Tuesday, April 20

Justin Wilson found a Global Village Teleport V.90 patch via the MacFixIt site. The patch corrects a problem which prevents a Teleport from working with a Keyspan USB serial adapter. You only need the patch if you have a Keyspan USB adapter.

Friday's link to Encanto's free web server offer was bad. The correct link is http://www.encanto.com/products/freeego/frameset.html.

ActionTec's new Call Waiting Modem gives you the option to disconnect in order to accepting incoming calls. The modem supports all flavors of Windows, as well as DOS, OS/2, and Linux. The description sounds too good to be true:

Using the Call Waiting Service available on most telephone systems, the modems monitor the phone line for incoming voice calls while the user is online. The user is notified when a call comes in, and has the option of ignoring the incoming voice call or picking up the phone to speak with who is calling without disconnecting the data connection! The user then has the option of accepting the incoming call or taking a message and remaining online.

Paradyne is preparing a US$85 million public stock offering.

A News.com article looks at 3Com's efforts to refocus their business in the wake of the commoditization of the analog modem market.

Sega has finalized pricing and delivery date of the Sega Dreamcast, a 128-bit game console that also offers Internet access via a 56K modem. Look for it September 9, 1999 in the U.S. with an expected retail price of $199.

Two U.S. Congressmen from Virginia are preparing legislation that would provide incentives for telecommunications companies to offer high speed Internet access in rural areas.

Apple has a beta of QuickTime 4.0, which adds support for streaming sound and video. The Streaming Server portion of QuickTime 4.0 is designed to compete with the likes of RealAudio and is available now for Mac OS Server. Streaming Server is being released as as open source project, and will be ported to other platforms.

PC Magazine reviews the usual high bandwidth suspects: cable, DSL, and satellite.

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Friday, April 23

CERT issued an advisory concerning the CIH (or Chernobyl) virus which will be triggered on Monday, April 26, the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor incident. The virus attempts to erase the computer's hard drive and overwrite the system BIOS. Windows 95 and 98 operating systems are affected.

Actiontec released the first combination modem and network PCI card. The Mini-PCI Combo Card uses a new, smaller PCI form factor.

A set of new products from Ramp Networks help connect small networks to the Internet:

• The WebRamp 200i integrates a four-port Ethernet hub with an internal V.90 modem and a serial port for an external modem or ISDN TA.
• The WebRamp 400i integrates a four-port Ethernet hub with an ISDN terminal adapter.
• The WebRamp 700s isn't an access device at all. Instead, it provides firewall security between your network and the Internet.

Intel is preparing to enter the ISP and data-hosting business in order to diversify its business.

AT&T is making a US$58 billion bid for MediaOne, the third largest cable company in the U.S.

Iridium CEO Edward Staiano resigned on Thursday. Iridium's extensive satellite network provides telephone service almost anywhere on the globe. The company lost US$440 million in Q4 1998 and has sold only 3,000 satellite phones.

Recent discoveries of e-commerce security glitches have created an urgent rush to fix security holes.

Friday's Rilly Rilly Interesting Web Site Award™

GoTo.com puts a twist on the search engine economics. Sure, you can play with your keywords and metatags to get your site to the top of the list, but you can also pay to get top keyword ranking. The more you pay, the higher your rating. Unpaid links always appear below paid links.

What makes GoTo.com really cool is that they tell you how much the site is paying to be at the top of the list. When I searched for "music," Amazon.com appeared as the number one keyword match because they were paying 72 cents per click-through, while Tickets.com was paying just 71 cents per click-through.

If this seems too mercenary, try searching for "music" on Yahoo!, InfoSeek, or any other search engine. You're guaranteed to see a keyword-related banner advertisement in your search results.

AltaVista is now offering a similar program, which they call paid relevant links. Salon's Scott Rosenberg examines the idea in "Is AltaVista on the take?."

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