripting dropped from more than 80% to less than 20% during the same
period, Netcraft said.

-----> 5- No Harmony on Streaming Standards

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,44722,00.html

By Brad King

10:20 a.m. June 21, 2001 PDT LONG BEACH, California -- Opposition is
mounting against both Microsoft and RealNetworks as they race to create and
own a standard language for streaming.

The Internet Streaming Media Alliance ­- a consortium made up of six
companies right now ­- hopes to challenge both Microsoft and RealNetworks
over the creation of a digital standard for streaming. The reason: They
don't believe that either one will act in the best interests of streaming
companies.

"The model for streaming companies today has been like a Wild West model,"
said Tim Schaff, ISMA's secretary. "But the industry is starting to move
from a single-vendor, proprietary solution to a multi-vendor, open
solution."

It's dry stuff, but it's the new craze in streaming media as companies begin
to search for ways to deliver content on the Internet and make it
profitable.

Creating a standard takes more than just good intentions however. Right now,
ISMA only has a handful of companies behind it, including founding members
Apple, Sun Microsystems, Philips, IBM, and Cisco Systems.

Despite having industry heavyweights behind the project, ISMA is well behind
the efforts of both Real and Microsoft.

Microsoft has the benefit of having its Windows Media Player embedded in its
operating system, which sits on more than 90 percent of all personal
computers. That penetration allows Microsoft to create ­- and sell -­ its
digital rights management system to content owners like record labels and
movie studios.

By creating a digital media platform that includes rights management and the
media player, along with server technology to deliver that content,
Microsoft very nearly becomes the standard for delivering media over the
Internet.

"Content owners like the fact that we have an end-to-end solution," said
Michael Aldridge, lead product manager for Microsoft's digital media
division. "That's the mission of Microsoft. We want to enable our partners
to thrive with viable online businesses."

Those partners include video-on-demand services like Intertainer and EMI,
one of the five major record labels.

But where Microsoft goes, RealNetworks is sure to follow, including into the
standards creation business. On Wednesday, Real announced it would be
working to create an open standard for content delivery.

"RealNetworks has a simple mission to turn the Internet into the next great
mass medium," said Real CEO Rob Glaser. "There needs to be a standard set of
rules that business models are made of, and technology then needs to be a
speed bump that moves people towards following the rules."

RealNetworks is hoping to sell companies on delivering content using its
Media Commerce Suite, a proprietary business format that only uses Real
media formats. To launch its product, Real has direct access to its Gold
Pass subscription service which has over 200,000 paying subscribers and its
MusicNet service that will deliver music from three major labels starting
late this summer.

However, Schaff said the early dominance by Microsoft on the personal
computer and with Real's subscription services, the consumer electronics
companies will eventually take control of the standards movement. Consumer
electronics companies have a much better record at developing industry
standards than digital media companies.

Nearly every electronic device in the home, including the television and
radio, exists because consumers electronics companies decided to work with a
standard delivery format that was not proprietary. That's why consumers can
watch television, and not Sony television or Panasonic television.

The agreement between companies also allows consumer electronics developers
to create a viable business sector that brings in billions of dollars each
year. ISMA hopes to use that past success in the creation of the new
standard for streaming companies.

"The economics in the consumer electronics space are really clear," said
Schaff. "Streaming media companies aren't making money, and the electronics
industry has some great business models."

------> 6- Separating Students From Smut

http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,45804,00.html

By Katie Dean

2:00 a.m. Aug. 30, 2001 PDT
Over the next year, schools will be in danger of losing precious technology
funding unless they can certify they have a filtering system that blocks
obscene websites.

The Children's Internet Protection Act requires that by Oct. 28, schools
must certify that they are either in compliance with filtering requirements,
or are in the process of becoming compliant by evaluating blocking software.

For many schools, it will be easy to comply. According to the Consortium for
School Networking, 75 percent of schools use filtering already.

And while some believe this federal mandate is essential to protect children
from pornography and predators who troll the Net, others believe that
individual school districts should make their own decisions about safe use
of the Internet.

"We believe schools should be a safe haven for children ­- a place for
children to learn and grow, not cesspools for the destruction of the minds
and souls of children," said Kristen Schultz, a legal policy analyst with
the Family Research Council.

"I think parents and teachers should warn children of the dangers of porn
but ultimately that is not enough," she said. "If there is no filtering,
children who use sites like Yahoo all the time can access porn."

CIPA guidelines require that schools have in place "a policy of Internet
safety for minors that includes the operation of a technology protection
measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that
protects against ... visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography,
or harmful to minors."

"Harmful to minors" is described as a picture or image that "appeals to a
prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion (and) depicts, describes, or
represents ... an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, actual
or simulated normal or perverted sexual acts, or a lewd exhibition of the
genitals."

Schools are also required to adopt an Internet safety policy if they do not
already have one, and hold a public meeting to discuss that policy.

Hooks Independent School District in Texas provides laptops to all of its
fourth- through twelfth-graders. They filter certain Web addresses using
Websense, and use a proxy server to log the Web habits of each student.

"We know where every child has gone and for how long they've been there,"
said Mychele Hughes, director of information services. "Students know they
are going to be monitored ­- there's never a question of whether they will
or will not be."

The district also blocks instant messaging, chat rooms and MP3 downloads.

"I just don't see what the big deal is," she said. "I don't think you can
really be too safe with your children."

Others think educators should make their own decisions.

"COSN's policy position was that this was not needed," said Keith Krueger,
executive director of the Consortium for School Networking. "We believe in
empowering local school leaders to make wise decisions on Internet safety."

The staff at the Blue Valley School District in Overland Park, Kansas, have
focused their energy on teaching Internet literacy.

"We do not currently use any kinds of filtering or technology blocking
system, which is kind of unusual," said Bob Moore, the executive director of
Information Technology services. "In our opinion, a filtering system implies
a guarantee. There is not a filtering system that is foolproof."

Moore said that instead of blocking, the school teaches students to "know
the territory you are in." Kids learn to find better search results using
Boolean searches. The school also emphasizes responsible, ethical Internet
use, he said.

"There are so many people that don't know how to use the Internet that they
focus on the dangers," Moore said. "Schools are often accused of not being
in the real world, yet we have a federal law that's forcing us to prevent us
from teaching real world skills as far as the Internet is concerned."

"We don't wait until a kid is an adult to teach him how to cross the street
or to not talk to strangers," he added.

Moore said that the strategy has worked well so far, and the school will
continue to teach Internet literacy. The district will adhere to CIPA
guidelines and is currently reviewing filtering systems.

With or without filters, districts are clear that students will be punished
if they are caught abusing their Internet privileges.

"I'm very much a proponent of parental involvement," said Carol Bird,
technology director of the Fort Huachuca Accommodation Schools in Sierra
Vista, Arizona, which uses filtering. "Students know that we won't hesitate
to get the parents involved if there is a problem."

"We've had Internet access for three years and I've probably had to restrict
two students," she said.

Often, peer pressure works in favor of district rules.

In the Hooks ISD, students will have their laptop confiscated if they
violate the "acceptable use policy," and they are unable to participate in
class activities.

Despite the fear that the Internet will harm children, Blue Valley's Moore
said that there is an even more prevalent, and age-old, problem.

"We have far more complaints about written materials like certain classics,
novels, and plays than anything having to do with Internet resources."

------> 7- College Education Online: Pass? Fail?

Courses via the Web are booming, but some worry they degrade the quality of
learning.

http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-000077248sep27.story?coll=la%2Dhead...
s%2Dtechnology

September 27, 2001
By ZANTO PEABODY, [email protected]
Gone are the days when students had to attend classes on campus to earn a
college degree.

