ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 22, 1996 TAG: 9608220019
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Computer Bits
SOURCE: FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Freedom of speech is a hot web issue. If you root around in the web's unsavory parts, you know why. But you also can root around and get the legal skinny on the speech issue at the American Civil Liberties Union page.
The ACLU site has a wealth of information for just browsing or for researching a term paper.
Stops include current cases, briefs of cases, press releases and a list of the 75 "greatest cases" from 1920 to present.
For more lists, but of a different monster, type into the Godzilla site.
This location is worth calling up if for no other reason than to see the Godzilla pictures. And the pictures of Rodan and Battra. It's a good trip after a hard day at the office, too. We promise this site will take you outside the routine.
Consider, for instance, what we could learn if we could decipher Godzilla's digestive system. Godzilla is able to suck a lot of energy from nuclear materials with little nuclear waste, the site builder observes.
And have you considered how Rodan and Battra stay aloft? Perry Mason's holding them up?
Consider this a foray into Kaiju-biology; Kaiju is Japanese for monster, says the site maker.
Some California Institute of Technology guy named Mark owns the site, which is routed through CalTech's applied mathematics site, so you can guess what types of minds are at work here.
It's dog days anyway, so we're allowed to exhibit strange behavior. If you run a search on "dog days," by the way, you get a nifty Dog Star/Sirius site. You also get a lot of other things, including a yellow lab and a dalmatian promoting Difrens magazine.
We didn't get involved here, so you're on your own if you decide to explore Difrens.
What's DNS?
Sometimes we have trouble getting on a Web site and get an error message that says ``Failed DNS Lookup.'' What's going on? Is the site busy, or what?
More likely your provider is busy. To connect you to a Web site, the Internet has to convert the text name of the site to a numeric equivalent. Your provider has a domain name server, or DNS, that does this. It reads the text address and looks it up against a table of numeric site addresses.
A couple of things can go wrong. Obviously, if you type in the wrong address, you won't get the site. It's also possible that the DNS is down or busy. You have a working Internet connection; you just can't do anything with it. This seems to happen sometimes without generating an error message, too.
You probably ought to talk to your provider. It may be possible to add another DNS to the list that's already stored on your computer. If the problem persists, you might want to look for a new provider.
New Service
Bell Atlantic Corp. said Wednesday its dial-up Internet access service - BellAtlantic.net - is now available in Roanoke and elsewhere in Southwest Virginia.
For a limited time, the company said, it will offer 30 days of free Internet access to new subscribers to the service. BellAtlantic.net features the Netscape Navigator browser and plans to add the Microsoft Internet Explorer later this year, the company said. A browser is a tool for visiting Internet sites.
Subscribers to the service also will have access at a sharply discounted rate to Cyber Patrol, a tool that allows parents to manage and control access to the Internet by their children, the phone company said. E-mail, chat and newsgroups also will be available, and subscribers will have access to technical support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The company also said it will provide high-speed, dedicated Internet access services to businesses and governments, allowing them to establish a presence on the Internet's World Wide Web.
Prices for the consumer service include $17.95 a month for unlimited access, an 8 percent discount when subscribers sign up for a year of unlimited access for $198, and an hourly plan, in which users can pay $4.95 for five hours a month, plus $1.95 for each additional hour.
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