Internet relay chat (IRC) became easier when “talking heads” arrived: you could have a face for each member of the conversation, even if it wasn’t their real face. Now Lake Clear Interactive has produced IRC Toons, a Windows program that can be downloaded free from www.irctoons.com. It lets you create characters for use on IRC systems.
They can also be animated. Similar “avatars” are being used on Worlds Away, www.worldsaway.com and at VirtuallyDating. com, now being tested in Vancouver in Canada. This virtual playground for singles will be aimed mainly at North Americans, but anyone can join in; it is also free during testing.
Harry Potter? Who? For those hooked on the adventures of JK Rowling’s boy wizard there are a few sites worth looking at.
Jenna’s Unofficial Harry Potter Fan Club site, at www.geocities.com/harrypotterfans, offers The Encyclopedia Potterica, and there’s another unofficial site, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, nearby which can be found at www.geocities.com/hogwarts/.
Potter publishers have official sites in the United States and the United Kingdom. The latter includes the opening chapter of Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets to get visitors hooked.
Yep is a new “power tool” for Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and 5 Web browsers. The software provides instant chat with other Yep users at the same site at the same time, has a “follow-me” feature so “Yepsters” can lead one another around, and lets users post reminder notes to themselves on the Web. Yep keeps personal surfing statistics (time spent online, and so forth) and also feeds information to Yep.com, WebSideStory’s portal. Yep.com rates websites by quality and popularity, with frequently bizarre results. The Yep plug-in can be downloaded from www.get.yep.com.
The German online auction house, Ricardo.de, has just opened a site in the UK at www. goricardo.co.uk as part of its global expansion plans. What makes Ricardo.de different is that it features 10 hours of live-moderated auctions daily. The UK site isn’t very active at the moment, but the company says it will be promoted this month, and ultimately “it aims to become the largest single point of trading in the UK”. The first items to be auctioned when the site goes live, it says, include Formula One racing cars and outfits, Lennox Lewis’s boxing gloves, a Tiger Moth biplane, and a one-man submarine.
Music lovers can now make a donation to charity while buying CDs online via the Music Aid website at www.musicaid.org. The site links to two British and two American CD shops. The website also provides details of the World Music Foundation, a registered charity founded in London in 1997.
Seventies cult band Abba have reportedly turned down $1-billion for a 100 concert reunion tour. The offer was apparently made by a US-British constorium. To relive the glory, try the official website www.abbasite.com. Alternative places to visit:
www.gphelps.home.mindspring.com/abba.htm or ABBAnatic:
www.sirius.com/~funnyguy/abbanaticfolder/abb
anatic.html.