With the most distant university and the most obscure facts a mouse click
away, students are finding they can get a college education via computer.
Nearly 2 million U.S. students take courses online, in an approach often
called distance learning.

"Expanding technology is expanding the audience for traditional educators,"
said William H. Dutton, a technology and communications professor at USC.
"Technology only complements and supplements university instruction. For
many, it's just another place to get information." But the growth has led to
a debate on California campuses and across the country over the future of
high-tech study. Will technological study aids, from crib notes posted on
the Internet to online degree programs, enhance education? Or will
"e-education" supplant bricks-and-mortar classrooms and perhaps degrade the
quality of learning and instruction?

The American Federation of Teachers published a report last month saying
some programs "may inhibit rather than promote good education." The report
condemns the high-tech programs for "dehumanizing" the learning experience.

Being in a classroom, soaking up enthusiasm for a subject by interacting
face to face with instructors and peers is quite different from tapping in
online, critics say.

"It's the difference between just calling your mother on the phone and going
to visit her," said Martin Hittelman, a Los Angeles Valley College math
instructor and senior vice president of the California Federation of
Teachers.

Beyond questioning the quality of distance education, critics say it is too
susceptible to fraud and can devalue a college degree.

John Bear, an educational consultant and author of a guide to online
programs, speaks ambivalently about them, saying they can be abused by
crafty students padding their resumes with ill-gotten degrees and
unscrupulous companies operating fake universities to fleece earnest
students.

"It's a marvel that education is available anywhere for the disabled, the
blind, the poor, the working mom with two full-time jobs who can't get away
to go to class," Bear said. "Too many other people are using technology for
fraud and exploitation."

In a survey to detect fraudulent degrees, Bear said he discovered nine NASA
employees, several U.S. military officers and a safety engineer at
Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. with fake degrees. He said he found thousands
more on job search Web site Monster.com.

Ethical questions aside, the convenience of online education is hard to
beat.

The tech-savvy student can sign up for a distance learning program--the
Internet version of correspondence courses--to earn bachelor's, doctoral and
postdoctoral degrees and never come face to face with a professor.
Cal State Dominguez Hills graduate student Catherine French-Sidoti's job,
for example, puts her out of reach of a university campus. A quality
assurance engineer at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico,
French-Sidoti chose the online program over an educational sabbatical.

After logging on for registration, she ordered textbooks from Amazon.com,
turned in homework assignments by e-mail and deliberated with classmates in
Web discussion groups. For finals, a co-worker stood in as proctor, making
sure she finished in the given time and did not cheat.

"I would have had to drive 90 miles to Albuquerque to go to class,"
French-Sidoti said. "The advantage [of taking classes online] is I can do my

work during lunchtime or on Sundays or any other time that's convenient to
me."
The number of students in online classes doubled from 753,000 to 1.6 million
from 1995 to 1998, according to the National Center for Education
Statistics. A bill in the House of Representatives would allow 10
universities and colleges to offer financial aid to distance learners in a
pilot program sponsored by the Education Department.

A study by the California Postsecondary Education Commission, released in
August, showed that more than two-thirds of online students in the state are
women, suggesting the off-campus option suits working mothers. Not
surprisingly, private companies are looking for ways to profit from the
multibillion-dollar movement. Yahoo, the Web's most popular portal, launched
a site last month where students and educators may post class rosters,
calendars and syllabi and meet on private classroom message boards. Yahoo
has partnered with content providers Bartleby.com, Britannica.com and
Houghton Mifflin Co. for the enterprise.

Software developer Sherry Albright of Macola, Ohio, saw a barrage of layoffs
in her field and figured she needed to complete her bachelor's degree to
stay competitive. It would take a two-hour drive after work to attend Ohio
State University in Columbus, which would keep her from her teenage
children, she said.

Instead, she logged on to the distance program offered by Ohio's Franklin
University, where professors set their schedules to chat online with
students each week.

French-Sidoti and Albright acknowledge that they may be missing social
interaction with their peers, but Warren Ashley, director of the Center for
Mediated Instruction and Distance Learning at Cal State Dominguez Hills,
said the idea that students gather around to sit and talk is a myth.

"In reality, 65% of them come after 4 o'clock, park, walk to their classes
and leave without much contact with their classmates," he said. Hittelman
contends that at its best, online learning still has less depth than a
part-time on-campus education.

"A lot of education is modeling, feeling something from the person providing
it," Hittelman said. "You get more of the essence of a subject from talking
about it than you do from just reading about it. We want to make sure people
have a rich education, like a good meal, instead of a connect-the-dots
education, like just take a pill for nourishment."

Online study aids--even if students attend classes--can cheapen the
educational experience as well, critics say.

Students too young to remember Atari know that term papers and lecture notes
are readily available on the Web. Cliffs Notes, the yellow-and-black saviors
of many a procrastinator, have gone digital. Cliffs will even send a free
daily e-mail on understanding Shakespeare, called "Dummies Daily."

"Distance education and technology will spawn a whole new industry of people
getting paid to do other students' work," said educational technology
professor M.O. Thirunarayanan of Florida International University.

Some students agree digital courses are no substitute for the real thing.

Kenneth Autrey, a master's degree candidate in the distance learning program
at the University of Phoenix, began his graduate studies at Cal State
Dominguez Hills before transferring to Phoenix.

"With all the online resources--Cliffs Notes, term paper research help--it
was much easier for me to return to college, but it is definitely not as
thorough an education" as on the Cal State campus, Autrey said.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology received an $11-million grant in June
to make lecture notes, course outlines, reading lists and assignments for
its classes available free on the Web. Even so, an MIT administrator said
students still clamor to attend the prestigious campus, where tuition is
$27,000 a year.
"If a person wants to just learn the material, I see no reason why they
can't learn it on their own," Bear said. "If they want the prestige of a
Wharton MBA or an MIT degree, they will still have to go to Wharton or MIT."

----> 8- New front opens in Web standards war

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5094009,00.html

By Paul Festa
Special to ZDNet News
July 11, 2001 4:05 PM PT

Web standards advocates are declaring victory in their battle over browsers,
but as they turn up the heat on their next adversary it's clear that their
longstanding crusade on behalf of elegant design principles is far from
over.

After years spent goading Netscape Communications and Microsoft into
complying with guidelines recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C), standards proponents say they are turning their attention to
companies that make Web authoring tools. Topping the hit list now are the
likes of Macromedia and its popular Dreamweaver authoring tool; Adobe
Systems and its GoLive product; and Microsoft again, for its low-end but
widely used FrontPage software.

"None of the big tools--Dreamweaver, GoLive, FrontPage--none of them
currently writes standards-compliant code," said Tom Negrino, author of
numerous books about the Web and a member of the Web Standards Project, or
WaSP.

The shift in standards enforcement marks a significant turning point in the
adoption of common rules for displaying Web pages. Though Microsoft and
Netscape have both released browser versions that conform with W3C
recommendations, activists say they face a new problem: Almost nobody is
producing Web pages written exclusively in standards-compliant code.

Standards proponents say such compliance promises significant advantages,
such as conserving bandwidth with "lighter" code and the ability to provide
access to Web surfers with disabilities, which the federal government
requires of all its agencies. Nevertheless, standards efforts continue to be
a source of friction in the development community, as pragmatists and
idealists clash over the best way to implement them.

