Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 18:38:10 -0700 From: Patrick Douglas Crispen Reply-To: TOURBUS-Request@LISTSERV.AOL.COM To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: TOURBUS -- 1 MAY 1997 -- A SCHOLARLY PAPER ON SPAM / THE FAQ FINDER /~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~/~~~|~\ | People of All Ages Wanted for Worldwide Advisory Panel / | \ |__________|__________/__________|__________|___________/ | \ / /______|----\ | We need your advice on a variety of subjects. Weekly |//////| | | $$ drawings. For more information, send e-mail to: |//////| | | info@AdvisoryPanel.com or http://www.AdvisoryPanel.com |//////| | | |//////| | ~~~/~~~\~~/~~~\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~/~~~\~~~~ \___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/ TODAY'S STOPS: A SCHOLARLY PAPER ON SPAM / THE FAQ FINDER TODAY'S ADDRESSES: http://server.berkeley.edu/BTLJ/articles/11-2/carroll.html http://ps.superb.net/FAQ/ Hi, kids! One of the questions that I am most often asked is "how can I virus-check the files that I download from the Net?" The simple answer is "purchase a commercial anti-virus program and update it often." However, since I despise simple answers, your fearless bus driver has decided to write an entire TOURBUS post on this subject. Unfortunately, next week is finals week here at the University of Alabama, so be looking for my anti-virus post *two* weeks from today. :) Back on April 18th of last year, we pulled our little bus of Internet happiness into The Daily Brief, a two to three page news summary sent out every weekday morning. Well, I am happy to announce that The Daily Brief is one of the sponsors of today's TOURBUS post, and they have a new medical news service that you might want to check out: +--------------------- THE MED-BRIEF ----------------------+ | The premiere source for breaking medical and research news | | sent to subscribers via e-mail every weekday. For doctors, | | medical professionals, and the general public who are | | concerned about health and medicine. Get a FREE one-week | | trial subscription by e-mailing med-trial@incinc.net with | | "subscribe" as the message subject. http://www.incinc.net | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ A SCHOLARLY PAPER ON SPAM ------------------------- The only thing that frustrates me even more than a slow Internet connection is a mailbox full of unsolicited e-mail advertisements (a.k.a. "spams"). It seems that the number of spams that I receive grows exponentially every day. Is there any way that we, or our governments, can just turn off this flood of spam? Can't we just outlaw it? Well, today's first TOURBUS stop tries to answer these questions. I found an absolutely wonderful scholarly paper on the topic of unsolicited commercial solicitations in The Berkeley Technology Law Journal, which is published by the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. The paper's title is "Garbage In: Emerging Media and Regulation of Unsolicited Commercial Solicitations" and the paper can be found on the Web at http://server.berkeley.edu/BTLJ/articles/11-2/carroll.html If you are looking for what is probably the definitive explanation of unsolicited commercial solicitations and the legal ramifications arising from these solicitations, look no further. I would especially recommend this paper for any of our bus riders who are teachers, librarians, lawyers, or dedicated anti-spam advocates. I do have one word of warning, though: this paper, like most law school journal papers, is rather long -- I counted 211 footnotes (*211!!*) -- and the folks at the Berkeley Technology Law Journal put the entire article on the Web as one extremely large (170 K) Web page. In other words, while this article is a must read for anyone who wants to know more about spam and other unsolicited commercial advertisements, expect to wait a while for the article to completely download. THE FAQ FINDER -------------- Some of the best (and least-used) resources on the Internet are the Net's "Frequently Asked Questions" (or "FAQ") files. If you are looking for answers to questions ranging from "what is the fastest NASCAR superspeedway" to "where can I find information about embedded processors and enhanced IDE/Fast-ATA/ATA-2," chances are there is a FAQ file somewhere on the Internet that answers your question. The problem is finding the FAQ file. Enter the FAQ Finder. The FAQ Finder can be found on the Web at http://ps.superb.net/FAQ/ and it has links to 1,800 FAQ files around the world. Best of all, the FAQ finder has sorted these FAQ files into 28 browsable categories: Animals Health Politics & Law Art Hobby Programming Audio Internet Religion Comedy Lifestyles Science Computers Literature Social Science Countries Movies Software Education Music Sports Food People Technology Games Prsnl Finance TV Shows ... and, of course, Video In short, if you have a question that you think might have been asked before, chances are that the FAQ Finder will be able to give you a link to a site where you can find the answer to your question. Browsing through the FAQ Finder's categories is pretty easy. If you click on a category, the FAQ Finder will display all of the FAQ links that it feels belong in that category. And with 1,800 FAQ links, the FAQ Finder opens the door to one heck of a lot of information! Who would have guessed that FAQ browsing could be so much fun? That's it for this week. Have a safe and happy weekend, and make sure that you pay a visit to our sponsors and thank them for keeping us on the road for another week! :) *--------------------------------------------------------------------* Jump start your Web pages with a copy of the best-selling book "Creating Cool HTML 3.2 Web Pages" by guru Dave Taylor. For info and FREE online HTML lessons, visit *-----------( http://www.intuitive.com/taylor/cool-web )-------------* TODAY'S STOPS: A SCHOLARLY PAPER ON SPAM / THE FAQ FINDER TODAY'S ADDRESSES: http://server.berkeley.edu/BTLJ/articles/11-2/carroll.html http://ps.superb.net/FAQ/ -------------------------------- TODAY'S SOUTHERN WORD OF THE DAY -------------------------------- Someone recently sent me a really long list of Southern Words. Unfortunately, I had seen all of those Southern Words before. It turns out that the person who submitted that list of words had "creatively acquired" them by copying them from my Southern Word homepage at . Wait, it gets better. This "creative acquirer" even took the liberty of deleting the names of the original words' "authors" so that he could take credit for the list of Southern Words himself. Fortunately, this episode is not a complete loss. Our "creative acquirer" did add a new word to the list that was not all that un-funny. So, today's Southern Word comes courtesy of that "creative acquirer," whom I made sure to credit ... HEIDI (noun). Greeting. HIRE YEW (phrase). A question Usage: "Heidi. Hire yew." (Special thanks to a THEIVIN' YANKEE for today's words.) :) YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN WORD HOMEPAGE AT http://ua1vm.ua.edu/~crispen/word.html ====================================================================== Join : Send SUBSCRIBE TOURBUS Your Name to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Leave : Send SIGNOFF TOURBUS to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Archives: On the Web at http://www.TOURBUS.com =--------------------------------------------------------------------= For info on my new book "Atlas for the Information Superhighway" visit http://ua1ix.ua.edu/~crispen/atlas.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- PROMOTE your business, service or storefront on the Internet Tourbus. It's one of the most effective and least expensive ways to advertise online. Reach over 80,000 people worldwide in a net-friendly way for a fraction of the cost of web banners. Our sponsors say "It works!" Make it work for you - contact BobRankin@MHV.net for details. ====================================================================== TOURBUS - (c) Copyright 1995-97, Patrick Crispen and Bob Rankin All rights reserved. Redistribution is allowed only with permission. Send this copy to 3 friends and tell them to get on the Bus! .~~~. (\__/) .' ) Patrick Douglas Crispen /o o \/ .~ The University of Alabama {o_, \ { crispen@campus.mci.net / , , ) \ http://ua1ix.ua.edu/~crispen/ `~ '-' \ } _( ( )_.' Warning: squirrels. '---..{____}