Site Seeing

By JULES ALLEN
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 3, 2003

Feel free to browse

Closet chic

www.GardeRobeOnline.com

Would you pay more than $200 a month to store clothes? That's a lot, even for me, my love for shoes and my lack of closet space. Maybe I should pack, move to New York City and hire Garde Robe. Some angular, high cheekboned people, clad in black, would swarm over my shoe collection, catalog them and drive off into the night, shoes in hand. Then I'd call them and they'd bring me my footwear on demand. The cost for such a service? A mere $225 a month. It's the equivalent of a midrange PowerBook every year, if you're doing the math.

Web of answers

www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ

www.faqts.com/

Keeping track of technology jargon is almost a full-time job. That's why you see a lot of references to FAQs (pronounced "fax"). The Frequently Asked Question list, if you're not into the brevity thing, is a boon to those who take the time to read them before firing off half-conceived thoughts to the authors. Take Tim Berners-Lee, for instance. The FAQ by the father of the Web is interesting reading for anybody with curiosity about the Web, spam and why the Net is not the Web. The second link will take you to the unfortunately named Faqts, a mother lode of information on all manner of subjects. I have come to rely on it for well-thought-out answers to technical questions.

Paul is (not) dead

ReverseSpeech.com/words_of_creation.htm

Humans are fascinated with hidden meanings that usually aren't there. Many feared the destruction of the world on Dec. 31, 1999, and, of course, nothing happened. Nostradamus didn't predict the World Trade Center destruction, but many were bent on perpetuating the online meme after Sept. 11. Equally odd is the subculture of playing sounds backward and extracting hidden meanings or perhaps the truth of the message. And this site is the pick of them all. In addition to a lot of theory and discussion, there are even streaming examples in Real Audio format.

Smart, young, unpopular

PaulGraham.com/nerds.html

Here's a theory on why nerdy kids are the way they are in a fascinating look at youth culture. The author is big in computer language circles, and some might say he's speaking with a voice of authority. While it's hardly brief, the voice is clear and thoughtful. I wish I had something like this to share with my parents when I was getting stuffed into Dumpsters as a pimply youth.

More space

www.CodeTek.com/php/virtual.php

hem.fyristorg.com/jspage/jspager.html

Unix types have come to rely on what they call a pager. It's a simple, clickable application that creates virtual desktops. So, for instance, one desktop can be dedicated to word processing and the other can contain your browser windows. It's a simple way of avoiding clutter and a boon for mouse-oriented users. Neither Mac OS X or Windows has such a feature built in, but, like nature, software abhors a vacuum. I've used the CodeTek virtual desktop for about a week and really like it. I fiddled with the Windows version just enough to make sure it didn't eat my hard drive.

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