The top tech stories of 2000 had the fuzzy feeling of a New Millennium's Day hangover. Some dire predictions of 1999 were shot down in flames, some ideas succeeded beyond anyone's dreams, and some optimistic projections proved to be so much whistling in the dark.

To be sure, portions of the New WWWorld Order kept chugging along like a downhill freight. E-commerce started the year strong, but is now still in the process of recovering from the haymaker it absorbed on the stock market over the summer. The No. 1 contender in the IT arena might be wireless. And meanwhile, Napster users are grabbing at free music files like dollar bills falling from the sky.

Having sifted through tech story after tech story (along with reams of non-stories) throughout the year, we appointed ourselves archivists for a day and saw the top tech stories of 2000 this way:

Somebody's watching you

A study by Forrester Research last year revealed that 67 percent of consumers are "extremely" or "very" concerned about releasing personal information online, and almost half refuse to make online purchases because of their concerns. Those numbers underscored the creeping realization of Internet users everywhere that their online fingerprints are stickier than flypaper and about as hard to remove.

Information about your credit history, your Web-browsing habits, your online purchases, and any number of non-computing activities (employment, cell phone records) are entirely too accessible to suit many. This is leading to a revolt in which privacy advocates are teaching other users how to "opt out" of cookie placement and other passive data-collection techniques, get removed from mailing lists, and generally cover their tracks.

Need a file? take a file

Intellectual property was probably the most hotly debated tech topic in 2000, and the tinder for the blaze was Napster. The music file-sharing program was a lightning rod for hard-liners who felt that downloading was only a slightly less sleazy form of shoplifting, while fight-the-power types relished the idea of the officially greedy (according to the Federal Trade Commission) record industry taking one in the chops.

The reality was much less cut and dried, and, as is usually the case, the truth was somewhere between the two poles. Even as settlements between MP3.com and the major record labels were being brokered throughout the year, the highest courts couldn't seem to decide whether Napster was a force for good or ill. Meanwhile, software makers undertook a tour of the world's courtrooms in an attempt to establish international piracy laws. In spite of all the legal wrangling, the ultimate ruling in this area will be made not by the courts, but by the collective conscience of the computer user.

False alarm

The good news: Those 20 pallets of bottled water in your basement will never spoil. The bad news, at least for some: Y2K was probably the greatest hype-vs.-reality non-event in history, or at least since the Bicentennial. Nuclear reactor cores didn't melt down, the international economic system stayed in one piece, rusting ICBMs didn't launch themselves willy-nilly through the countryside, and on the morning of 1/1/00, your digital alarm clock worked just fine (to your chagrin). Among the biggest catastrophes reported in the wake of Y2K was that some outdated cash registers in Greece printed receipts reading 1900. Even as the world heaved a sigh of relief, we were reminded just how fragile this technological safety net can be.

But the real residual effects might be felt over the next several years. Y2K preparedness cost companies and organizations billions of dollars, leaving them wondering if all that money could have been spent more wisely. That lingering question could lead to a chilling effect in the form of less proactive CEOs and slashed IT budgets.

Your one-stop shopping place

Plans for a $153 billion AOL-Time Warner merger made stockholders giddy and Internet users nervous. The idea of creating the biggest media conglomerate in history raised questions in areas ranging from the applicability of antitrust law to the aesthetic blandness of getting TV, movies, books, CDs, magazines, and Internet service all from the same company.

As the one-year anniversary of the proposed deal's announcement neared, it raised more questions than it answered. Consumers and regulators were curious to hear an explanation of how such a monstrous merger would benefit consumers, and both AOL and Time Warner were short on answers. (Apparently, it would pave the way for interactive TV.) Finally, the FTC decided it would block the merger unless the two companies agreed to provide multiple Internet companies access to their cable lines. Whether that will kill the merger, alter it, or only forestall the inevitable remains to be seen.

Don't bug me

Before 2000, most mainstream users had never heard of a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, a security breach in which victims are denied a specific service, whether it's loss of e-mail or total Internet access. Thanks to frivolous floods of computer-generated requests targeting eBay, Yahoo!, and ETrade, DoS attacks became more famous in 2000 than most anyone wanted them to be. Even Microsoft got socked once. So far, DoS attacks have proven to be little more than attention-getting nuisances, but hackers have made their point: Firewalls or no firewalls, they still have the wiles to bring almost any network to its knees.

Hitting closer to home (and getting more media attention) were viruses, those wonderful self-procreating bits of mischief that every computer user catches sooner or later. The most notorious was the "Love Bug" virus this spring. Millions of users opened e-mail with the words I LOVE YOU in the title field, unwittingly setting in motion a virus that attacked not only their hard drives, but those of everyone in their e-mail address books. How many lonely hearts were doubly humiliated to find out that not only did they not have an anonymous flame out there somewhere, but also that they'd exposed their computer's guts to the meanest worm in cyberspace?

The party's over

Many investors and entrepreneurs who staked claims in the Internet gold rush left their picks in the dirt and skulked home empty-handed in 2000. According to many tracking services, Internet stocks fell in value by around 20 percent in the year's second quarter, and struggled to regain ground throughout the rest of the year. The second-quarter Nasdaq sell-off left dot-coms big (such as Ask Jeeves and NBC Internet) and small struggling to survive, and even forced titans like Amazon.com, eBay, and Priceline to take significant hits.

