The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 171

SL THE PALM BEACH POST SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1997 30 TODAY E-mail us at click.livingpbpost.com. fl Mega Yard Sale to help the youth of Port Salerno, 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m., Port Salerno Boys Girls Club at 4731 S.E. Flounder Ave. Call 283-5900. Bypass busy signals and easily get on lines Question: I am one of those people who keeps getting a busy signal from America Online.

I heard there is a trick that lets you bypass those annoying busy signals. Do you know what it is? Answer: It's really not a trick. Just a lesser-known way to reach America Online. More -important, what I'm about to tejl i gwA" Hiving The Third Annual Helicopter Hole-In-One, 9 a.m., Loblolly Pines Golf Club in Hobe Sound. One thousand numbered golf balls will be dropped by helicopter onto a golf green and the ball closest Killing time? Use these Web sites you will open up a whole new way for you to telecompute.

But first to your problem, Use an internet service provider. An ISP is a service that gives your computer direct access to! the Internet -J Make sure your ISP has plenty of available phone lines and modems in its network. If not, dump it and get one that does. You don't want any more? LJL. Craig Crossman to the pin will win $1,000 for that ticket holder.

Tickets for numbered golf balls are $10. Sponsored by the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the Hobe Sound chapter. Call 546-0122. Taste of Vero, 4-8 p.m. along Ocean Drive in Vero Beach.

The event features food, musjc, prizes and more. Presented by the Oceanside Business Association. Tickets are $25. Call 231-0008. Martin County Audubon Society picnic for members and non-members, 11:30 a.m., Possum Long Nature Center, located at the rear of the Audubon House, Martin Luther King Boulevard and Palm Beach Road in StuarL Call 398-8662.

The St. Lucie Audubon Society annual picnic, 10 a.m., River's Edge Elementary School, 5600 St James Drive in Port St. Lucie. Includes a trail walk followed by a pot-luck lunch. Call 464-7318.

The Murray Players from Murray Middle School present 7 p.m., Lyric Theatre, downtown Stuart. Tickets are $7. Call the box office at 286-STAR. The Indian River Community College Jazz Band and Company Singers perform show tunes, jazz and contemporary music, 8 p.m., McAlpin Fine By BILL HUSTED Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service You can find almost anything on the Web. You can buy a car, research vacation spots, learn a foreign language or find the gross national product of Brazil.

That's all well NETGUIDE and good, but the Web's real value is as a fun way to waste time. It's right up there with broadcast television and paperback novels. With that in mind, here are some of my favorite time wasters on the Web. The Amazing Fish Cam at http: home.netscape.comfishcamfishcam.html is the perfect thing to put on your monitor. Images from two tanks of tropical fish are refreshed every 30 seconds.

There's something soothing about staring at fish. Best yet, there's absolutely nothing useful here. World Birthday Web at httpywww.boutell.combirthday.cgi puts a double whammy on time wasting. Not only can you browse birthdays of people you don't know, you can enter your own birthday. Mine is there and, each Oct.

8, 1 get e-mailed greetings from around the world. Crossword puzzles can take hours and when you're done you have nothing to show for it. That makes the interactive crossword puzzle at http:www.cogix.com CrosswordSamplchtm a perfect way to burn time. You've probably been talking to your computer for years. Maybe it's time it talked back.

A page called Internet Funnies at http:www.starz.comif.html offers sound clips from the routines of various comedians. The nicest thing about this page is that if you've heard the joke before, you can just press your browser's stop button. One must-stop on your time-wasting tour is a page called Useless Facts at httpywww.reddesign.comARTFacts.html. At your next party, you'll have a storehouse of trivial facts at hand. For instance, you'll discover that the first telephone book ever issued contained only 50 names.

Arts Center. COMING SUNDAY These laptops may be your type Mostly Flutes, a special Mother's Day concert presented by members of three area groups, the Treasure Coast Flute Choir, Silhouette and Flutes Renaissance, 3 p.m., Immanuel Lutheran Church on Martin Downs Boulevard in Palm City. Admission is $5. Call 288-5277. Youth Challenge group at the Hobe Sound Bible Church presents a performance by Vision, 6:30 p.m., at the church, 11295 S.E.

Gomez Ave. Special guest Albert Barr will present an inspirational message. Admission is free. Call 546-5696. busy signals.

