After much strategic plotting, I decided on a black Lexus LS 400 and hit the cyber pavement. Research was the first step. Since I'm "someone in the Internet know," I'm privy to the top spots for research and shopping. If you don't know where to begin, head to your favorite portal. It's likely to have a partnership with a leading Web car dealer. Next came signing up with various sites. Most wanted the basics: Make, model, my name, location, amount I wanted to spend, etc. Querying top sites (see links below) took less than two hours. Here are the pros and cons I discovered.

PROS
It's a small world: I saw the same dark green Lexus on three sites for the same price. So don't rack your brain looking for the best *deal*. Pick a store interface you like instead. Selection and price are not likely to vary dramatically, since many stores are working with the same dealers.

No pressure: You don't have to worry about being jumped by overly eager salespeople. Plus it's a fast and easy way to make contactless price comparisons between dealerships.

Knowledge bank: The best thing about car sites is the wealth of information. Most sites will arm you with dealer invoice prices, Blue Book info, make and model comparisons, financing info and much more.

CONS
Getting lost: While the information is invaluable, the organization and navigation are not intuitive. Plus, pages can take forever to download.

Availability: If you want something very specific (say, a black LS 400) or something rare (apparently a black LS 400), you may have a tougher time finding what you want. For instance, searching turned up zero matching cars in the greater Seattle metropolitan area. On the other hand, when I searched for popular cars such as the Ford Taurus and the Honda Accord, I came up with dozens.

Bottom line: A priceless research tool and a quick way to get the ball rolling, but won't replace traditional car-buying anytime soon.

And about that Lexus? I changed my mind. My new black Jaguar S-Type arrives in July, and yes, I made initial contact with the dealer via the Web. (Click to visit the Jaguar site and preview my new car.)

Now hit the TalkBack button and tell me about your experiences with online car dealers. I'll post responses beneath this article.

MY FAVORITE ONLINE CAR SITES
CarPoint
AutoConnect
Autobytel

The Palm accesses the Net via Web clipping. You send information requests to content and service providers on the Palm Network -- Yahoo, ESPN, ABCNews.com, TheStreet.com and UPS among them. The providers' graphics and forms are stored on the Palm. When you make a request it accesses a wireless network and retrieves the info. Say an address from Yahoo. Or a baseball score from ESPN. With email, you can send to any email address, but incoming mail has to go through your account with Palm.net. Attachments are stripped and you're limited to 250 to 8,000 characters.

I applaud 3Com's effort, but this just doesn't cut it as a wireless venture for the masses. Here's why:

Doesn't come close to eliminating the need for a cell phone or laptop.

The price isn't right at $600 for the unit and $9.99 (50K of transmissions) or $24.95 (150K of transmissions) a month for the wireless service. Oh, and you get an extra charge of 30 cents a kilobyte if you go over your limit. Remember, you're still paying for your ISP or cell provider. You do the math.

Only 2 MB of memory doesn’t make sense when the Palm IIIx has 4 MB. Especially when you'll want to store all those cool Web clippings.

The Palm VII is like eating a dish that's missing an important ingredient. With help from AnchorDesk's resident Palm expert Jon DeKeles, I offer a recipe for the ultimate wireless handheld:

Filtering: It's got to know which communications are important to you. For instance, I want a handheld that instantly recognizes info from my team.

Transparency: Use must be seamless. Access to all functions at my fingertips. And as long as I'm dreaming big, I want voice recognition too.

Connection: A pager, email and cell phone capabilities in one spot. I don't care from whom, or how, just soon please.

My advice: Unless you're one of those who has to get your hands on each new thing, stick with the PDA you've got. But sit tight, we're heading down the right path. Click for more.

Elsewhere in this issue, the Help Channel's Courtney Attwood offers the latest tips and cheats for Palm and CE users (click for more), and Jon has three cool new Palm downloads (click for more).

Now give me your take on the Palm VII -- and tell me what you think the ultimate handheld should have. I'll post responses beneath this article. Or hop over to my Berst Alerts forum where a discussion is already underway.