As the year wore on, it became clear that Internet investing still is potentially viable. But equally clear is this: The idea that it will create a nation of instant millionaires is every bit as ridiculous as it sounds. As investors salved their wounds, experts warned amateur tycoons to put the rent money on dot-coms that are certain to be profitable by 2002--in other words, to use some common sense.

U.S. v. Microsoft: the aftermath

As we entered year three of the epochal Microsoft antitrust case, we found lawyers for the government and the software giant arguing not over the finer points of monopolism or the sanctity of free enterprise, but rather the word limits for legal filings. Such was the level of minutiae being debated in the landmark trial, which reached a climax in June with Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's order that Microsoft be broken into two separate companies by October. The appeals process being what it is, the two parties were still squabbling over trivia as Halloween neared.

Microsoft (and computer users) will have to live with Jackson's secondary recommendations, if any: Will the split companies try to threaten PC manufacturers that use rival products? Will the new makers of Windows give special treatment to the new makers of Windows apps? Will the two companies be able to resist reuniting for 10 years? Stay tuned.

A wireless world awaits

Those corny TV commercials showing a yuppie watching a ballgame on a palm-sized device from a mountaintop are finally coming true. (OK, there's no such commercial, but there could have been.) Although wireless stocks sagged along with the rest of them, it wasn't because the technology wasn't sound; competing standards and the distant prospect of third-generation technologies kept investors away as much as anything else.

The utopian ideal of the paperless workplace might never come to pass, but a wireless existence is no longer out of the question. Advances in cellular and IEEE 802.11 technology mean that cell phones are only the beginning. In Japan, the day will come sometime in 2001 when more users access the Internet via a wireless device than a PC. When it comes to wireless, the future's so bright, we gotta wear shades--shades outfitted with viewscreen lenses, ideally.

E-business matters

Results in online spending were mixed as e-commerce surged and faded like an ocean wave. The first clue that e-commerce (at least the business-to-consumer variety) was gaining wide acceptance was when online sales rose 1.2 percent in the year's first quarter--formerly known as the post-holiday slump. The good news from the U.S. Commerce Department was tempered somewhat by the puny percentage (0.7 percent) of total retail sales that online purchases represented, but it also meant the word was spreading fast that buying stuff via computer wasn't such a bad idea after all. Another encouraging statistic for retailers online and off: For every dollar spent online, $8 are spent offline as a result of online research.

But on the business-to-business e-commerce front, B2B stocks rolled along with the rest of them until the summer sell-off, at which point they showed themselves to be vulnerable. By September, dot-com fire sales were becoming the rule rather than the exception. B2B has the potential to be a dominant force, and possibly even the primary way of doing business transactions in the future. But as XML standards and other technical issues work themselves out, B2B will have its growing pains.

You, Me, and Win2k

Modesty from Microsoft? That was the posture with the September debut of Windows Millennium (Windows Me), the upgraded OS that promised more robust multimedia and security functions than its predecessor, Windows 98. Sales figures seemed to show that few casual users were convinced, but even anti-Windows types had to acknowledge some of the OS's improvements.

Windows 2000, by comparison, received a thundering ovation from the business world. For the technically savvy, the Win2K suite was remarkably reliable, provided superior data security via improved encryption, and even extended battery life for laptop users thanks to new power-management capabilities. Windows Me and Win2K are planning to show the world their baby, Whistler, next year. Let's hope it gets the best genes from both parents.

The little OS that could

What do Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM have in common? All three tech giants decided in 2000 that Linux is more than some cutesy little hacker code. Dell was first on board, announcing early in the year that it would install the Linux OS on its line of high-end servers. IBM then said its new, powerful network computers would have the capability to run Linux. Late in the year, HP gave Linux a giant feather for its cap by outlining an entire line of products designed to support the OS.

What does this wide acceptance of a renegade OS signify? A glimpse of things to come, according to many observers. With the move to wireless gaining momentum, Linux's relatively simple code will be a godsend to device makers looking to slim down their products. Users who like to get their hands dirty will continue to embrace the OS's open-source nature. And many hope that Linux's command-based nature will be the little dog that pulls back the curtain on the great and powerful Windows, showing intimidated users that computers aren't so darned complicated after all.

Jobs for sale

Tech workers' belief in the credo inscribed on the Statue of Liberty (you know, the one soliciting huddled masses) was put to the test in 2000. H1-B visas, granted to foreign workers for the purposes of filling short-term employment needs in the United States, created a firestorm of controversy. Some say they're necessary for technological progress; others claim they are simply a way for companies to avoid paying higher wages for American workers. A third school of thought says H1-Bs are but a quick fix that ignores the greater problem of adequate worker training.

Despite the General Accounting Office's finding that the tech-worker shortage could be as high as 700,000, many workers took exception when told they were overqualified (read: overpaid) for jobs they sought--or already held. The most notorious horror story took place at insurance giant American International Group (AIG), which fired its programming staff and replaced it with lower-paid H1-B workers. The move was supposed to save AIG millions of dollars a year, but the foreign programmers were so incompetent that the scheme ended up costing the company money.

H1-B was originally limited to 65,000 visas a year, but that limit was raised to 115,000 in 1998. Now there's a push in Congress for the limit to be increased to 190,000. If that happens, look for more rancor in this issue.

Dan Heilman is senior managing editor of ComputerUser.