Times Colonist from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada • 8

Monday, December 7, 1998 Times Colonist editor: Liz rogue 5oj-bSi I rnnr mnr 1AM A site for Christmas elves Hit Edit Uiem 60 Boofcwarts Options Olmtorq Window Nettmp: SBNTW CtBUS UIUBGC (ft ft a A 4. iS http:www.claus.com With Christmas just around the corner, this is an entertaining site for the whole family Barbara Beck http:www.dds.nlkidon media-link I would like to comment first. Do you get the opportunity to try out the sites before publishing them because I have on many occasions found them misrepresented. For example, this week from Roger Napier reads www2.switchboard.com "Find a person anywhere!" In fact, this site is for the USA ONLY. I suggest the following site especially for immigrants.

It provides access to many newspapers and magazines in each of many countries in the five continents. Both major newspapers and small town weeklies included if available on the Internet. B.D.Mason Editor's note: Yes, we check sites to make sure they're printable. In this case only the "search e-mail" was checked, and it provided an e-mail address from Quebec. A second attempt to check the site, since receiving your note, resulted in so many queries about setting cookies that it was impossible to attempt any searches.

www.suv.orgindex.html This web site, from Friends of the Environment US, is packed full of facts about the environmental and safety con- VWEB CRAWLING Welcome to our weekly look at interesting Web sites. This feature is designed to take you to places you wouldn't have thought of going to and also give you a chance to tell others what you've found. This column will include sites of every sort almost. We're not interested in pornography or blatant commercialism. We're always looking for more suggestions, so if you've found an interesting site, please let us know.

Send your suggestions to: cems around sport utility vehicles. Worth checking by people about to purchase a new vehicle as well. Barbara Hourston, Nanaimo http:www.comfm.com sitesrdirectindexa.html This site will go over well. W.Boerkamp. www.aao.gov.au Australian Observatory Roger G.

Napier http:members.aol.com sbrunkowrodman.html For fans of the crazy basketball player Dennis Rodman! Jamil Ahsan lift) VM' Hv 1 1 Vhti't CwP I fruWwwT I WISrd mm 4 7 Saving Zelda gives By Katherine Monk Southam Newspapers VANCOUVER If you have a child, you've probably heard everything you ever wanted to know about Hie Legend of Zelda already. You've also heard about the game's turbo-powered graphics and 256 megs of memory. You've probably even gone out and reserved your very own copy of the game for $10 at the nearest toy retailer to avoid a teary Christmas. Good for you. You did the right thing, because the new Zelda, Ocarina of Time, miraculously lives up the hype.

Like its previous incarnations, Zelda: Ocarina of Time is a role playing game where the player must weave his or her way through a variety of landscapes, hazards, battles and logic puzzles to free Princess Zelda from the dark forces. While there is nothing all that novel about the set-up itself, being little more than a hackneyed fairy tale, the pictures themselves possess detail, depth and ease Ppi 1 t-- elves adventures COMPUTER GAMES The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Platform: Nintendo 64 Developer: Nintendo Players: One Rating: of motion that no other game (on a fixed console) has ever achieved. Parents looking for any educational value can take heart: the dialogue scrolls across the bottom of the screen, meaning your little gamer must know how to read. Reading makes up a great portion of the game as every sign, direction and skill must be digested through the written word. This provides a and break from the overpowering retinal stimulation and stress factors that can turn a six-year-old into a bundle of blown nerves.

Just Email S35YR Any age machine No mo2mocomit4netekr(Jata 5 yr old Unix shop 592-8722 RANDOM ACCESS Case of the disappearing ISP proactive notification of outages, among other things. The penalty for failure was one day of free service for every hour of network downtime. On November 8th, however, UUnet's service-level guarantees became impossible to meet when their backbone became unstable due to bad routing information. As a result, UUnet was unable to transmit Internet traffic for the better part of a day, leaving 70,000 customers with little or no service. Now they are faced with a hefty payout that could climb into hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

Basically, as I learned upon researching this story, consumers have no real protection from non-performance by an ISP. You can complain to the Better Business Bureau or Consumer Protection, or consult a lawyer, but there is no organization in place to monitor and regulate the performance of ISPs. Pat Doyle doesn't want to see government get involved, but fears that this will happen if something isn't done. "No-one can appreciate the importance of the mail," he muses. "If it was Canada Post, you'd double register it." Doyle has raised a serious issue e-mail has become a critical communications tool.

