Cybercrime
The US Justice Department has finally opened its Cybercrime site and posted the official version of the President's Working Group's much-criticised report, The Electronic Frontier: The Challenge of Unlawful Conduct Involving The Use Of The Internet www.cybercrime.gov/unlawful.htm or www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/unlawful.htm. The DoJ site also has a section for kids.
Blow up
Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme has been exposed by the Federation of American Scientists, which posted satellite images of installations just ahead of President Clinton's visit to the region. The FAS website has also published satellite images of North Korea's missile testing facilities, with more to come.
Toilet humourBR> "Ever wondered what a museum dedicated entirely to the history of toilets would be like? If that peculiar question ever crossed your mind, seek professional help!" says Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, the founder of Sulabh International Social Service Organisation, a pioneering voluntary organisation working in the field of sanitation. He is responsible for the Sulabh International Museum Of Toilets in New Delhi, India, which now has a fine website at www.sulabhtoiletmuseum.org.
Internet pawn
Garry Kasparov, the world's best chess player, has launched www.KasparovChess.com, and plans to take the company public and become a net millionaire. Users should not type www.Kasparov.com by mistake. That's a site the authors say they were fraudulently induced to create in 1995-96, and is the property of American Computer Science Association Inc. Those with bookmarks for www.club-kasparov.com, hosted by IBM during Kasparov's battles with the Deep Blue chess computer, will be redirected to the new site.
Book plug
Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for New Yorker magazine, has written The Tipping Point, a book which tries to explain why and how things become fads or "social epidemics". You can read some samples on the author's site at www.gladwell.com and yes, there's a link to Amazon.com.
Symbolic
TAFKAP (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince) has launched a new website to promote his personal purpleness and his New Power Generation record label at www.npgonlineltd.com. It has sections for groovez, vizualz and newz with a discography and various clips, plus a freedom section about artists and their struggles with beastly record companies. U will b glad 2 know that fanz can still buy NPG merchandise from www.1800newfunk.com as b4, but www.Love4Oneanother.com has been reduced to One Song, which is mostly a sermon.
Irish portal
Ireland has a new portal with Online.ie (no relation), which is based in Dublin but has international ambitions. It is acquiring IrishAbroad.com in San Francisco and plans to open offices in New York and Boston. The freelance technology writer and Guardian Online contributor Karlin Lillington will edit an IT section.
Too personal
The letters men send in response to internet dating ads have a certain fascination, rather like roadkill. Lorina has collected some of the best (worst) at www.waytoopersonal. com, and have scathing comments attached. The site also offers advice on what/what not to write if you're looking for a date online.
ShockingBR> One day, probably next week, Flash-soaked sites will look as quaint as the Brighton Pavilion. With luck, andNow4 /www.andNow4.com, a portal so named because it offers "something completely different", will be launched in the nick of time. Users will be able to enjoy its small number of useful links before the baroque pointlessness of the animations drives them to Yahoo!
Hotbar
Arrogance sometimes pays. Go to the Hotbar site at www.hotbar.com and, without asking first, it will download a plug-in that lets you add colourful "skins" to Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The site is only a couple of months old and already has about 10,000 skins available - mainly because Hotbar lets people design their own. A Netscape Navigator version is still under development. New and noted
Sightseeing www.sightseeing.co.uk offers both searchable links and maps. An events calendar is planned. Sole fans will find most popular brands of footwear on sale at /www.sightseeing.co.uk. Gardeners are eagerly awaiting the opening of a new site at www.crocus.co.uk.
