Domains on the Plain

I'm having those dreams again. I'm on the Internet, being chased by Web surf Nazis who are demanding my Gold's Gym membership number. I click and click and click, yet I can't escape a Java applet that's trying to sell me perfume.

Then I dreamily segue to philosophical conundrums. Like, when humans finally colonize the solar system in 2080, who'll come up with all the domain names? (And will the current squabbling over the proposed .firm, .arts, .store, .web, and .rec domains finally be settled by then?) Will someone sending me e-mail from Io have to address it to rluhn@solarsystem.terra.northamerica.compcurr.com? What if the router on Deimos crashes and you can't get your e-mail from the outer solar system for 16 years? Will anyone care? The mind boggles and boggles until it can boggle no more and then ... I wake up.

Wait. It wasn't a dream. Someone is promoting scratch 'n' sniff perfume swatches on the Web. Wait. Someone is demanding my blood type at the DMV site. Wait. Nobody is doing anything about domain names, much less my overuse of italics.

In short, things haven't changed. At the moment, here are the components of the industry zeitgeist:

Network Solutions (aka Internic) or someone is in charge of domain names. Whoever says, "Me first!" can charge you $70.

You take the high road, I'll take the low road: Cisco has cut a deal that will give PeopleSoft's electronic traffic priority sent over Cisco's network hardware--hardware that runs a big chunk of the Web. Can you spell "second-class netizen"?

Apple fans are frantic. Computer Currents runs a piece showing users how to move from Mac to Windows--if they have to. It unleashes a flurry of flame mail. Steve Jobs cancels the first and only ad he's ever run with us. (This, after 13 years of covering the Mac. Sheesh.) The iMac debuts and thousands snap up the system for a mere $1,299. A month later, eMachines announces the November release of a complete 300MHz PC--for $599. With a monitor. And a floppy drive.

Microsoft stalls the Justice department. It stalls NT 4 administrators waiting for NT 5. It stalls users who wonder why Win98's Update site doesn't include updated USB drivers.

Linux, Linux, Linux! Like sex in high school, everyone's talking about Linux, but is anyone doing it? Apparently a lot of intranet administrators are. And the Great Whites are circling in for the money: Oracle, Corel, Intel, Netscape. Networking vendors are singing Linux's song. What's next? End-user applications? Bill Gates fusses and fumes. Could this be the beginning of ... ?

Apple continues to support its MkLinux project. Could this be the beginning of ... ?

Your comments, as always, are welcome. You can e-mail me at rluhn@aol.com and rluhn@compuserve.com or write to me care of Computer Currents.

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