Outline/Quotes

Ed. - Editorial comments

1.83

Internet Stock Mania: the Village Idiot's View

I wrote my first column on the value of ISPs for Boardwatch Magazine two years ago, in April 1997. That’s a long time ago in dog-style Internet years. Using the tools of financial valuation I was familiar with, I felt ISPs were being undervalued in the public markets. I have learned a boatload about the ISP business; growth rates, margin potential and the economics of deploying a network, among other things. On the other hand, I don’t really know any more about financial valuation than when I started. Therefore, my criteria for valuing businesses have not changed.

Ed. - The Village Idiot doesn't mean to burst your bubble, but he questions the value of the Internet stocks.

6.74

Home Networking Ain't Easy

Like many of you, over the years I have become the computer tech-support person for my family and friends. And while I don't mind being cornered at the grocery store or getting panicky calls for help, the hours are long and the pay is lousy. And sometimes I am just not up to the task. I found that out the hard way, when I set up a home network here at chez Strom.

Outline/Quotes

Ed. - Editorial comments

48.59

Steve Forbes to announce candidacy online

Magazine publisher Steve Forbes, who oversees the financial magazine that bears his family name, will formally make his second bid for the presidential post on Tuesday on the Internet, he told a gathering of Silicon Valley executives last night. In the past, Forbes has expressed his opposition to Internet taxes, citing concerns that they would slow the development of the industry.

Ed. - With Texas Gov. George Bush also planning candidacy, it would be interesting to hear Forbes, "Read my lips ..."

0.42

Top of the Line Monitors

Monitors continue to plummet in price and improve in image quality. CADALYST Labs rates 15 large-format monitors from Compaq, Cornerstone, EIZO Nanao, Hitachi, IBM, Iiyama, Mitsubishi, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic, Philips Electronics, Princeton, Sampo Tech., Sony, and ViewSonic. And the winner is...

5.09

Hot Skills and Cold Cash

With the well-reported labor shortages in the industry (see CIO Section 1, Dec. 15, 1997/Jan. 1, 1998 ), CIOs across the country are groping for strategies to keep competitors and consulting houses from luring their best IT talent. When money talks, nobody walks.

0.45

The Good Times Virus : An Urban Legend for the Internet

Good Times will re-write your hard drive. It will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer. It will recalibrate your refrigerator's coolness setting so all your ice cream goes melty. It will demagnetize the strips on all your credit cards, screw up the tracking on your television and use subspace-field harmonics to scratch any CDs you try to play.
It was only a matter time before urban legends made their way from our coffee tables to our desktops .

1.53

Net Surfer: Portals to the World

The buzzword on the Web these days is "portal." In common usage, the word means a door or gateway, from an impressive arch to a lowly back door. Similarly, in Netspeak, you can think of portals as the grand, imposing entryways through which you sashay on to the Web or the tiny openings through which you infiltrate it. It depends on your self-image, I guess. Portals are all the rage these days, but the concept is an old one.

0.27

Marketing Needs Innovation

Sub-$1,000 systems. Project delays and cancellations due to Year 2000 jitters. Big brand names wading into the direct sales channel. These and a number of other factors combined are making the PC market an even nastier place to compete in than usual. When the going gets tough, the tough have to get innovative.

Ed. - Well, they've already come up with free email, free PCs and free long distance service. What can possibly be next? Free cars with the promise to always buy gas from Exxon?

0.18

Desktop Video: It’s Not Just for Pro’s Anymore.

Welcome to this three-part series on desktop digital video. In the next three months, we're going to explain just what is involved in turning your raw, uncut, jumpy, jittery, four minutes of   "forgot the camera was rolling" video into something that your family and friends will actually enjoy watching.

.93

Take Command: A Strategy Game Feature

What will it take to relieve the strategy genre from the grip of mediocrity? Let's face it, strategy games have been plagued by a host of me-too titles, brain-dead AI, useless features for the sake of having features, and a degree of pretension on the order of calling yourself The Artist Formerly Known as Ginger Spice. Thankfully, it seems as though the coming year will feature games less concerned with following trends than with setting them.

