Computer free game kid online

I don't like the thought of leaving a trail of cookie crumbs when I surf the Web, but I've come to accept cookies--little text files that Websites store on my hard drive and then access upon subsequent visits--as a necessary part of the conveniences certain Websites provide. I appreciate Amazon.com's recommendations of CDs and books (sorry, it's not magic, but cookies), and if it weren't for cookies I'd have to enter my account information every time I wanted to access my checking account online. However, there is such a thing as having too many cookies in a jar--or of the wrong kind. Some online advertisers build detailed profiles of you and your surfing habits via cookies. And though some cookies have a self-imposed expiration date and are automatically deleted in a matter of hours or days, others, known as persistent cookies, sit on your hard drive indefinitely and take up space--kind of like that last box of Thin Mints in the freezer.

Getting rid of all of them is easy enough: Internet Explorer 6.0 users click Tools on the Menu Bar, then Internet Options, and under the General tab, Delete Cookies. With Netscape it's not quite as easy. Netscape stores its cookies in a single .txt file called cookies.txt. You can ferret our its location through Windows Explorer. But to delete your cookie stash selectively takes a bit more time and effort. IE 6.x users go to the General tab, select Settings, and then View Files. After putting files in order by type, you should be able to review your cookies by date and name.

Netscape Navigator 6.x offers a more powerful solution. Under Preferences, select Privacy & Security, then Cookies, and, finally, View Stored Cookies. Particularly useful is the option to refuse future cookies from a deleted cookie's source.

In addition, a number of off-the-shelf products can help you manage cookies. Limit Software's Cookie Crusher 2.6b and Kookaburra Software's Cookie Pal 1.5e are reasonably priced solutions.

In Amazing 3D!

At a recent e-learning trade show I was on my way to the back of the show floor for a free boxed lunch when a vendor's display stopped me dead in my tracks.

Sunergia Group www.sunergiagroup.com a developer of Web software, has a new Web browser called Browse3D. It's a complete rethink of the browsers offered by Microsoft and Netscape. Here's how it works: When the browser launches, a main center panel appears, flanked by secondary panels to the left and right. The center panel displays the current Webpage you're viewing; the panel to your left, thumbnails of previously viewed pages; and the panel to your right, thumbnails of pages you want to view in the future.

Users place Webpage thumbnails on the right wall in two ways: manually or through the Forward Crawling feature. Forward Crawling automatically detects links on the main page and then generates a thumbnail for each link on the right wall. The manual, or user-selectable method, enables users to pick and choose the pages they wish to appear, for later viewing. Instead of moving linearly, the interface encourages you to jump back and forth between Webpages. It cranks your browsing experience to 11.

Company president Francois Coulombe handled the demonstration. Trying to remain professional, I told him that the browser is perfect for the research I do every day and that I'm sure trainers would be able to use its features. "Sure, sure," he replied. "But it's really good for Ebay." The same thought had crossed my mind.

With the Browse3D in Forward Crawling mode, running down a list of search results on Google is actually fun. The thumbnails pop up to the right, filling a series of pages on the rotating panel. When the loading is done, you can then go to the right wall and zoom in on each thumbnail with a single click, decide whether the page is useful, and then zoom our. If you decide to view a page in full, a double-click on its thumbnail loads it on the center wall. You can also save a page by making it "sticky."

The Make Sticky feature enables the user to create walls of saved thumbnails that can then be emailed to other Browse3D users or saved for later reference. Anyone who tends to collect file folders of printed Webpages will likely find that this feature alone is worth the browser's US$30 price rag.

One observation: Even with the speedy Internet connection I have, I preferred to choose my forward links. Internet users already walk a fine line between too much and just-enough information. The auto-crawl feature often crossed that line.

System requirements are reasonable, matching those in most new PCs. The browser works off of Microsoft's IE 5.5, so a page viewable with IE should be viewable with Browse3D. A good-quality graphics card with 8MB of memory is recommended, as is 128MB of RAM and a screen resolution of 1024x768. You might be able to get by on less, but then you wouldn't be able to take full advantage of the browser's visual effects.

To obtain a free demo of Browse3D, visit the company's Website.

The Job Hunt

Online job sites are supposed to make finding a job as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. With a multitude of Websites and thousands of listings, the problem shouldn't be finding a job but choosing among several. That hasn't proven to be the case. There are no quick fixes to finding new employment. Still, it seems that online job sites are offering something that has made job seekers loyal to their chosen barrel.

A recent Jupiter Media Metrix survey determined that 76 percent of the 13.6 million adult visitors to the stand-alone job Websites visited one Website exclusively, with little cross-visitation among users of the top three sites. However, closer analyses by Media Metrix determined that only a small percentage of those loyal visitors were active job hunters. Workers who had lost a job in the past six months or who planned to change jobs in the next six months were more likely to use several sites intensively. Among those users, Careerbuilder.com was the preferred site.

Other trends in the report are worth consideration:

* People who work in the transportation, information systems, and consulting industries were over-represented on career sites, while people who work in the hospitality, nonprofit, and publishing industries were underrepresented.

* Age 50 is a dividing line. Internet users under 50 are 7 percent more likely to visit a career site than the overall Internet population, while people over 50 are 22 percent less likely to visit a job site.

* Education is also a factor. College grads are 4 percent more likely to take advantage of online job sites, while people without a high school diploma are 12 percent less likely to do so.

* Source/cyberatlas.com

Gone Fishing

Whether you're actively seeking a new job or just fishing, here are the top 10 job sites, including the percentage of the U.S. audience they reach.

* Hotjobs.com

(now merged with Yahoo!) 8.6%

* Monster.com 6.7%

* Jobsonline.com 3.1%

* Careerbuilder.com 2.5%

* Headhunter.net

(now merged with Careerbuilder.com) 1.5%

* Net-Temps.com 1%

* Usjobboard.com

(now merged with Job.com) 0.9%

* Homeemployed.com 0.9%

* Salary.com 0.8%

* Flipdog.com 0.8%

* Source/Jupiter Media Metris www.jmm.com

@Work covers internet technology trends, news, and tips. Send comments, questions, and items of interest to atwork@astd.org.

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Google Whacking

Give a kid an empty box and that kid will build a spaceship. Give an overeducated tech worker some free time and an Internet search engine, and that tech worker will devise a devilish game that will have you obsessing.

The game of which I speak is Googlewhacking. But to call it merely a game reduces it to the level of Parcheesi or Yahtzee. No, Googlewhacking is the search for "The One," a certain something that is entirely unique on the Internet--something there's precious little of these days.

Here's how it works: Go to Google.com and type two words into the search box--no quotes, no foreign words, and no supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. If your search returns a single, solitary result, you, my friend, have just executed a Googlewhack.

Though Googlwhacking's origins are a mystery, the game gained considerable notoriety after Gary Stock, a chief innovations officer for a technology firm in Kalamazoo, Michigan, coined the term. Check out Stock's Website

* www.googlewhack.com for a complete list of rules, a view of 2000 of the 65,000 whacks recorded, and a list of definitions for some of the funnier whacks.

Attempts will take you to surprising Websites. So, even when the Googlewhack proves elusive, take the time to check the results of your search. You just might learn something about phrenology and the Tapir. Sorry, not a Googlewhack.

William Powell is an associate editor of T+D; wpowell@astd.com. com.