While few deny the benefits of full standards compliance, many argue that
the switch to standards must come gradually, because millions of Web surfers
still use old browsers that can't read the latest and greatest code. As a
result, most Web developers continue to support outdated code, a task that
has been made effortless by tools such as Dreamweaver, which automatically
includes workarounds for older browser versions.

Now, however, some standards advocates are asking developers to do their
part in convincing the technology laggards to upgrade--even at the risk of
alienating un-savvy Web surfers who might be challenged or intimidated by
the task of downloading and installing new software.

That effort is causing some tension with Web developers, who insist they,
too, are eager for a more fully standards-compliant Web.

"For our Web developers, the No. 1 issue we see in our research is
cross-browser compatibility," said Eric Ott, group product manager for
Dreamweaver at Macromedia. "The browsers start off with standards but then
build on top of that with their own bells and whistles. So developers pull
their hair out trying to make things work in both browsers. It's really hard
to get things to work across all the browsers in every environment, so
moving towards standards is going to make things a lot easier for us."

Sam Hui, senior product manager for Adobe's GoLive tool, agreed, warning
that patience, not brute force, was the only thing that could rid the Web of
the older, noncompliant browsers.

"As Netscape changes its tune and Microsoft builds browsers closer to the
standard, it certainly makes our job easier," Hui said. "It's much harder
for us to take into account all these little variations than it would be to
just create one standards-compliant browser. But the reality is that we
don't live in that world yet."

Standard? What standard?
Authoring toolmakers and standards advocates disagree, even among
themselves, about what constitutes a standards-compliant markup. The most
stringent critics contend that the abundance of unwieldy workarounds found
in tool-authored code invalidates it; others, willing to live with the extra
code, are agitating for the toolmakers to add support for specific W3C
technologies.

The toolmakers themselves say that their applications do support the key W3C
recommendations and that they go beyond that to accommodate the older
browsers that still account for a huge proportion of the Web's viewing
audience.

"There's no question--we are standards compliant," Ott said. "The issue is
with some of these emerging technologies, like XHTML, CSS 2 and
accessibility. These are all things that are on people's radar right now,
and we're working with different groups to make sure that all these new
features are in the product."

Reflecting the needs of their customers, whose clients want to accommodate
the broadest possible audience, Microsoft, Macromedia and Adobe characterize
standards compliance as a journey rather than a destination, defending their
insertion of bulky workarounds as a practical necessity.

"The standards are there as something to shoot for, but in terms of what
people are trying to achieve, you want your output consistent with all the
browsers out there," Hui said. "And if the browsers are not compliant, you
have to do things in your code to make things display the way you want it to
display."

Dealing with the Luddite factor
The prevalence of noncompliant browsers on the Web is no small problem for
Web authors. While advocates have judged the latest browsers to be largely
standards compliant, the older browsers persist in large numbers.

Macromedia, for example, said that 84 percent of its Dreamweaver users test
their sites for Netscape's 4.x browsers, followed by 73 percent testing for
IE 5.5. Sixty-six percent test for IE 5.0, 47 percent for IE 4.x, and 43
percent for Netscape 6.

In an indication of the longevity of old browsers on the Web, 23 percent of
Dreamweaver users still test for Netscape's 3.x browser, which Netscape
introduced in 1996. That is down sharply from 70 percent last year, when it
was still the No. 1 browser Dreamweaver users tested. Opera, a browser with
a smaller reach but a reputation for standards compliance, was tested by 8
percent of Dreamweaver users.

Standards advocates say the continued popularity of the authoring tools has
created a world in which increasingly standards-compliant Web browsers are
encountering few standards-compliant Web pages--at least by the stringent
definitions put forth by WaSP members.

"I hand code, but I'm a dying breed," said Jeffrey Zeldman, group leader for
WaSP. "At a recent Web conference I asked how many people in the audience
hand-coded their Web sites. Five people out of a thousand raised their
hands. Then I asked, 'Who uses Dreamweaver?' and the whole room raised their
hands.

"These are all professionals, and if they're all using Dreamweaver, and it
isn't generating standards-compliant markup and code, all the
standards-compliant browsers in the world are not going to make the Web more
standards compliant."

A question of relevance
Nevertheless, the new drive to improve the standards compliance of the
authoring tools raises fundamental questions about the purpose of Web
standards. WaSP's original rallying cry was that developers were saddled
with the time-eating task of coding Web pages that would render properly in
half a dozen different browsers--various versions from various software
makers for various operating systems, none of which conformed to W3C
recommendations.

But now the authoring tools do the time-consuming work, automatically
spitting out code that renders properly on whatever browser a visitor might
have. With authoring tools automating that ungrateful work, what's the point
of Web standards?

Standards advocates point out two practical advantages to valid code, or
code that would pass muster with the W3C Validation Service.

Standards-compliant code, they argue, is lightweight code. While
authoring-tool markup is full of repetitious workarounds,
standards-compliant code essentially writes once and runs anywhere--provided
that "anywhere" is a standards-compliant browser.

"The authoring tools...make your pages bigger, straining your servers,"
Zeldman said. "If you have 10K of unnecessary code, and you have 100,000
visitors, your systems admin is going to need an extra server to handle the
traffic."

A second practical reason to produce standards-compliant code has to do with
federal regulations requiring Web pages to be accessible to people with
disabilities. And standards-compliant code, advocates say, is accessible
code.

"There is a strong business case for authoring tools that can support the
production of accessible Web sites," Judy Brewer, director of the W3C's Web
Accessibility Initiative, wrote in an e-mail interview. "Sites built with
valid code, using universal design principles, are usable by a more diverse
range of people and devices."

The W3C in February 2000 issued guidelines for authoring toolmakers to
create more accessible code.

A Microsoft spokesman said the February 2000 guidelines came out too late
for consideration in its FrontPage 2002 product.

The toolmakers are also under pressure from a federal law known as Section
508, which requires federal government Web sites to be accessible to people
with disabilities.

Adobe described accessibility as "a top issue" for the company and said it
was close to releasing a module that would make GoLive Section
508-compliant. Macromedia in May announced a partnership with UsableNet to
provide an extension for Dreamweaver that verifies whether code is compliant
with the law.

But the strictest of the standards advocates want the authoring toolmakers
to go beyond accessibility. As part of their drive to get people to upgrade
their browsers, these activists want the toolmakers and the Web authors who
use the tools to offer Web surfers some bitter medicine, telling those with
noncompliant browsers to come back with a compliant browser or look at a
buggy page.

For example, the standard way to place an image file at the top left of a
Web page is to create a style sheet that eliminates the margin at the top of
the page. But the authoring tools will generate a number of tags to
eliminate the gap, because Netscape 4 cannot read style sheets.

"We're saying it's just too bad about that 1997 browser," said WaSP's
Zeldman. "If someone's using it, let there be a gap at the top of the page.
Write standards-compliant code."

"There's no way you can get a page that works with every browser from the
beginning of time," WaSP member Negrino agreed. "You have to worry about
Netscape 4, 4.02, 4.5, and then you talk about supporting different
platforms and Linux--the simplest way is to build Web sites that are
standards compatible, and if your browser can't read them, that's your
problem."

Pragmatists and idealists
Authoring toolmakers take a dim view of the WaSP's hard line.

"If you have a client with a million users visiting your Web site, no one is
going to tell them to go away and get Netscape 6," said Macromedia's Ott.
"You're trying to make money. And your clients are demanding compatibility."

Adobe agreed, stressing that the gap between the launch of browsers and
their adoption was inherently slow.

"In reality, when new browsers come out, there's a certain lag time," Hui
said. "People like my grandma, who uses the Internet--she doesn't have a
clue about how to upgrade a browser. She uses what came with the computer.
You definitely have a legacy problem--Tom's right about that--but I would
disagree that you author to the latest standards, because you're essentially
cutting out a lot of your audience."

