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Book skewers dead dot-coms
Without wise guys like Philip J. Kaplan, it might have taken a few more years before we could share a lusty laugh about the absurdities of the Internet economy.
Fortunately, the self-styled “idiot dork” who calls himself “Pud” is around to snicker through the dot-com graveyard, crudely skewering the corpses of dumb ideas along the way.
The 180-page “F’d Companies: Spectacular Dot-Com Flameouts” capsulizes the bawdy commentary that Kaplan, 25, left, has been sharing on an irreverent Web site he launched in May 2000 as the hot air began to leak from the dot-com bubble.
Readers unfamiliar with Kaplan no doubt are wondering where they can find his Web site, but it’s a vulgar address that can’t be repeated in a family-friendly news outlet. Not even Kaplan’s book publisher, Simon & Schuster, dared to use it in the title, resorting to a contraction instead.
Service scans e-mail for X-rated content
With so much unsolicited X-rated material showing up these days, most parents are likely to think twice about letting young children use e-mail.
That’s no concern with this new service kinderstart.com/filteredmail.html from the popular Net index for parents and caregivers of children under 7. All incoming and outgoing mail is scanned by a proprietary filter to prevent the sending or receiving of obscene mail.
From photos to art, printer becomes a tech standout
While most of the high-tech world perpetually focuses on the next new thing, a familiar device quietly has gotten so good as to be almost stunning: the printer.
Galleries and frame stores can download artwork from the Internet and make richly colored prints within minutes.
One company built almost entirely on recent printing advances is Brightcube Inc. Its high-end ink jets let art galleries and frame stores make posters and high-quality prints on demand, reducing the need to keep costly inventory around.
Brightcube’s technology keeps track of which works are downloaded and printed, so artists can collect proper royalties.
New inks fuse to paper much easier and in smaller particles, permitting greater resolution and sharper images with more subtle hues.
Other refinements make printing faster.
The iGen3 digital press expected soon from Xerox Corp. should help graphic arts companies and corporations do their own publishing. The press can crank out 100 pages per minute.