Computimes has learned of recent delays of up to two days for aspiring new subscribers to TINET, despite the fact that the ISP has advertised a guaranteed turnaround time of 30 minutes, writes Tom Moriarty. TINET assures us that the delays were a one-off problem and that they can now deliver access within 30 minutes after a new subscriber registers by 'phone. IOL guarantees a 2-hour turnaround and Indigo says that registration normally takes only 2 hours but that they guarantee access within 24 hours. It seems to Computimes that Indigo's approach is sensible and there is no real need for instant access. Readers may disagree and Computimes will be happy to recieve any war story emails. By the way, the piped music on the ISPs' phone lines ranges from Hothouse Flowers to Beethoven to Stravinsky (we think); Greensleeves appears to have been banished utterly.
E-mail alert: Last week the United States Department of Energy documented a potentially devastating security flaw - first discovered by a Finnish research team - in three popular email clients, Outlook Express, Outlook 98, and Messenger Mail, which allows outsiders to send malicious email attachments capable of formatting hard-drives and worse. The Microsoft patch, posted last Monday, is ineffective and users are being advised to download a newer version. Network Associates, WebCom and WorldTalk are also offering patches to fix the bug, while Netscape has said it will have one available within the next two weeks. Bigfoot Partners, which runs a free email redirection service, is offering to reroute mail to protect hard drives; users who sign up for the company's Virus Scan service will now have their email put through a protective buffer.
Heartwarming stuff: Feeling a little cynical about the world this Bank Holiday morning? Don't despair because a new email service, called Heartwarmers4u, has been launched to provide you with daily inspirational stories from around the world. The topics range from angels to accidents, stopping off to collect babies and boyfriends along the way. And, as if that wasn't sufficiently saccharine, sorry sweet, online friends actually exchange Heartwarmers4u gifts. Let's hope the gifts don't contain any system-crashing attachments. Free subscriptions can be obtained by email at heartwarmers-on@heartwarmers4u.com or at www.heartwarmers4u.com.
Expensive vista: An exceedingly fortunate individual has struck it rich to the tune of $3.5 million after selling his Website address to Compaq. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Compaq have paid Laughing Jack (well, he's laughing now) Marshall of San Jose one of the highest prices ever for the rights to www.altavista.com, bringing to a close a two-year struggle. Digital's (now Compaq's) AltaVista search engine didn't exist when Marshall bought the AltaVista domain name in January 1994 for his start-up company, AltaVista Technology, so when Digital launched its search engine of the same name, it opted for www.altavista.digital.com. Obviously, confusion reigned and many surfers unwittingly found themselves at Marshall's site. In addition to the cash, Marshall has also earned himself a permanent link from the search engine to his new Website, www.photoloft.com.
On the pig's back: Doreen Hogg and Sarah Baker, who operate the Hogbak suite of IT farm software, have joined up with Agrinet, which provides the farm computer package developed by Avonmore Waterford Group and Irish Farm Computers. The thinking behind the move is to enable Hogbak's clients keep pace with technological developments and avail of systems developed by farming software experts specifically for Irish farming conditions.
Safety first: With summer bugs sending shockwaves through the industry, Safe Technologies have issued a timely reminder of their anti-virus software, optimised for firewalls. Safe Protect Gateway (formerly Virusafe Firewall) has been available for 18 months, unlike a rival product which we credited last week with being first in the field, is compatible with all major firewalls and includes anti-vandal protection and protection against hostile active content such as Java applets and ActiveX controls.
Business to drive europe online: Growth in the Internet market across Europe will be driven by business-to-business electronic commerce and is expected to reach the $11.8 billion mark by 2001, the results of a new study by Forrester Research show. Consumer access will move at a much slower pace, climbing to an expected $4.6 billion in 2001. Forrester said contributing factors hampering consumer market growth include low PC penetration, high local phone rates, few provider choices, inconsistent network performance and a dearth of multilingual Web content.
Dell sells: Dell Computer's rapid growth in PC shipments within the United States in the second quarter pushed it into joint first place with long-time market leader Compaq, according to reports released last week. Meanwhile, IBM dropped from the top five ranks of PC vendors in terms of combined commercial and consumer PC shipments within the United States. Worldwide, Compaq remained on top and significantly ahead of the rest of the pack, with Dell and IBM ranked two and three respectively. See graphic for European data.
School's in: Interactive Avenue has launched a new training service for the corporate sector. Entitled Internet Advantage, the program deals with different browsers, email packages and upgrades. The same company has also announced two new Internet design-orientated courses for August: `Java Lite', in association with Lionet Technologies, is aimed at Web designers who need Java knowledge but lack programming skills while `Internet Authoring' focuses on the design and development of Websites.
In Brief...Esat Telecom has awarded Saratoga Systems a £stg 120,000 contract to supply its customer relationship management system on Avenue 4.1. . . Microsoft's Windows 98 upgrade looks set to match sales of Windows 95 over its first three months on the market. . . Intel has announced its intention to delay shipment of its Pentium II Xeon chip for servers running four processors for a number of weeks as it repairs a second bug with a software fix in the complex processor. . .
Modem Worldcartoonweb.com
World's top cartoonists invade cyberspace.
www.anu.ie/site/quote.tmpl
An online quote generator, including prices for domain name registration, domain name services, blocks of Web space, extra ftp accounts, statistics pages, POP 3 e-mail accounts and auto-forwarding e-mail accounts.
www.webdevs.com/monicacam
Quite probably the best Monica Lewinsky site in the world, ever and the place to gaze forlornly at the comings and goings outside 1100 Connecticut Avenue in Washington, the offices of her lawyers.
Textbites"At first glance, the Coats' Communications Decency Act (Mark II) bill appears to be a relatively benign provision that purportedly applies only to commercial pornographers who market to minors, but it is a Trojan horse. Beneath the veneer, it covers any Website that has a commercial component and which has material that some community will consider `harmful to minors.' This ranges from the electronic bookseller Amazon.com to the EFF's site, which sells books and T-shirts."
- Barry Steinhardt, president of the watchdog organization Electronic Frontier Foundation speaking out against a US Senate approved bill making it a crime for Websites to allow minors to view material that is "harmful".
Computimes is edited by Tom Moriarty. Monitor compiled by Conor Pope. Send email only (no attachments, faxes or letters please) to computimes@irish-times.ie (private correspondence should be marked NOT FOR PUBLICATION).