Filtering software is getting better. New technology means parents, teachers, librarians and others responsible for what children see online don’t have to resort to disabling the modem. You and I know the Internet is an outstanding teaching tool -- used the right way. And censorship sends a disturbing message -- used the wrong way.

Efforts to protect children online are coming fast and furious. Among them:

Help for parents. With backing from 15 major Internet companies, the White House announced a new Web site where parents can get tools to monitor the sites their children visit, block access to hate sites and pornography and limit time online. AOL, Yahoo and others will put links on their pages promoting the new site, expected to launch in July. Click for more.

Safe places for kids. There are myriad sites designed to give kids a safe online experience. One of the newest is Zeeks.com, which features original content for kids 6-13 plus ZeekSafe, free filtering software that restricts over 100,000 Web sites containing inappropriate material. Click for more.

Free filters for all. Earlier this month the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill that would force ISPs with more than 50,000 subscribers to offer content-filtering software free or at cost.

Much ado. But get this: A survey of parents of minors with Net access at home conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the U of Pennsylvania showed only 31% use filtering devices. Which means most don't.

And maybe that's not so surprising. After reviewing eight popular Web filtering packages, the product experts at PC Magazine concluded none are foolproof. And that parental supervisors still offer the best level of protection. An ally can't hurt, though, and the excellent review provides pros and cons of well-known utilities -- SurfWatch, Net Nanny, CyberSitter and five more. Click for more.

I've linked more resources below and in the sidebar. If you've got other recommendations on keeping kids safe online, use the TalkBack button or jump to my Berst Alerts forum.

I agree with Joseph Turow, who created the Annenberg survey I mentioned above. He notes "parents are juggling the dream and the nightmare of the Internet at the same time." And we've had our wake-up call.

And the automobile industry is one area that's quickly delivering these devices to mainstream consumers. Here are six ways you can outfit your auto for the future today:

Smart cars: BMW (click for more), Porsche (click for more), Jaguar (click for more) and some General Motors models have snazzy, built-in navigation systems. Some even alert you to the closest restaurants and banks. Check out one of the sites recommended in my Upgrade Your Life Online piece to see if your dream car is also a smart car. Click for more.

Clarion's AutoPC: Using Microsoft's Windows CE operating system, this dashboard computer allows you to make touch and voice commands to navigate, get your email, receive news, traffic and weather updates. It also functions as a car stereo and interfaces with your PC or WinCE PDA. Price starts at $1,299. Click for more.

GPS devices: Delorme Tripmate GPS sensor hooks up to your laptop and tracks 12 satellites simultaneously and includes street level maps of the U.S. ($149) Click for more. AnchorDesk's gadget ace Nicci Noteboom is fond of Magellan's GPS 2000 XL and Map 'N Track combo ($230). Click for more.

empeg-car: This $999 digital music player fits in your dash and stores up to 7,000 singles that you transfer onto it from your PC. (BTW: Its software is Linux-based.) Click for more.

CreataLink: Motorola developed this automotive pager system that lets you remotely control certain actions by calling its 800 number. It can unlock doors, start/disable the engine, flash lights and more ($100). Click for more.

CarMon Driver Monitor: The team wants me to get this for Annette Hamilton, our reckless Web expert. It monitors acceleration, cornering speed and other safety indicators, and then alerts you when you're outside preset parameters. I'm sure you know someone who needs it, too. Click for more.

These are all great. But what I'm really waiting for is a smart highway that will let me sit in the backseat while my car does the driving.

Hit the TalkBack button and tell me about your favorite auto gizmos and your auto gizmo predictions. I'll post responses beneath this article. Or hop over to my Berst Alerts forum where a discussion is already underway.

Likewise, even the most spectacular Web mishaps were simply failure to turn the wheel in time. Consider the fate of 1996's top sites as tracked by Web measurement firm Media Metrix.

A comparison of sites (as ranked by home users) reveals that only three of the top-ranked sites in January 1996 remained on the top 10 list by January 1999. First, take a look at the list. Then I'll talk about what happened.

