Web watch

CD war
The Campaign for Digital Rights is compiling a list of CDs that are "known bad" in the sense that they cannot be copied for personal use, or can't be played in computing devices such as PCs and games consoles. The CDR is concentrating on UK releases, but you should also pay Fat Chuck a visit. He is tracking American and worldwide releases of so-called "corrupt CDs". http://uk.eurorights.org/issues/cd/bad
http://fatchucks.com/corruptcds/index.html

E-lift
In the US, an "elevator statement" is the nugget of an idea that you can get across to a venture capitalist between one or more floors when you happen to corner her in a lift. In the DTI's Elevator Competition, launched with a link on its Beyond Bricks site, would-be internet entrepreneurs are offered 10 minutes. However, they have to start with a 250-word summary to get into a regional heat, then hope to reach the final next June - by which time three other people will have tried the same idea and failed. Beyond Bricks is part of the DTI's £5.5m Internet Mentoring Initiative to encourage the growth of e-businesses. www.beyondbricks.com/softlaunch/events/elevator.html
entries@beyondbricks.com

Added news
Alltheweb is a search engine with most of the right ingredients but somehow it has never taken off. Now it has been redesigned again, and it has a new feature: news. It will find things that it only indexed a few minutes or hours ago. Unfortunately it is still not in the same league as Google, and is unlikely to replace Rocket News or Ixquick for those extra searches. But a better logo and a brighter look would help a bit. www.alltheweb.com
www.google.com
www.rocketnews.com
www.ixquick.com

Last words
Now you can send someone an email that won't be delivered until you are dead. Things Unsaid lets you store up to two megabytes of messages for dispatch later - love letters, insults, secrets of your Swiss bank accounts, and so on. How will they know you have gone beyond? Obviously, when you stop paying for the service, which costs a minimum of $29.95 a year, and ignore three days of email reminders. This may be a service for people with great faith in their bank. However, it can also be used to delay messages until a certain date, and you can simply delete your messages if you want to quit. www.thingsunsaid.com

Euroschool
European teachers now have their own portal on the web in eSchoolnet, which is supported by the European Commission. As well as providing access to online training and other resources, the site aims to encourage international collaborative teaching projects, starting with a "pen pal corner". www.eschoolnet.org

New music
CMN Tours - the initials stand for Contemporary Music Network - is celebrating its first 30 years with a month's "radio broadcasting" over the net, a CD, and a 100-page book. The organisation was established by the Arts Council to take new music to audiences around the UK. www.unknownpublicradio.com

Got .Net?
Millions of developers have written programs for Windows using Microsoft tools such as Visual Basic. Hardly any have ever tried to create a web-based XML service for what Microsoft sees as the next generation of distributed systems, called .Net, but anyone can have a go. The GotDotNet website provides a readable guide to what is involved, plus a $400,000 competition, and you don't have to buy or use any Microsoft technology to enter. www.gotdotnet.com/Wscontest

Zapped
Two weeks ago I suggested moving from Safeweb, my anonymiser of choice, to IDzap, because Safeweb's performance had plummeted. It turns out that Safeweb's service provider had gone bankrupt and the traffic was going through its reserve system. Safeweb's free service has now been suspended. There's also Net Hush, which has just been sold as item 1662695225 on eBay. www.safeweb.com www.idzap.com www.nethush.com

New & noted
· Robbie the Reindeer is ready to help with your Christmas shopping: www.beeb.com/promotions/robbie.jhtml
· The OUP is putting its reference books on the web, for a fee: www.oxfordreference.com
· A non-profit arts organisation that commissions site specific and temporary works: www.locusplus.org.uk
· Los Angeles alternative art magazine: www.picklebird.com
· A clip joint with voting: www.Eatmail5000.com
· How e-boring are you? Find out at: www.e-consultancy.com/ebore
· A blog that may surprise some Trekkies: www.wilwheaton.net