NET WATCH
During a recent Guardian debate over the commercialisation of the net, ntk.net’s editor Danny O’Brien complained that banner advertising was now taking longer to download than the actual content of most web pages. Users with local dial-up connections find this particularly frustrating, so finding a way to circumvent the bandwidth- eating ads could prove incredibly popular. While rumours of the existence of software that can avoid banner advertising has been around for as long as the ads themselves, a workable system has yet to materialise. Enter www.calltheshots.com, a site that claims to offer users the power to select different parts of web pages, avoid parts they do not want, including the adverts, and to even mix and match different websites on the same page. The ad men are taking it all very seriously. Last week, the Internet Advertising Bureau said it was investigating the site and looking at the possibility of legal action.
Feeding the world’s hungry by shopping for clothes or CDs seems to be one of those too- good-to-be-fair things that the web keeps coming up with. But that is exactly what the people behind iPledge.net – an online charity mall – claim they are able to do. Each time users buy online, iPledge forwards a percentage of the sales price as a charitable contribution to the non-profit organisation of the users choice. Retail groups already signed up include Amazon.co.uk and online music store Blackstar. Note that the incredibly popular Hungersite.com, which pioneered this kind of thing, has upped its cups of free food from one to three, per person, per day.
Is being a Microsoft Windows user weighing heavily on you at the moment? There are alternatives, one of which fits on a single floppy. QNX includes operating system, net browser, file editor, game, graphical user interface (GUI) and modem or network interface. It’s a marvel of software compression. Download the demo at www.qnx.com.
You can now try your hand at dabbling on the United States markets without getting burnt. www.fantasystockmarket.com is a trading simulator that enables you to “buy” and “sell” shares on all the major US stock exchanges, led by the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.