'96 RANK / '99 RANK

1. AOL.com / 1
2. Webcrawler.com / (acquired by Excite)
3. Netscape.com / (acquired by AOL)
4. Yahoo.com / 2
5. Infoseek.com / (part of Go.com)
6. Prodigy.com / (became an ISP)
7. Compuserve.com / (part of AOL)
8. Umich.edu / 9
9. Primenet.com / 215
10. Well.com / 1143

As you can see, many of the early winners -- Netscape and Webcrawler, for instance -- were swallowed up by current leaders. Others stayed the course, such as AOL. But some managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, leaving behind lessons you would be wise to study. The most stunning failures:

• Prodigy: Once an online service pioneer, now (barely) an ISP
• Compuserve: Once the best online service for professionals, now a cog in the AOL machine
• The Well: Once the Internet community site, now a mere shadow next to GeoCities, TalkCity -- even ICQ

Each of these sites made one key error: They failed to notice soon enough that the mass market was becoming the new center of the Internet. They stuck with their insular and clumsy habits, and failed to plot strategies to win with consumers. If you want to crash your Web business in a similar fashion, just follow these steps:

1. Underestimate the stupidity and laziness of mainstream consumers. Forget simplification and go for the truly arcane. Use esoteric commands and interfaces circa 1966 to keep those newbies away in droves -- like Compuserve.

2. Fail to lock them in. Make it easy for your customers to explore other options -- like Prodigy.

3. Let competitors grab market share while you fret over budget. Prodigy was the leader, the first to the Web. But it couldn't decide on a workable strategy for staying ahead. AOL, meanwhile, became the butt of jokes for dumping dozens of sign-up disks in our mailboxes. Now AOL is laughing. All the way to the bank.

4. When in doubt, don't follow the customer. The Well was the original Web community. But as the Web became more mainstream, it remained insider-ish and highbrow. AOL, on the other hand, was surprised when people valued the communities more than the AOL Net access service. And it adjusted its focus accordingly.

Over the years, as racing cars got faster, crashes got more spectacular. And deadly. The Net forces everyone to travel at breakneck speeds. Better be sure your steering is true.

And who better to guide you? After all, life at AnchorDesk is just one big holiday. No really, think about it. On a holiday, you get in a car and drive too long to spend all day with the people you moved away from home to escape in the first place. Then you sit around and smile politely at stories and jokes you've heard a hundred times.

See, I told you working at AnchorDesk was just like a holiday.

If you'd like to do more than sit around listening to the same old stories, I can help.

GUIDES TO LOCAL ACTIVITIES
City guides aren't just for restaurant reviews and movie listings. While researching this article, for instance, I found stories like these:

• Ten great bike rides
• Find a dark bar with cold beer
• Best babe-watching
• Summer weekend getaways
• Visit a museum
• Best picnic sites
• Fun and free family activities

Here are the top five city guides, according to the Media Metrix rating service. Check to see if your city is covered by any of these stalwarts.

InfoSpace. A fast and fun database-driven site. Big on quantity although quality is hit and miss. Click for more.

Sidewalk. The Microsoft site is strong in some cities, weak in others. When it's good, it's very, very good. Click for more.

Digital City. This AOL-owned group produces clean, well-organized sites. Click for more.

Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch. Listings plus services, including tickets, hotel reservations, ecommerce, classifieds and matchmaking. Click for more.

Zip2 Really a company that provides backend products for building newspaper sites. Still, going to the home page can be a quick way to see if there's a Zip2-powered guide for your city. Click for more.

And try these sites and tactics as well:

• Looksmart.com -- a comprehensive database of local Web site listings
• Livedaily.com -- daily concert and music news, reviews, interviews, commentary and ticketing information
• Culturefinder.com -- 350,000 events in more than 1,300 cities nationwide
• Your local newspaper's Web site -- event listings and more

What if you'd rather stay at home? I've got you covered there, too, with a complete guide to summer entertaining. (The margarita recipe comes highly recommended by the AnchorDesk staff, by the way.) Click on the link below to visit my suggestions.