Advocates predict that toolmakers eventually will come around to their point
of view, just as browser makers have.

"Already they are realizing that in the future, standards compliance is
going to be a competitive feature," said Dori Smith, a programmer, WaSP
member, and Negrino's wife and occasional co-author. "It's going to be one
of those competitive checkboxes. As soon as that happens, they are going to
want to do it. Both companies started off saying, 'We're not sure we're
hearing developers saying they want this,' but now they're hearing a real
groundswell."

-----> 9- No Longer Feeling @Home

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20010830.html

Why the Current Troubles of Excite@Home Aren't Quite as the Analysts Say,
But They Were Probably Inevitable
AUGUST 30, 2001
By Robert X. Cringely

This week, more than three million Internet users who get their high-speed
cable modem connections from Excite@Home watched their ISP struggle to
survive. On the surface, it was a simple matter of a $50 million loan being
called due, but underneath, the real issue was the very viability of
broadband Internet access. With DSL companies failing one after another, and
now the number one cable Internet provider apparently about to go under, is
broadband, itself, in trouble?

Yes.

That's not the way the industry analysts see it. According to published
quotes from the Gartner Group and Forrester Research, the problem with
Excite@Home was one of corporate schizophrenia as the Excite portal failed
to keep its advertising revenue growth in line with @Home's rapidly building
subscriber base. Excite was a drag on the operation, pulling down its
higher-flying corporate twin. But in this case, the analysts are wrong. And
understanding why they are wrong can teach us all a lot about where the
Internet is and isn't going.

Excite was one of the first search engines and an early Internet portal,
competing primarily with Yahoo. @Home was a high-speed Internet service
provider owned by cable television systems. In January 1999, @Home bought
Excite for $6.7 billion in stock. To understand how the companies got to
today's dismal reality, it would be a good idea to start with a look at the
two operations at the time of their merger. Excite was profitable, had no
debt, and lots of cash from its successful IPO. Excite revenue came from
advertising and nearly all its users were on analog modems. @Home was not
profitable, but like Excite had no debt, and lots of cash from its
successful IPO. Nearly all @Home users were on high-speed cable modems.

The merger was fraught with problems from the very beginning. The first big
problem was the fact that @Home's board did not appear to understand the
ramifications of their purchase of Excite until after it was done. The whole
point of the merger was to create a broadband online service offering
everything from connectivity to content -- a kind of high-speed AOL that
would crush AOL. But after approving the merger, AT&T (@Home's largest
shareholder) changed their mind on that vision. For awhile, it wasn't clear
why the two companies had even merged.

Then the "open-access" pressure set in, with ISPs demanding access to users
on @Home cable systems. Against this backdrop, uncertainty and infighting at
the board level made it impossible for the company to execute against the
synergies that made the merger worthwhile in the first place. With the board
resisting the vision of the company, Excite and @Home were effectively just
two unrelated businesses stuck on the same balance sheet.

The other big problem was @Home's mishandling of Excite. When the merger was
completed, Excite was cash flow positive, bringing in a lot of revenue, and
very successful in the portal space, though still far behind Yahoo. In fact,
for the first year or so after the merger, Excite's revenue kept afloat the
cable side of the business -- the @Home part.

With Excite paying the bills, the combined company still might have been
successful -- except the newly merged company chose to deploy tremendous
Excite resources on building a broadband-specific version of the portal when
the revenue justification was tenuous (there just weren't enough broadband
users) and the board support was non-existent. This resulted in a lack of
focus and a long decline of the portal in general. Spending money to build
the broadband portal hurt the narrowband portal that was paying the bills.
The end result was that the company had a much harder time retaining portal
advertisers than their competitors. All the portals were struggling with the
downturn, but only Excite was neglecting its paying customers and burning
resources to build a broadband presence that hardly anyone even saw. The
result was that Excite declined faster and further than did the other
portals.

Without advertisers, the portal business became a big cash drain on the
overall company. Of course, the long-term vision for the merger required a
broadband portal, but there simply weren't enough broadband customers to
justify the resources expended on the project.

But wait, it gets worse. AT&T, @Home's largest shareholder, appears to many
to have acted in a way that virtually guaranteed the failure of its
subsidiary. Just when things were getting bleak, AT&T sent in a team of
network engineers to improve reliability, and those engineers spent
literally tens of millions of @Home dollars upgrading the network,
contributing to the present cash crunch. Ultimately, @Home was in such poor
financial shape that it had to sell back to AT&T the very same network it
had just spent money upgrading. Big corporations can be smart sometimes. And
if Excite@Home files for bankruptcy, as seems inevitable, its biggest
creditor is AT&T, which will effectively get the rest of the company for
free.

But what part of AT&T are we even talking about? Why AT&T Broadband, the
part of AT&T that is, itself, up for sale! So having assisted in the death
of its subsidiary, Ma Bell probably won't even get to share in any
inheritance.
Wow, that's a lot of corporate intrigue! I only know about it because I have
kept a close eye on the company since meeting the Excite founders in their
garage back in 1993. And no, I have no financial interest in any of the
companies mentioned in this column.

There is, however, this underlying issue that the analysts, especially, seem
to have missed. Excite@Home failed mainly because broadband did not grow as
quickly as expected. Broadband is not, at this time, a viable industry. Let
me repeat that: Broadband is not, at this time, a viable industry. So
Excite@Home was doomed to fail. There was probably nothing they could have
done to stop the failure. Not only were there not enough broadband portal
customers, but giving 65 percent of the ISP revenue to participating cable
companies meant that the high-speed ISP part of the company would have never
shown a profit no matter how big it grew.

A few days ago, I was talking with a vice president at Lucent Technologies,
another company that is bleeding from every possible corporate location.
"There are approximately 400 million people on Earth who now have Internet
access, but fewer than 10 million of those have broadband," he said. "That
is less than a three percent market penetration and it means that IF
broadband is going to be a commercial success -- and that's a very iffy IF
-- it will be years in the future."

So Excite@Home was doomed from the start. The only way to have avoided the
current problem would have been to never merge in the first place, but $6.7
billion, even if it is all just stock, is hard to walk away from.

----> 10- The Kids Are Alright: Regulating Minors' Access to the Internet
Can Backfire

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/bios/

Annalee Newitz, Special to SF Gate
Thursday, August 30, 2001

When Chris Manley, a high school senior in South Carolina, started thinking
about applying for college, his teachers recommended he use the school
library computer to research universities like Duke and Stanford. But he
couldn't reach their Web sites. This was hardly a case of computer
illiteracy. "At my school they have filtering software," Manley says simply,
"and I can't get to these sites, because they've been blocked."

Luckily, Manley has a computer with Internet access at home, but many other
teens and tweens like him don't. These kids, who rely entirely on libraries
and schools for Internet access, are who the American Civil Liberties Union
wants to protect in its latest online-freedom case.

Headed for the Supreme Court in March 2002, ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson and her
colleagues will argue the unconstitutionality of the Child Internet
Protection Act (CHIPA), a law passed by Congress last year stipulating that
libraries and schools will lose their federal funds if they don't install
blocking software like NetNanny or CyberPatrol.

While blocking programs are supposed to serve as filters against child
pornography and content that might be harmful to minors, in reality this
software tends to block sites in a way ACLU representative Emily Whitfield
describes as "capricious."

