At StepForth, we occasionally come across some very interesting and useful statistics regarding online user habits. The following statistics were found in a November 2002 Internet Usage Report by Nielsen/Netratings.

Altogether, it is a good week for Google and these days, what is good for Google seems to be good for all. Lets see what Google has been up to:

Google Buys into Ireland
Google has announced that it will be creating its first operations centre outside of the USA, in Dublin Ireland. This expansion into Europe will allow Google to serve the European Internet market more closely.

This newest branch of Google will mostly handle the legal and service functions of the company and will include a data centre to handle the European search market.

Google the Great is Growing Again
Recent changes in the search engine world continue to show strong results for Google as it continues to grow.

Item #1, Google and Disney have just signed a deal to distribute Google Contextual Ads on Disney Sites.

Item#2, Yahoo founding investor Michael Moritz has just resigned from the Yahoo board of directors in order to prevent a conflict of interest as he is retaining his seat on Google’s board.

Item #3, Google is about to issue an IPO.

Item#4, Google has just switched back to the algorithm we all know and love and is again displaying highly relevant results.

Cottage Kids produces fun, funky and functional kids bedding for children from newborns to fourteen years old, (right before they hit that infamous "everything must be black" stage)! Using only heirloom quality linens that parents will enjoy passing down from kid to kid and from generation to generation, Cottage Kids has a lot of fun mixing vibrant patterns with brilliant colors. Imagine how comfy cozy your kids will be all snuggled up in one of Cottage Kids’ luxurious 100% cotton flannel ensembles. Cottage Kids owner Renee believe that every child is special in his or her way. Renee and her staff strive to create things that are as cherished as the children who use them. Kids will love the designs, and adults will appreciate the quality and functionality.

Check out the Cottage Kids website at,
www.cottagekids.com, or type, “Kids linens” into a major search engine.

How many of you have lost valuable information due to rampant computer problems? With all of the virus's online and the pending crashes inherent to Microsoft products, it is becoming more and more important to make sure that your system is backed up. For the purposes of this quick tip we chose one of the most crucial software programs that you likely use; Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express.

Just imagine what would happen if you were to lose all of the emails that you had received over the past year. or years! Now the intricacies of backing up an outlook file can be daunting, so we will not go into the details within this article, however, we did find a very suitable and well written free Outlook backup tutorial online.

For all of your other backup needs (ie. other software, entire hard drive backups) there are software options available which will actually backup entire contents of folders or hard drives to cd-rom (if you have a cd-writer). There are also online backup services which allow you to upload files for safe keeping.

Whatever you do, do not get caught without a backup, there are few more uncomfortable situations than knowing that your project correspondence has been lost and you have to contact a client or associate for their files.

Afghanistan activates its .AF top-level domain

After years of stifling fundamentalist rule, Afghanistan announced it would officially activate the .AF top-level domain (TLD). The TLD, which was registered in 1997, puts Afghanistan back on the roadmap of the superhighway just at a time when most Afghanis are struggling to recover from over two decades of war and from the massive bombing campaign of 2002. Like many Afghanis caught between oppression from the ground and bombing from above, the first registrar, Abdul Razeeq apparently disappeared sometime between 1997 and 2002. Thus far, only two websites have been registered under the .AF domain, the first belonging to the Afghani Ministry of Communications, the other belonging to the UN Development Program. While several small cyber-cafes have opened in Kabul since the Taliban fled, most Afghanis have never seen the Internet or even used a computer. As the average monthly wage in Afghanistan is less than $1.00 per day, Internet users on the outside are unlikely to see many sites developed or promoted from within the war-torn nation.

For more information, readers are invited to write, chaos@internal-anarchy.af