Sponsor's Message

Not only is the company promising that its advertising will stick to the subdued but well targeted format which works so well on the web but it will also be offering a staggering 1GB of storage for each user.

I suspect that just about every Net user already has a free email account with the likes of Hotmail or Yahoo, and as we know, they come in pretty handy in these spam-infested times.

Unfortunately, the popularity of free email accounts means that anyone signing up today is probably going to have put up with an address such as bob9938372@hotmail.com -- because all the good names disappeared years ago.

I figure myself to be lucky to have signed up for my YahooMail account when the name "dontspam" was still available and they were offering 6MB mailboxes -- although this is a bit of a double edged sword because more than a few people think its a good idea to use this "made up" address when signing up for various things on the web.

Still, Yahoo's spam filters are truly excellent, allowing less than a single unwanted message through to my inbox each week.

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And odds are that Google will use some pretty fine spam filtering too -- if their approach to the other online services they offer is any indicator.

But who's going to get the really good names, like "bob@...."?

Here's my tip to Google (not that they need any help from me):

Auction those much sought-after names before you launch the system.

Earn some money from the desire that many people will have to get the equivalent of a personalised Google-plate they can use to impress their friends.

Even if they do offer to sell the premium names before the service goes live, there's still going to be an almighty gold-rush when the system is finally released to the public.

Every man and his cyberdog will be thrashing the site in an attempt to get their preferred email address and this will be a huge test of the system's ability to handle high loads.

I bet the folks at Hotmail and YahooMail will be scratching their heads this morning and promising each other that this move by Google won't affect their own profits. I'm sure it won't send them broke, but I suspect that if Google's service is more friendly and less ad-infested than the competition then the others will see declining traffic levels.

Lighten Up
Don't you hate it when you get a new credit card and you just know that when you're in the middle of signing the back, you'll have an apoplectic fit that causes your hand to gyrate wildly, producing a scrawl that actually looks nothing like your normal signature. What's worse, you know that you'll never be able to reproduce that inky mess again so shop assistants will always look at you with a jaundiced eye as they compare it to your normal signature. Well this guy decided to fix up the mistake, with less than perfect results.

Here's a tribute to bureaucrats who, it appears, are the same the world-over.

Anyone for a quartet of Harmonious Horses?

New Forums!
Yes folks, good news. The grotty ezboard forums have been replaced with a new phpBBS-based system that won't assault you with a myriad of pop-ups and other flotsam.

A big thanks to Managed Internet Solutions for offering to provide this service.

You can access the new forums over at aardvarkforums.co.nz

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