To use the links in this newsletter, you must be connected to the Internet.  PC Eudora users: to see this and other html mail properly you must check the box "Use Microsoft's Viewer" in the "Viewing Mail" options.

http://www.proxymate.com

This service provides a more anonymous web surfing experience for you jr. skulkers, including a unique anonymous email service that lets you track how spammers are getting your email address and then blocking them.  Originally developed by Lucent as an experiment, it has now been formalized as a potentially-commercial service at the above URL.

Sign up for the service by clicking on the Sign-up button and filling in a user name for yourself, a password, and most importantly a real email address where you can receive mail.  Note the "Select an Option" section where it asks whether you want Automatic or Manual setup.  WebSkulker suggests you choose Manual as this will give you a better understanding about how Proxymate works and how to uninstall it if you ever want to, but the Automatic setup should work OK if you don't care.  The entire installation process is simply typing in the name and port number of their proxy server into the appropriate place in your web browser, and uninstalling is simply a matter of removing the proxy information.

When your browser is configured to use a proxy server, all web activity is redirected through that server which can filter the information that the web server knows about you and your machine.  The proxy server can also add its own data to what you see on your screen.  The most important thing Proxymate does is to filter out your IP address and some other headers so the web servers you visit can't track you by that. It also optionally adds an information bar at the top of the browser window letting you control some aspects of Proxymate.  Remember this well:  as far as your web browser is concerned, the Proxymate bar is part of the information coming from the web site you are visiting, so the bar gets cached.  If you turn off the bar or uninstall Proxymate, you might still see their bar when you visit some web sites because your browser is bringing up the old image from its cache.  Clear the cache once to avoid this effect.

The anonymous email service works like this:  when a web site asks you to fill in your email address so they can send you information, type in only the two characters  \@  and Proxymate will replace that with a legitimate email address on their server that has a long, random-looking name.  So the web site you are registering with will think your email address is something like  iae3bl2rq2jzyfumgkf25@proxymate.com  which will actually work to reach you because Proxymate will forward such email to the real email address you registered with.  Each web site you register with will get a different address, so if you start getting spam in the future to one of these addresses, you can figure out what web site gave out the information.  You can also configure your email program to reject mail from these addresses as necessary.  Unfortunately Proxymate won't give you a list of these addresses vs. web sites, so if you want to track spam, you must save the first message you get from the web site to keep your own list.

Click the tiny link "More Info" at the bottom of the Proxymate web page for more info, because it has other capabilities we haven't mentioned.

http://www.tveyes.com

WebSkulker saw this one in the Lockergnome newsletter.  Many TV shows are "closed captioned" for the benefit of people who are hard of hearing, and almost all TV sets today can be configured to show visual transcripts of the words being spoken on the screen.  TVEyes.com apparently has machines which record all the transcripts from all the TV networks in real time and searches them for any words or phrases that you are interested in.  When it finds anything, it will send you an email instantly giving you the name of the show, the date and time, and the sentence the word or phrase was in.  You can click on a link to go to their web site and see more of the context, maybe a couple of sentences before and after.

To get started with TVEyes, go to their site and type in your email address and the first word or phrase you want.  This will establish an account, but you need to take one more step to use the service meaningfully:  Click on the My TVEyes link at the top of the page and fill out the form at the right with your email address and a password.  Now you can log in to the My TVEyes section whenever you want to add, delete, and modify keywords to be searched for.  Note that you must keep renewing your searches; when you add a new one or click on one to modify it, you specify a count of how many times you want to be alerted, and the maximum for this free service is 10.

It is interesting to see how many serious spelling mistakes are in the transcripts.  WebSkulker believes that this is because the transcripts are created in real time by the same people and machines who do court reporting.  They are listening and typing at the same time, with no opportunity to correct mistakes. 

http://www.taswegian.com/MOSCOW/soviet.html

http://www.taswegian.com/MOSCOW/contentsmonster.html

This site is the Museum of Soviet Calculators and has pictures and information about mechanical and electronic calculators developed in the Soviet Union, mainly from the 1960's and on.  If you want to skip all the introductory pages and just see the machines, click on the second link above, then continue on by using the right-arrow button at the top-right of each page.  Click on each picture to get details.

Please try this even if the topic sounds boring, because you might be interested once you see the pictures.

http://www.coolquiz.com

"Cool Quiz features games, quizzes, trivia, discussion forums, 'cool diversions' and more...even create your own quizzes!"

Submitted by Jr. Skulker Ms. 1133

This is an actual job application a 17 year old boy submitted at a McDonald's fast- food establishment in Florida........and they hired him because he was so honest and funny!

NAME: Greg Bulmash 

SEX: Not yet. Still waiting for the right person. 

DESIRED POSITION: Company's President or Vice President. But seriously, whatever's available. If I was in a position to be picky, I wouldn't be applying here in the first place. 

DESIRED SALARY: $185,000 a year plus stock options and a Michael Ovitz-style severance package. If that's not possible, make an offer and we can haggle. 

EDUCATION: Yes. 

LAST POSITION HELD: Target for middle management hostility. 

SALARY: Less than I'm worth. 

MOST NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT: My incredible collection of stolen pens and post-it notes. 

REASON FOR LEAVING: It sucked. 

HOURS AVAILABLE TO WORK: Any. 

PREFERRED HOURS: 1:30-3:30 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. 

DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL SKILLS?: Yes, but they're better suited to a more intimate environment. 

MAY WE CONTACT YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER?: If I had one, would I be here? 

DO YOU HAVE ANY PHYSICAL CONDITIONS THAT WOULD PROHIBIT YOU FROM LIFTING UP TO 50 LBS?: Of what? 

DO YOU HAVE A CAR?: I think the more appropriate question here would be, "Do you have a car that runs?" 

HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY SPECIAL AWARDS OR RECOGNITION?: I may already be a winner of the Publishers Clearing house Sweepstakes. 

DO YOU SMOKE?: On the job no, on my breaks yes. 

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE DOING IN FIVE YEARS?: Living in the Bahamas with a fabulously wealthy dumb sexy blonde super model who thinks I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. Actually, I'd like to be doing that now. 

DO YOU CERTIFY THAT THE ABOVE IS TRUE AND COMPLETE TO THE BEST OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE?: Yes. Absolutely.

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