The success of your business may depend upon Internet access. Big money may ride on the timely transmission of an e-mail message or attachment. Caveat emptor. Pam Blackstone is an Internet consultant in Victoria. You can reach her by e-mail at pbislandnet.com or through her Web site at http:www.islandnet.compb.

(Attachments will be discarded unread.) (here was no mistaking the frustrated tone of Pat Doyle's e- mail. As president of Doyle Events he relied upon e-mail for everyday business affairs, and was upset about an extended lapse in service from his Internet Service Provider. For fourteen days, he had been denied Internet access. He was unable to log PAM BLACKSTOXE in and could neither send nor retrieve e-mail. His ISP appeared to have dropped off the face of the world.

There had been no warning, no notification and no response to repeated phone calls, e-mail and faxes from Doyle. With e-mail a critical business communication tool, Doyle had little choice but to switch to another ISP. He made the move a week ago. He still can't get his e-mail from the old ISP's server, and now he's faced with reprinting all his stationery with a new URL. Worse yet, he had just pre-paid two months' service, and now he wonders how he'll get his money back.

He wants to know what recourse customers have and whether ISPs can be legally liable for delivering the level of service they have contracted to provide. I contacted the British Columbia Internet Association, a non-profit organization that represents the interests of the Internet industry in British Columbia. They have 285 active members, many of them ISPs. The BOA says there have been few problems of this type. While some ISPs have gone out of business and there have been occasional mergers, generally speaking, customers have been taken care of and the switchover has been relatively painless.

In most cases, users were notified and the new provider took over existing domains and accounts so there was no disruption in service. While the BCIA asserts that problems are relatively rare, they do admit that offending ISPs can be removed from membership in the organization, and BCIA President David Godfrey notes that they are working on a policy to deal with the kind of situation Doyle encountered. They have identified local ISPs who are willing to step in and assist stranded users and have listed them at their web site (www.bcia.bc.ca). Most listed ISPs have indicated that they are willing to waive setup fees and will offer the first month of service free. Pat Doyle thinks that's great, but it won't help him get e-mail or a refund.

He believes ISPs should have to go one step further. "I carry business insurance to protect my customers," he asserts. "I think they owe me the same level of confidence." Should ISPs make service-level guarantees? And what happens when they can't deliver? Such guarantees got American provider UUnet Technologies into big trouble recently. UUnet apparently had stringent service-level agreements that guaranteed access and specified tough penalties for failure. UUnet's guarantees were ambitious: 100-per-cent network availability, latency (delays) of no more than 85 milliseconds round trip, and 15-minute 4 jV livery of your 1 gallery 1248 1 Holiday package I 1 To Seattle or anywhere in the I iMQiEoins I United States with Clipper Cargo! Only 44 cents per pound ($18 minimum) 1248 FORT ST.

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I One could argue that every person who has ever watched the Toronto Maple Leafs play in Maple Leaf Gardens has a special memory of the storied building. After all, the arena has been Canada's preeminent hockey arena for nearly seven decades, home to 1 1 Stanley Cup championships and a part of Canadian cultural lore. ATTEND THE LAST GAME EVER TO BE HELD IN THE GARDENS 1 1 II tl vlmb Be there on Saturday, February 13 when the Toronto Maple Leafs face off against the Chicago Blackhawks. Your prize package will include airfare, tickets, accommodation, Tickets to the Hockey Hall of Fame AND dinner at Wayne Gretsky's restaurant. WATCH FOR YOUR ENTRY FORM Entry forms will be available in the special section highlighting the Peninsula Hockey Bantam AAA Tournament coming soon to the Times Colonist 5T 4t.i rnst sic i.