Tuesday, February 9

Chris Oakes' Wired piece The Myth of the 56K Modem looks at growing public dissatisfaction with the low speeds on public telephone networks.

First there was free email. Then free web pages. Then free Internet access so you could get to your free web pages. Now there's a free computer so you can use your free Internet access to get to your free web pages. Now if only you could get a free house where you could keep your free computer. Reuters has a background piece on Free-PC, which plans to give away 10,000 Compaq PCs on a first-come, first-serve basis in exchange for detailed demographic information and advertising.

Jeff Clark notes Zoom driver updates for their Lucent Venus chipset modems.

Ludo Frederick found drivers for the ACI Technologies Diablo.

Fluff

The mystery of who bought Mark McGwire's 70th homerun baseball has been solved: Spawn comics creator Todd McFarlane bought the ball for US$3 million.

Former Child Star Central reports on Different Strokes star Gary Coleman's trial and Greg Brady's marriage.

---

Friday, February 12

PC World has an extended feature on high-bandwidth options, including V.90 modems, DLS, cable, ISDN and satellite. PC World also looks at modem bonding, and has test reviews.

The Aztech USB Modem is just $99, and is USB modem number 7.

Paul De Groot of The Edmonton Journal reviews 3Com's LanModem, a $450 V.90 router that can connect a network of computers to the Internet.

MCI WorldCom plans to offer DSL to business customers in the second quarter.

Lycos lets readers vote for their favorite 56K modem page. Not that we're not saying you should vote for 56K.COM or anything like that.

Artt LaFlamme's page tracks Lucent LT Win Modem firmware. Jeff's page mirrors Richard Gamberg's LT Win Modem page.

Free computer follies

Free-PC had 10,000 Compaq PCs to give away, but 500,000 people showed up, including 56K.COM readers who heard it here Tuesday.

If you prefer your computer in Bondi Blue, you can apply for one of 25,000 free iMacs from One Stop Communications. The catch is that you have to agree to buy $100 worth of merchandise per month for three years from an allied web site.

Previous week