0.36

`Randomness' Could Lead Hackers to Your Encryption Keys

They may look harmless, but screensavers could betray you while you're out at lunch. Two cryptographers have discovered that the randomness of the ``keys'' that are used to encode encrypted documents could be their downfall. The more random a private signature key is, the harder it is to crack encrypted files. But by scanning hard drives for chunks of data that are particularly random, it was found that it is possible to weed out keys stored on a disc.

1.43

Mac vs. PC Creativity

Which is the better computer for an artist? Ask this question to Mac owner or a PC owner, and you'll get the same answer: "My computer is the best." After all, why would someone choose one platform over the other and stick with it, unless he or she thought it was better? The truth is a bit more complicated. As Apple's worldwide market share has shriveled to less than three percent of computers sold, hasn't the PC simultaneously gained all the advantages of the Mac? Well, at the risk of becoming the latest casualty in the Mac vs. PC religious wars, here's my opinion: The Mac is noticeably superior.

0.08

The Dawn of A New Age In Communications

We live at the beginning of the age of convergence. Widely predicted over a decade ago, we are now experiencing the bizarre phenomenon of the marriage, intermarriage and multiple integration of entire flocks of electronic devices. Convergence is progressing so quickly and strongly, that many analysts see the imminent melding of 10 or 20 electronic devices into one.

0.93

Full Steam Ahead For pcOrder.com

Newly public pcOrder.com Inc. is being buoyed by the same investor euphoria that has sent other so-called .com stocks soaring. Investors reacted positively when the Austin-based company said it will provide its portal solution to help launch an Internet reseller called BestPricePC.com. The Internet-based superstore will offer a large product selection and easy-to-use tools

0.82

Mark Harrington

Compaq's Brisk Slap At Internet Retailers Was Cold But Needed

The brisk slap that greeted Internet retailers in the form of termination letters last month could only have been pulled off by Compaq Computer. And a necessary slap it was. Traditional retailers who have bit back their competitive instincts by maintaining Compaq's minimum advertised pricing policies and playing by other rules have been justifiably furious over the flagrant skirting of MAPs by the likes of Buy.com.

2.17

Online Shopping: 10 Tips for Direct Success

Although buying direct can yield unbeatable values, it takes a savvy consumer to find the best deals and avoid common mail-order mistakes. Fortunately, it's easy to save time, money, and aggravation by adhering to some basic tenets of the direct channel experience.

0.23

Entangled in the Web of life

No one, not even the National Computer Board, knew if the Internet was just a passing fad or a reality. But this did not deter Mr Stephen Yeo, who has just left the chief executive job at the NCB, from proving that the Internet is a key opportunity for exploitation for businesses and governments.

4.54

Get Into Web Portals

Portals are the latest Web craze - in the news daily as objects of mergers and acquisitions. They're the first page you see when you connect to the Net. Portals are the ABCs, CBSs and NBCs of the Web — the most fought-over territory in the Net gold rush.

Ed. - Don't expect the craze to end soon as companies scramble to gain Web Influence through portals.

0.19

The Future of Cyber Banking in Japan

Internet banking services, backed by the made-in-Japan SECE security protocol, are taking off in Japan. But whether the flight will be a smooth one for the Japanese economy depends on whether Japan's financial institutions willingly take the pilot's seat or are content to just go along for the ride.

Ed. - Banking online is growing at an impressive rate. Internet Valley surveyed the landscape, and returned with a full survey of the Web presence for the
Top 100 American Banks.

0.38

Recent years have brought tremendous changes in the computer industry, in terms of available technology, the telecommunications field, and global information systems. How have Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union fared in this rapidly changing field and market? This paper will take an informative look at the history of computer development behind the iron curtain, the challenges of trying to catch up to Western technology, and will discuss how that has evolved into the modern information and technology market in that area today.