People using the software are routinely blocked from progressive sites like
the ACLU's and PlanetOut and truly random destinations like homepages of
major universities and others featuring maps of Disneyland. Plus, these
programs fail to block a lot of sites adults would consider obscene. "You'd
be amazed where you can go even if you are using filtering," Manley notes.
"Before [libraries] use filtering software, they need to make it capable of
filtering out the wrong Web sites."

The CHIPA case is only the latest round in an ongoing public debate about
how and when people under 18 should be given access to the Internet.
Parents, educators and child-care workers worry that rampant Web surfing
could expose kids to dangerous "online predators," and they fear children
will harm themselves if they gain access to so-called adult information
about sex, drugs and violence. Sometimes, adults are just concerned that the
Internet, like TV, can lead to the kind of lonely teen alienation that
inspired two high school kids in Columbine to murder a bunch of their
classmates.

But many experts and activists say our current methods for regulating kids'
access to the Internet, like blocking, are worse than useless. And a recent
study suggests that Internet use could actually be beneficial for people
like youths who are trying to develop social skills. Perhaps most important,
kids are speaking out online and making it obvious that they know what's
best for themselves in cyberspace.

Alex Koroknay-Palicz is president of the National Youth Rights Association,
a group that fights age discrimination and whose membership is almost
entirely under 18. Koroknay-Palicz, now 20, joined the group two years ago.
He considers software blocking "just another form of censorship -- it
impedes freedom of speech and learning."

Interestingly, the NYRA site has frequently been blocked by filtering
programs. Peacefire is another youth rights organization whose site is often
blocked. Representatives from Peacefire -- whose sole purpose is to fight
against youth censorship online -- have fought back by including detailed
information on their site about how to circumvent blocking software and how
to encrypt e-mail to ensure digital privacy.

Neither of these groups is trying to help kids get "triple X nude pix" or
drugs. As Koroknay-Palicz put it, "We stay away from sex and obscenity. But
we want the greatest possible freedom and responsibility for young people.
My ideal youth site would promote young people taking an active part in
politics, and would get them to read the news. This would be so much better
than letting a corporation or the government try to mold their views."

Laurel, a 14-year-old member of NYRA, wrote to me in an e-mail, "To block us
from the Internet is to block us from a form of New Age art." She feels that
"most Web sites are good for people under 18, because if you have even a
mild curiosity about a subject you can type it in and search through sites
that people like you have made." Like Laurel, most kids view the Internet as
a way to express themselves and learn about the world.

Adding weight to Laurel's argument are the results of a study announced in
late July by Professor Robert Kraut of the Human-Computer Interaction
Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Kraut, who once argued that using
the Internet leads to isolation and loneliness, has uncovered new findings
that have convinced him and many colleagues that this isn't the case. Based
on surveys conducted by several universities, Kraut has come to believe that
depression isn't linked to Internet use and that going online can lead to
community-building and healthy communication.

Indeed, for some young people, online communities can be life-saving. Tom
Rielly, cofounder of PlanetOut Partners and one of the plaintiffs in the
CHIPA case, estimates that possibly 10 percent of the 4.6 million unique
visitors to queer-information site PlanetOut are under 18, most of them
teenagers struggling with their sexuality. Noting that queer teens are three
times more likely to commit suicide than their straight counterparts, Rielly
says, "We have gotten thousands of e-mails from teenagers that say things
like, 'I was going to kill myself, but I met PlanetOut' or 'Thank you so
much -- you helped me come out.' They're heartbreaking."

For queer youth, who often live in intolerant or isolated areas, just
knowing they aren't alone is enough to encourage them to survive.
PlanetOut's youth-moderated chat rooms and message boards can provide kids
with the support they need to stay healthy, sane and even happy during a
tumultuous adolescence.

Other kinds of online youth communities help kids learn to express
themselves. Teen blogs (journal-like lists of links) are very popular, as
are personal Web sites and chat software like ICQ.

Even kids under 12 can write about their favorite obsessions online with the
help of kid-friendly portals like Berit's Best Site for Children, librarian
Berit Erickson's annotated list of sites by and for kids. Because Berit's is
written and updated by a human being, rather than a large corporation like
Disney (which owns the allegedly kid-centric Go Networks), it is far more
likely to contain references to quality content rather than to commercial
products for children.

One question about children's Internet use still remains unanswered:
Although it appears most teens and tweens are capable of behaving
responsibly online, particularly if their parents take an active but
noninvasive interest in their Internet use, many developmental psychologists
and educators worry that for kids under 12, Internet use could stifle
brain-patterning development and, in the long run, adult creativity.

The privately run Waldorf schools -- one of which is located in San
Francisco -- refuse to allow their under-12 students to use computers or
television for just this reason.

Scott Olmsted, a representative of the Waldorf school, says, "We're not
concerned with online content. Instead, we believe that children should be
free to develop their imaginations, and we feel the Internet provides
prepackaged information that makes kids passive. Plus, we feel that physical
activity leads to healthier minds. Sitting in front of a computer, pointing
and clicking, is not a picture that we support as leading to later health."

While not enough research has been done to validate or invalidate the
Waldorf schools' philosophy, it's clear that kids who think for themselves
are going to be better prepared for adulthood than those who don't. And kids
who go online to learn and join communities are definitely thinking for
themselves

-----> 11- Microsoft releases controversial new Web browser

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/08/28/internet.explorer.ap/index.html

August 28, 2001 Posted: 11:50 AM EDT (1550 GMT)

SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- The latest version of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet
Explorer browser is drawing critical barbs because it doesn't support two
rival products commonly used on Web sites.

Internet Explorer 6.0 will not automatically support the embattled Java
programming language or Netscape-style "plug-ins," though users and
developers will have tools to make the browser compatible with those
products.

Redmond-based Microsoft made the program available for download at no charge
to consumers Monday.

Microsoft decided to drop support for the plug-ins -- additional software
that lets users play music, watch videos or perform other tasks -- in favor
of Microsoft technology called ActiveX. Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan
said the move was for increased security.

The change means that certain programs, most notably QuickTime, will not
work unless the Web site developer changes the code to meet Microsoft's
requirements.

Rob Enderle, who follows Microsoft for Giga Information Systems, said the
company probably decided to make the change because it was becoming more
costly to support Netscape-style plug-ins.

Although some users and developers complained that they weren't given enough
lead time to update their systems, Enderle said he doubted the move would
have a major effect on users.

He also doubted the company was trying to gain an edge over QuickTime, a
music and video player made by Apple that competes with Microsoft's Windows
Media Player.

"If it was just a QuickTime move they would have done it in such a way that
QuickTime stayed broken," Enderle said.

User-friendly features?

A legal settlement with Java creator Sun Microsystems earlier this year kept
Microsoft from including new versions of the Java support in its system, and
the software giant responded by dropping Java completely.

Now, users will have to download a patch to see Web pages made using Java,
unless they are upgrading from a previous version of Internet Explorer.

Sun, angered over the change, has been trying to rally support among users
to force Microsoft to reinstate some sort of Java support in its system.

The free version of Internet Explorer 6.0 is virtually the same browser
users will find in Windows XP, the forthcoming version of the company's
desktop operating system, Cullinan said.

The company is touting such user-friendly features as the ability to easily
download and print pictures off Web pages and play music and videos. The
browser also will have added security.

The final code for Windows XP, due out in October, was shipped to
manufacturers Friday for mass production. That move prompted the company to
provide Internet Explorer 6.0 for download, the company said in a statement.

-----> 12- Intel to ship higher-speed wireless tech

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-7093015.html?tag=mn_hd

By Wylie Wong Staff Writer
CNET News.com
September 9, 2001, 9:00 p.m. PT

Wireless technology being pushed by Intel will get a massive dose of speed
later this year.

