The spread of a seemingly playful alternative to traditional diplomas, inspired by Boy Scout achievement patches and video-game power-ups, suggests that the standard certification system no longer works in today's fast-changing job market. Educational upstarts across the Web are adopting "badges" to certify skills and abilities. If scouting…

Internet fraud takes a number of forms with the responsible individuals changing tactics rapidly to avoid detection. The perpetrators rely on telemarketing, emails, as well as presenting themselves personally to unsuspecting people. The evolution of internet marketing as well as ecommerce and the ease of connectivity create increasing…

Backups are a modern fact of life. Every organization that has any kind of computing technology (and that is all of them these days) needs to back up its data in case of technological or user errors. Traditionally, large-scale backups have been done via an internal or external tape drive that takes magnetic tapes (minicassettes, essentially) and…

A desire for more functionality seemed to clash with the fiscal reality of limited funds, but after investigating alternatives, Mount Saint Mary College was able to provide its faculty and students with a more useful and function-rich electronic resource management through a move to a hosted open source service. (Contains 8 figures.)

The explosion of Web 2.0 into libraries has left many smaller academic libraries (and other libraries with limited computing resources or support) to work in the cloud using free Web applications. The use of commercial Web hosting is an innovative approach to the problem of inadequate local resources. While the idea of insourcing IT will seem…

Describes Internet service providers and information infrastructure in China, including achievements, problems, and predictions of its future development. Highlights include examples of Web sites; proportion of Internet users by province and city; age distribution of Internet workers; occupations of internet users; and users in Taiwan and Hong…

The three utility commercial programs available on the Internet are like software packages purchased through a vendor or the Internet, shareware programs are developed by individuals and distributed via the Internet for a small fee to obtain the complete version of the product, and freeware programs are distributed via the Internet free of cost.…

Although it is becoming easier to share materials via the Internet, the process is still not transparent, especially when cross-platform transfers are involved. This article reviews common protocols and discusses several utilities and strategies for exchanging information online. Includes a table listing transfer and compression protocols, common…

U.S. federal and state legislative and regulatory information is increasingly available electronically. This article provides descriptions of source providers and lists all major commercial dial-in services and Internet sources, providing alphabetical tables of 55 information categories and noting the names of each file covering a category and…

Online copyright problems may be resolvable by a simple permission method. Describes Project Xanadu, a system of hypermedia publishing servers, designed to preserve integrity, copyright, and royalty for digital materials, yet allow reuse. Discusses permission doctrine; aspects of supporting software; legal status of transcopyright; variations not…

Describes the development of "Online" magazine, considers the impact it has had on its target audience of online searchers, and discusses changes in the online information field during the last 20 years. Topics include growth of the Internet; price competition; quality of information; and user interfaces. (LRW)

Discusses the use of computer-based telecommunications through the Internet and commercial online services to bring immediacy and individualization to the school curriculum. Topics include integrating telecommunications into the curriculum, basic Internet tools, e-mail, the World Wide Web, and resources on the Internet for curriculum planning.…

Discusses Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) that converts existing telephone lines into digital circuits which transmit data at 256Kbps to 7 Mbps. Describes ADSL, unique features of "Megabit Services" and initial deployment, costs, and impact on library services (extra bandwidth for Internet services, multimedia or other…

Discussion of remote access to library services focuses on proxy servers as a method for remote access, based on experiences at Saint Mary's University (Halifax). Topics include Internet protocol user validation; browser-directed proxies; server software proxies; vendor alternatives for validating remote users; and Internet security issues. (LRW)

Defines the Internet and discusses the implications of an information society on K-12 education. Presents examples of Internet use that support technology-based learning activities for both students and teachers of K-12 classes. Information is provided for connecting to the Internet using commercial services. (JMV)