Hit the TalkBack button to register your opinions and suggestions. Or visit my Berst Alerts forum, where a discussion is underway.

But we can't ignore Microsoft's antitrust battle against the Department of Justice and 19 states, which resumes today in Washington. What happens in Judge Jackson's courtroom will impact your future software, your Internet access and your business.

And believe it or not, you don't know everything about this case. To prove my point, I've exposed five myths about the Tech Trial of the Century:

The Justice Department will win for sure. Granted, the DOJ and lead attorney David Boies have kicked major Microsoft butt, even when it was Microsoft's turn to steer the action. (Remember those bungled videotapes? Click for more.) But Boies' performance is about theatrics. This trial will be decided on facts, too. And the DOJ hasn't done well in the hard evidence department. Click for more.

Trial delays help Microsoft. Some say delays help Microsoft -- more time for argument-supporting mergers like America Online and Netscape to happen and more water under the bridge since Windows 95's release. Some, including Microsoft itself, say delay hurts -- more time spent in court rather than on product development. Click for more.

Microsoft won't budge from its initial argument. Even stubborn Gates & Co. lawyers are shifting away from "Competition from Netscape's browser means we aren't a monopoly." Microsoft is now going to argue "Competition from online services means we aren't a monopoly." Click for more.

Microsoft can always rely on supportive testimony from … Well, this was true until last week, when two longtime Gates boosters changed their tune:

• Gordon Eubanks: The former Symantec CEO conceded Friday that Microsoft's inclusion of McAfee anti-virus software in a Windows 95 Plus Pack hurt Symantec. Click for more.
• IBM: The love-hate relationship between Big Bill and Big Blue veered into Hate City when an IBM witness testified Thursday that Microsoft quintupled royalties when IBM refused to axe a competing operating system. Click for more.

The DOJ has revealed its hand. Not so, given that Boies' Boys spent the past months dredging up fresh evidence. Likewise, Microsoft says it has surprise evidence to reveal. (More "doctored" videos, do you suppose?) Click for more.

In other words, a lot can happen between today and whenever Judge Jackson renders his decision -- next year, it looks like. I'm certain, however, that if Microsoft loses it will appeal ad nauseum. My advice for Bill Gates remains: "Settle this dispute out of court and move on."

What are your thoughts as the trial resumes? Share you opinions in TalkBack, or jump to my Berst Alerts forum to talk about MS-DOJ with other readers.

PALM VII
Now, in addition to organizing your contacts, tasks and appointments on a pocket-size PDA, you can use the same device to send and retrieve email and to query Web sites for information. You can't use the Palm VII to cruise Web sites, download files from FTP sites or converse in chat rooms, but you can exchange email, do ecommerce transactions and interact with specific Internet sites to retrieve information such as news, traffic and weather reports. My question: Do we really need this kind of functionality in this kind of package?
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GATEWAY SOLO 9150LS, MICRON TRANSPORT NX
Dell competitors Gateway and Micron have been inspired by Dell’s Inspiron to introduce notebooks with 15-inch screens. Do these systems up the ante for not-so-mobile mobile PCs? The Gateway Solo 9150LS ($3,634) and the Micron TransPort NX ($3,699) are powered by 366 MHz Mobile Pentium II processors with 256 K of full-speed, integrated L2 cache. Each also features 64 MB of RAM, a 14 GB hard disk and a graphics subsystem based on the ATI Rage LT Pro AGP 2X chip set with 8 MB of SGRAM. In addition, these laptops both have DVD drives and LS120 drives, although they are integrated in different ways. The Solo’s implementation is a combo drive mounted up front in an option bay (you can opt for a combination 24X CD-ROM drive/floppy disk drive for $300 less, and the option bay can alternatively take a second battery), and its DVD drive is a 2X model. The TransPort’s 4X DVD drive and LS120 drive are housed in separate bays. The former can also accommodate a 2X DVD, CD, or second hard disk; the latter will take a floppy disk drive, Zip Drive or second battery.
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