DIY portal
One of the aims of Microsoft's .Net is to let users combine feeds from different web sites. Microsoft and other companies have been trying to do that kind of thing for half a decade, usually by allowing users to customise their own portal page. Fyuze is trying to take that to the next level, by providing you with much more control over the layout and the kinds of feeds available.
It is an impressive attempt, but needs a lot of effort to set up, and the number of feeds is limited. The main drawbacks are that there are too few sources (though Guardian Unlimited is one), and it seems you can only have two pages, News and Search. However, if you are willing to spend half a day configuring the thing, Fyuze provides what is probably the best self-assembly portal on the web. If not, then there is still good old Hotsheet. This lets you add your own categories and links, though without providing enough room for them.
http://fyuze.com/zero
www.hotsheet.com
Shoshing
What are shoshkeles? A new form of web-based advertising you will soon come to hate. However, for the novelty effect, head for the United Virtualities site and click Shoshkele for some examples. www.unitedvirtualities.com
Cluster this
There is now a British metasearch engine, Turbo10, which provides clustering of results. It is not as good a search engine as Ixquick, and the clustering is not as good as Teoma. A combination of those plus Albert's ability to answer queries would really give Google a run for its money. http://turbo10
www.teoma.com
www.albert.com
The greatest
Ali, the movie, hasn't opened but the Sony Pictures web site is offering production information and a trailer. Ali is played by The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air himself, Willard Christopher Smith Jr, best known for Men in Black, Wild Wild West and Independence Day. www.spe.sony.com/movies/ali
Wasp rest
The Web Standards Project, WaSP, is taking a break, but its goodbye letter is well worth reading. Jeffrey Zeldman, the project's founder, was also interviewed by ZD Net. Of course, you may already have been to both sites, if you are reading Online's weblog....
www.webstandards.org
www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2832845,00.html
www.onlineblog.com
Beastly
The Discovery Channel has launched a Walking with Beasts site, which provides an opportunity to compare the approaches adopted by the leading TV science channels in the US and the UK. www.bbc.co.uk/beasts
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/beasts/beasts.html
Sex case
New York photographer Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) have filed a lawsuit to challenge the remaining provisions of America's unconstitutional Communications Decency Act. The act deprives online material that is "patently offensive under local community standards" of its protection under the First Amendment unless its author can prove its "redeeming social value". www.BarbaraNitke.com
www.ncsfreedom.org/cda.htm
Cliciwch yma
You don't have to live in Wales to use Cymru1, a new free internet service provider: it uses a national rate 0845 phone number. However, it is one of the few to offer the option of a Welsh-language home page, as well as a choice of colour schemes. www.cymru1.net
Segway
If you want to buy a Segway, or just learn more about this novel transporter, you can register and leave your email address in the Shop section of the device's website. And if you have not seen it in action, there are clips in the most common formats. www.segway.com
Lickey End
Sodom is popular, but not as popular as Twatt, or Nob End. All these and more are featured in the Amusing UK place names section of the Jump-around site. Clicking a link takes you to an online Ordnance Survey map at Streetmap.co.uk, and that is all there is to it.
www.jump-around.com/tools/place-names
New & noted
· The Tolkien Archives: www.nytimes.com/tolkien
· Redesigned with pet present ideas: www.rspca.org.uk
· Recording video... on vinyl? www.vinylvideo.com
· Fixed odds on the stockmarket: www.betonmarkets.co.uk
· Signs of the times: www.pjchmiel.com/photo/signs.html
· Briefly, inside Alison's PantsCam: www.pantscam.com