-There are several excellent ISPs in this area. 1 BellSouth offers its regional service, BellSouth (httpvwww. bellsouth.com, 800-436-8638). Or if you want something even more local, check out Florida Internet in West Palm Beach (http:ww.flinet.com, 561-615-. 0001).

Once you're set up, dial your nonbusy ISP as, though you were going to make an Internet connection. But instead of running an Internet browser, run the AOL software instead. Before clicking the "Sign on" button, you'll need to change the "Select location" from your current number (usually it says to "TCP Connection," and that's it! You're no longer using AOL's busy-signal laden network, and you should be able to sign on to AOL immediately! By the way, AOL offers a lower monthly rate ($9.95 per month) if you use an ISP to access them. That should help offset the $19.95 per month unlimited Internet access charge for the ISP. Now for the amazing bonus I promised when using this method: Did you know that most of the other popular services, such as CompuServe and Prodigy, have similar Internet gateway accessibility? As with AOL's software, check with each for the proper Internet configuration.

Once configured and if you have enough memory to run all of these -programs at one time, you can have simultaneous access to all your services by dialing the one ISP phone number! Imagine yourself simultaneously downloading a file on AOL, sending e-mail on CompuServe, con-, ducting a chat on Prodigy and accessing your favorite Web site. Talk about multitasking! Do that enough times and you might find yourself wishing for the return of the busy signal NOT. Crossman's thought of the week: You might be addicted to AOL if You have to get a second phone line just to call Domino's. You have to be pried from your computer with the Jaws of Life. Send questions for Craig to The Palm Beach Post P.O.

Box 24696, West Palm Beach, 33416-4700; or call him Sundays, 10 p.m.-midnight on WJNO-AM 1230 and 1330; or visit his Computer America talk' show Sunday 3-6 p.m. at Palm Beach Atlantic College. LOOKING AHEAD San Francisco Chronicle Tired of lugging around an expensive laptop when all you do is simple typing? Here are three alternatives, all for under $300, that can take a load off your shoulder strap without Vil CYBERSTUFF straining your charge account. Be warned, however. These devices aren't meant to offer the features of PCs.

Think of them as keyboards with a small video screen and some memory. The AlphaSmart Pro, made by Cupertino, Intelligent Peripheral Devices costs $249 and weighs just 2 pounds. It has one outstanding virtue. It runs on two AA batteries that should last at least 200 hours. The device can hold 16 pages of text.

A cable from the AlphaSmart plugs into the keyboard port on a Macintosh or PC. Built-in software sends text from the AlphaSmart to the computer just as if someone were typing at the computer's own keyboard. For more information, call (408) 252-9400. People who want a little more than a text entry device might consider two other laptop alternatives, the Laser PC5 from Perfect Solutions in West Palm Beach or the Dream Writer from NTS Computer Systems in Vancouver, Canada. Weighing 2.25 pounds and costing $290, the Laser PC5 is probably the closest of the three to a full laptop.

In addition to built-in word processing software, it comes with a spreadsheet, database and spell-checker. For $99, users can purchase an optional 14.4 baud modem to check e-mail. But those extra features come at the expense of battery life. The Laser PC5 runs for about eight hours on a rechargeable nickel hydride battery. For more information, call 790-1070.

The Dream Writer from NTS Computer Systems is similar to the Laser PC5 in price, weight, software and battery life. But it lacks the optional modem. On the other hand, Nancy Moffatt, marketing director for the Canadian firm, said newer versions of the Dream Writer come with the ability to transfer files to a desktop computer using a $99 infrared link that plugs into the desktop computer. For more information, call (604) 465-1040. 1997 Special Olympics Torch Run Benefit, 5 p.m.

Tuesday in front of the Fort Pierce Police Department. Officers will run the Special Olympics Torch along A1A from Vero Beach arriving at the Fort Pierce Police Department by 5 p.m. to kickoff the festivities. There will be music, dancing, food and children's activities. Call Greg Kirk or Alecia Conner at the Fort Pierce Police Department at 461-3820.

A Reading by Gramps, a.m. Thursday, Port St. Lucie Recreation Center on Ravens-wood Lane. Alan J. Shallack, who wrote and directed the Curious George film stories and co-edited 28 of the storybooks, conducts the reading.

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