Intel in November plans to ship new wireless networking products that are
five times faster than current technology that lets people wirelessly link
their desktop computers and laptops.

The technology, based on the new 802.11a wireless standard, is a faster
successor to the popular 802.11b standard that has become popular in
offices, homes, cafes, hotels and airports that have built untethered
high-speed Net connections.

The new 802.11a standard, which has data-transfer rates of 54 megabits per
seconds, provides enough network bandwidth to connect more computer users to
the network, Intel executives said. The fivefold speed increase will also
allow people to access Web sites faster and exchange bigger files with each
other faster, they said.

Intel executives are targeting the new 802.11a products at small and
midsized businesses that want to use cutting-edge technology, although
consumers will also be allowed purchase them. The giant chipmaker joins
Proxim and Enterasys Networks, two companies that also plan to release their
first 802.11a products later this year.

They compete against market leaders Cisco Systems and Lucent Technologies
spinoff Agere Systems, and others such as 3Com and Symbol, in the exploding
market for wireless networking kits. Revenues in the market are expected to
grow from $1.2 billion in 2000 to $4 billion in 2003, according to analyst
firm Cahners In-Stat Group.

Analysts believe 802.11b products will remain the big seller for a few years
before 802.11a becomes popular. The two wireless standards are not
compatible, but the network-equipment makers are building hardware devices
that will allow businesses to build wireless networks where both standards
can coexist.

"We'll pretty much see all the (companies) enter the 802.11a market by the
end of 2002 and see it take off in 2003," predicted Cahners analyst Gemma
Paulo. "We're thinking that 802.11a will probably overtake 802.11b with the
majority of sales in 2004."

Cisco, Agere and 3Com representatives said their companies are developing
new wireless technology based on the faster 802.11a standard, but declined
to state when they will release the products.

Intel's forthcoming 802.11a products will come in three forms: a tiny device
that can be plugged into a desktop computer; wireless PC cards for laptops,
and a hardware device called an "access point" that connects the computers
to a high-speed Internet connection. To ease the transition to faster
technology, Intel's access point will support both 802.11a and 802.11b,
allowing businesses to support both wireless networking standards at the
same time.

Intel, which is using 802.11a chips made by start-up Atheros Communications,
is also releasing new software that allows businesses to easily manage and
install the wireless networks, said Brandi Frye, marketing director for
Intel's Wireless LAN operation.

Intel executives plan to market technology that uses both wireless
standards, but eventually they see 802.11a as the eventual winner. Like most
emerging technologies, Frye believes 802.11a products will first become
popular in the corporate market before entering the home.

"We believe everyone will go with 802.11a from the home to the corporate
market," she said. "But we're now primarily targeting the small and
medium-sized businesses and (expect to) have the early adopters drive this
adoption."

Frye said prices of 802.11a products will be comparable to 802.11b products.
An 802.11a wireless PC card will cost $179, about $69 more than the older
technology. The company's 802.11a access point will cost $449; the older
802.11b technology ranged from $299 to $699.

A 3Com spokesman said the 802.11a products that 3Com is developing and
testing don't have the range that that 802.11b products have. Intel
executives, however, say customers don't lose any performance with 802.11a.

If a laptop is 300 feet away from an 802.11b access point, the laptop can
get data transfer rates of 2mbps, an Intel spokesman said. With that same
distance using 802.11a products, the laptop can have between 2mbps and
12mbps, he said.

"Range is not an issue," the Intel spokesman said.

The new 802.11a standard does not address the growing concern over wireless
networking security, but new technology standards are being built to address
those security concerns for wireless Net connections.

Researchers have found holes in wireless networks based on 802.11b that
allow hackers to intercept and alter transmissions passing through the
wireless networks. Tech companies and an industry standards group are
working on a stronger encryption standard for 802.11a and 802.11b that could
be completed by next year, an Intel spokesman said.

Proponents of 802.11a say the newer standard is also better because it
operates in the less-used 5GHz frequency, so there won't be any
interference. The older technology, which has data-transfer rates of 11mbps,
operates in the 2.4GHz frequency, where cordless phones, microwaves and
other electronic devices operate. They can cause interference because
they're using the same portion of the airwaves.

----> 13- Microsoft's new twist in error messages

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5096572,00.html

By Stefanie Olsen, News.com September 5, 2001 11:49 AM PT URL:

The Web's once common "page not found" errors are themselves going missing,
stripped from recent versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer in favor of a
search tool provided by--you guessed it--Microsoft.

The software behemoth quietly introduced the change two weeks ago, updating
Internet Explorer's autosearch function to launch whenever someone types a
misspelled or nonexistent domain name into the browser's address bar.

Now an MSN Search page appears by default, rather than one of several
standard error pages.

For example, a search for "http://www.microsoft.con" might draw a page
suggesting alternate spellings or Web links for the mis-typed address, as
well as direct Internet Explorer users to MSN Search.

Microsoft said the update helps Web surfers by better directing them to
places they want to go. The change is an effort "to make it a less
disruptive experience to browse the Web," said Jim Cullinan, lead product
manager for Windows XP, Microsoft's forthcoming operating system. "Instead
of flashing an error message...this enhances and improves the experience for
novice users."

But some critics say the feature could be likened to a land grab on
territory that has otherwise been the Antarctica of the Internet. Error
pages are called up more than 14 million times a day worldwide via Internet
Explorer, according to Microsoft.

Because Internet Explorer is the most widely used Web browser, critics say
the change could unfairly influence competition among search engines on the
Internet.

"Microsoft always can have a plausible customer service justification in
making the service easier--and they can maintain that with the straight
face. But the net effect of this is to push to the max every possible way to
leverage the Windows monopoly," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of
nonprofit law firm Media Access Project, a group that has worked with
organizations such as Consumers Union in examining issues around Microsoft's
monopoly in desktop operating systems.

The criticism is just the latest in a long string of complaints focusing on
Microsoft's alleged monopolistic practices--criticism that has reached a
renewed crescendo as the company prepares to release Windows XP, a major
overhaul of its desktop operating system.

That launch will come as Microsoft braces for court-ordered limits on its
business in the wake of a federal appeals court decision that found the
company engaged in unlawful conduct to maintain its OS monopoly. The
Redmond, Wash.-based company has appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court.

Microsoft's decision to replace error pages with its own search tools has so
far drawn a muted response from competitors. Representatives at Yahoo and
AltaVista both declined to comment on the move, while Google did not return
phone calls Tuesday.

Himawan Gunadhi, chief executive of newly launched search service Wisenut,
said that the move clearly delivers more novice Web surfers, likely to
mis-type domain names, to MSN Search.

"For those that are competing against MSN Search, this is a challenge
because this service captures more users for MSN," he said. Gunadhi added,
however, that he doesn't see this as a threat to his company specifically
because Wisenut hopes to license its search service to major portals such as
MSN.

Giving directions There have been other attempts to profit from the address
bar of a browser.

RealNames, which is partially owned by Microsoft, lets Web surfers type
ordinary words such as travel and books in the address bar to find specific
sites. Search engines such as Google have also made available software
downloads that can add a search window directly into the browser toolbar.

Other companies have tried to reap benefits from misspelled domain names.
For example, many buy Web addresses one letter removed from popular pages
such as Yahoo to bring extra traffic to their sites and boost ad sales.
Adult Web sites also have long purchased commonly misspelled terms to
redirect traffic to their Web sites--a ploy that is unaffected by
Microsoft's changes to the address bar.

Microsoft's move ups the ante, however, because no one had previously
intercepted standard error pages with their own search pages.

Technically, Microsoft added a feature that resolves DNS (domain name
system) errors to its autosearch tool, exploiting a function of the Web
browser that lets operators wire the address bar to a search engine.

Normally, when a Web surfer misspells an address or looks for an
unregistered domain name, the Internet service provider will search for the
appropriate server to deliver the page. If it can't find the server, an
error page will be sent.

Rather than default to an error page, Microsoft can deliver another page in
its place.

The MSN Search page may also list "featured sites" that search editors deem
relevant to the miss-keyed term. The links can be chosen from MSN content
partners and advertising partners, as well as popular sites on the Web,
according to the page. Microsoft also discloses that it accepts payments for
links to advertising partners.

By default Autosearch is not new. The feature, which has been available
since the introduction of IE 5, lets Web surfers type a word such as travel
in the address bar and pull up various Web links without having to visit a
search engine. Internet Explorer users can specify which search engine they
would like to use within the address bar, but the default taps MSN Search.

"In IE 5.0, autosearch was improved," Microsoft's Cullinan said. "A new
functionality allows that if you type something in, and, if there's no
direct link to a particular Web site, it will pull up a search page. The
default is the MSN Search."

The feature should work for all misspelled domain names. However, it does
not work consistently for Web surfers wired to the Internet through
different proxy servers. Many corporations use proxy servers to protect
their networks, filter Web pages, and act as a general buffer between the
Internet and their systems.

Enterprise and network clients, ISPs, and individual Web surfers can change
how the feature works if they choose, Cullinan said. Web surfers, for
example, can change their settings in the autosearch settings dialog box.

Through the autosearch feature, Microsoft has been able to locate patterns
in the search paths resulting in errors. It has also noted that many people
go directly to a search engine after failing to find their Web sites,
prompting the new feature.

David Conrad, chief technology officer at Nominum, said that although no
other browser has done this before, others such as Opera and Netscape can
easily do so. Nominum provides technology for domain-name addressing.

"In this one particular case, it's Microsoft's attempt to be a bit more
helpful," Conrad said. "This is just a cute little hack. The browser knows
when a user types something wrong, and any browser can take that information
and do something with it."

"For Microsoft, it could get a lot of good information for a domain name
registrar," Conrad said.

Netscape spokeswoman Catherine Corre said the company is looking into
possibilities for a similar feature, but for now believes that its browser
has not dealt with a high enough volume of misspelled domain names to
warrant such a service. Netscape currently allows Web visitors to type in
common words into the address line, through its Internet Keyword System,
letting them go straight to a Web site using natural language.

Others say the move is threatening because it could extend Microsoft's
monopoly.

Media Access Project's Schwartzman likened the service to Smart Tags, a
Windows service that links common terms on Web pages to Microsoft-designated
pages. Microsoft pulled the Smart Tags feature from the upcoming version of
Windows XP after it sparked a storm of criticism.

Schwartzman said that Microsoft has a history of creating default settings
in its Windows operating system and Internet Explorer browser that point to
Microsoft services and omit competing products.

"Each of these individual, tiny insults may seem reasonably benign or
trivial, but when you put them together they constitute a systematic effort
to leverage their monopoly," he said. "Standing alone it might not be such a
terrible thing. But it's not standing alone."

----> 14- Napster Eclipsed by Newcomers

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,46596,00.html

Wired News Report
2:40 p.m. Sep. 6, 2001 PDT

Months after shutting down its file-trading service, Napster has finally
been displaced by four new applications that allow users to trade music,
movies and software, a new study concludes.

Four new file-sharing systems -- FastTrack, Audiogalaxy, iMesh and Gnutella
-- were used to download 3.05 billion files during August, according to
research firm Webnoize.

That's more copyrighted material than was ever shared using Napster.

At the beginning of this year when it was at the height of its popularity,
Napster users traded nearly 3 billion files.

That's bad news for the major record labels hoping to stop the trading of
digital music.

"Despite the millions of dollars spent trying to kill off pirate networks,
the popularity of peer-to-peer file-sharing continues to grow," said Matt
Bailey, the Webnoize analyst who heads up the monthly statistical study of
peer-to-peer services.

"Peer-to-peer users are getting more free content than they ever did through
Napster," he added.

FastTrack, the most popular file-trading application on the Internet with
970 million files on its network, has seen traffic grow 60 percent every
month over the course of the year. FastTrack users can trade music, movies
and software.

Audiogalaxy is a close second with 910 million files, although that service
is limited only to music. IMesh has 640 million files on its network and
Gnutella 530 million files.

"Consumers have been hooked on the idea of sharing files," Bailey said.
"Peer-to-peer networks are gaining in popularity despite Napster being shut
down."

Bailey predicted peer-to-peer traffic will accelerate in coming months as
college students -- the most active peer-to-peer users -- return to school.

"For the recording and motion picture industries, the peer-to-peer problem
is about to go from bad to worse," he said.

However, all of the new services fall short of Napster at the height of its
popularity. Last February, Napster users traded 2.79 billion files before a
court-ordered injunction effectively shut down the file-sharing application.
Napster has been more or less dormant since.

The company was sued by the world's biggest record labels --Vivendi
Universal's Universal Music, Sony Music, AOL Time Warner's Warner Music, EMI
Group and Bertelsmann's BMG -- in December 1999 for copyright infringement.

However, Napster's website still remains popular despite the
multi-billion-dollar lawsuit and the lack of a peer-to-peer file-trading
service. Through June, the company's website -- which offers a spattering of
new music and news -- drew 9.86 million unique users, according to Jupiter
Media Metrix.

"This shows that Napster's brand remains strong," Bailey said.

Napster has since teamed up with one of the recording giants that sued it,
the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, to launch a secure,
subscription-based service.

The two companies hope Napster users will continue to come back until
Napster launches its two-tiered, pay service later this year. Bertelsmann
loaned the upstart company $50 million to develop a network that would
comply with copyright law. Reuters contributed to this report.

----> 15- Open source, Microsoft, and Apple

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0109/06.opensource.php

Open source, Microsoft and Apple. Three vastly different approaches to the
future of software writing and distribution. And sometimes those approaches
bump heads.

Miguel de Icaza and a couple of hundred volunteer programmers want "to
rewrite the rules of the software business by creating and giving away word
processors, spreadsheets, email readers and other programs that mimic the
look and feel of Microsoft's signature products," according to the

Of course, that means taking on Microsoft. However, some independent
observers think de Icaza has a shot, as does Microsoft, the Post posits.
This despite the fact that Microsoft began a series of attacks against the
free-software movement that supports projects such as de Icaza's. The
threat, in the Big M's eyes: free software is becoming big business, being
used by cost-conscious schools, businesses and government agencies.

"Funded by venture capitalists and public markets, upstarts such as de
Icaza's Ximian Inc., as well as some of Microsoft's biggest rivals, are
releasing free products into the public domain with increasing frequency,"
the Post article said. "Sun Microsystems recently bought a company that
makes a suite of programs that compete with Microsoft Office and began
giving the software away. And IBM pledged $1 billion to help research and
develop the free Linux operating system, an alternative to Microsoft Windows
... Some experts say that Microsoft's dominance may erode further as
developing nations embrace free software as the cheapest way to enter the
digital age."

Of course, Microsoft's $25 billion-a-year business is based on the idea that
software can be owned and sold and that the source code is proprietary. On
the other hand, de Icaza and his compadres believe that everything should be
"open source" a la Linux and the Apache Web server.

Free sounds good, but consumers have been slower to adopt free software. The
Post said that much of the hesitance is due to the fact that open source
software "still requires some technical expertise to use, and many home
users prefer Microsoft's simpler approach."

Three years ago, de Icaza and his group came out with a program that gave
Linux Windows-like menus and icons. Then they released a Word-ish word
processor, Excel-like spreadsheet and Outlook-like e-mail app. Now de
Icaza's group is working to duplicating a subset of Microsoft's .Net
initiative.

Microsoft seems unsure on how to respond to all this, the Post says.
Initially, they argued that open source software might spell the death of
the industry. Then they modified their stance, saying that the company's
main problem isn't with free software per se but more with an open-source
licensing scheme that holds that if you use open-source code, you have to
put your enhancements in the public domain and offer it to others with the
same privileges that you got (in other words, free).

In July, Microsoft changed its stance again. At an open-source convention in
San Diego, the company said it wasn't actually against the licensing model,
but wanted to help people make informed choices. The company has also
started to push a "shared source" program that lets select Microsoft
partners to peek at, but not copy, their blueprints.

Meanwhile, Apple has sort of embraced the open source movement. The core of
Mac OS X is dubbed Darwin, a "super modern" kernel that offers, among other
things, protected memory, preemptive multitasking, a Mach microkernel, and
lots of Unix power features. It is also a completely open source kernel.

"The Open Source movement is revolutionizing the way operating systems
evolve, and Apple is leading the industry by becoming the first major OS
provider to make it's core operating system available to Open Source
developers," said Avie Tevanian, Apple's senior vice president of software
engineering, at the 1999 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference. "We look
forward to working with the Open Source community to enhance the feature
set, performance and quality of our Mac OS X products."

Apple has posted the underlying programming commands of Darwin
on its Web site. If they agree to Apple's
license agreement, developers can download the source code, change it and
include it in their own products without paying royalties or license fees.

"We think the open source community is going to be incredibly excited about
the technology we're putting into open source," Jobs said at the 1999 WWDC.
"Licensees can make products out of it and ship them, they can make products

out of it and ship them on other platforms, they can compete with you, they
can make alternate versions. Basically, they can do anything they want.
There are two camps of people in this. The first camp includes the folks
like Microsoft and Sun with Solaris, and others who have closed operating
systems who feel that they have too much at stake to put them into open
source -- and maybe they're right."

However, developers must make their source-code modifications publicly
available, and Apple can incorporate any changes into future versions of Mac
OS X.

Not everyone is thrilled with Apple's open source stance. In a May 2
world of technology, Apple's assertion that it's embraced open source
software is simply not true.

Leibovitch opined that Apple's only interest in open source "is what it can
extract, both in technology and publicity." Despite appearances, Darwin's
dependence on free software doesn't indicate that Apple has changed its
self-serving attitude towards the community, he said.

"Because Apple is using technology licensed without restrictions, rather
than under the GPL commonly found in Linux software, the company can use
Mach code, exploit what the open source community has done, make proprietary
modifications, and give back nothing of substance," Leibovitch wrote. "And
that appears to be exactly what Apple has done."

Among his complaints are:

The main reason TrueType isn't supported as well under free operating
systems as it should be is that developers fear they might run afoul of
Apple's patents on TrueType.

Apple hurts the open source community by refusing to offer any open source
support for its QuickTime streaming video format.

Leibovitch feels that Apple has always been a company of closed software and
hardware. And he said, "no one outside the world of Mac advocates actually
buys into the myth that exploiting Mach represents a change in Apple's
closed corporate attitude."

Apple, of course, would beg to differ. On its Darwin FAQ page, the company
said they're opening up its source because they believe the open source
model is the most effective form of development for certain types of
software. "By pooling expertise with the open source development community,
we expect to improve the quality, performance and feature set of our
software," Apple said. The company also stated that they "realize many
developers enjoy working with open source software, and we want to provide
them the opportunity to use that kind of environment while delivering
solutions for Apple customers."

-----> 16- Anyone for Photoshop Tennis?

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,47132,00.html

By Jenn Shreve
2:00 a.m. Sep. 27, 2001 PDT
A hush falls over the small crowd of spectators. Minutes tick slowly by.
Suddenly, a player volleys.

The announcer cries out, "Rush has ditched his first direction and turned
around with a colored filter, practically obliterating the layers
underneath."

Welcome to Photoshop tennis, an online contest in which the players are Web
designers, a Photoshop document is the ball, and a send button is the
racquet.

Courtside seats are available to anyone who logs on during a live match, and
instant replays are always available.

The rules of the game are simple.

In Photoshop tennis, two designers send an image document back and forth,
adding one layer for each turn.

The document is posted to a website in real time, accompanied by announcer
commentary.

The match ends pretty much whenever the designers decide they've had enough.
Sometimes it's hours later, at which point "audience members" vote on a
winner.

Photoshop works using a system of layers -- background, foreground and
innumerable layers in between, each containing a different element of the
image.

The prize?

It's a great way to show off your chops," said its inventor Jim Coudal,
founder of Coudal Partners, a Chicago advertising and design agency.

Coudal, who describes the game as an "international, cooperative,
quasi-competitive, independent thing," came up with the idea this summer on
a slow Friday afternoon while he and an online pal "whacked a file back and
forth" to kill time.

Soon after, Coudal was contacting designers he knew and respected to play in
official matches.

With four test matches and four official matches completed, Coudal's site
now gets around 1,000 visitors a day, mostly folks from ad agencies and
design shops, according to server logs.

Designers are now contacting him, wanting to know how they too can play.

"We get amazing comments from people," Coudal says. "It's only four weeks
old, but people are already convinced on what is the right and wrong way to
play it."

Like many other sporting events, Photoshop tennis was postponed following
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast. The next game is scheduled
for Friday, Sept. 28.

Voters, he says, prefer a back-and-forth that tells some sort of story
versus, say, a match that delves into more high-minded explorations of
typography or color.

Easier said than done.

"It was fun, but it was also hard and frustrating," said designer Michael
Schmidt about a recent match, which he won. "You're sitting there waiting
for someone to fuck up your graphics. Someone is pulling a design in one
direction, and somebody else is trying to pull it in another direction. He
can take something you've worked on for two hours and he can kill it in a
spate of two seconds."

Competition is abundant in the design field, where critical recognition is
important resume fodder.

But in the competition for jobs, designers are not fighting an opponent so
much as hoping what they've done is better than everybody else's.

Photoshop tennis gives designers a truly new experience -- the chance to
kick butt in real time.

"It is about winning, making the opponent forfeit the game," explains
Schmidt, who runs his own design website, k10k. "It's cool in that we have
nothing like that. When we have websites, we're all very supportive of each
other."

If the game contains any meta-message, to use design parlance, it is a
tribute to Adobe Photoshop's market saturation. The software has 4 million
users worldwide, according to the company.

"It doesn't seem like there's any software as ubiquitous as Photoshop," said
designer Rosecrans Baldwin, who has announced several matches. "People never
really consider that there are other tools for graphic design out there."

The software's worldwide popularity means that designers from around the
globe can communicate, visually, using a common language.

"I think the larger issue is that the separation of physical and
geopolitical space between like-minded individuals is getting less and less
all the time," said Coudal. "Games like this allow relationships in this odd
modern online environment to grow."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=->
Wesley A. Fryer email: [email protected]
"Tools for the TEKS: Integrating Technology in the
Classroom" (A TechEdge column)

Column website: http://www.wtvi.com/teks

³It¹s philosophy, not technology, that is going to make a difference in your
classroom.²
Dr Allen Glenn, Dean of COE, Univ of Washington