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In our 11/23/99 issue and a couple of others, WebSkulker discussed a rebate offer from Microsoft where they would send you a check for $400 or have a store give you $400 off a purchase at the cash register if you would subscribe to the Microsoft Network (MSN) as your Internet provider for three years.  The fine print of this offer said:

"if for any reason whatsoever you do not continue for the period of time associated with the rebate that you have elected to receive, you agree that you will repay MSN the amount of the rebate immediately upon termination or cancellation of your MSN Plus Internet Access account; provided that if you are a resident of California or Oregon you will not be required to repay the rebate amount."

A few jr. skulkers living in California and Oregon took advantage of this offer and got $400 without needing to keep the MSN account for three years.  This offer is no longer available.  We mention it now only because Jr. Skulker Goatboy recently got a letter from MSN asking him to pay back the $400 because he cancelled his MSN account.  He called them and reminded them that he lives in California, and they backed down and agreed that he doesn't owe the money.  If any other jr. skulkers get this letter from MSN, be firm and insist that you don't have to pay.  Send us email if you have any problems.

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Our 8/10/00 issue discussed the new Microsoft electronic book reader software that lets you download books to read on a PC.  The Microsoft site where you download the software points to sites that have free and pricey e-books.  Here are three more places where you can get free books online:

http://etext.virginia.edu/ebooks/ebooklist.html
WebSkulker learned about this from the WinInfo newsletter.

http://www.gutenberg.net
This is the home for Project Gutenberg, which has free e-books of classic books old enough to be in the public domain, prepared in electronic format by volunteers.  The Project Gutenberg books are text files to be viewed in Notepad or any other editor or word processor, but they will not work in the Microsoft reader software.  Thanks to Jr. Skulker Greg Morkovin for mentioning this.

These two sites have search engines to help you find other free e-books in Microsoft Reader and other formats:
http://www.searchebooks.com
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/search.html

http://www.instinct.org/fravia

Jr. Skulker Technical Viking told us about this site which has "Software protection techniques and tools; Anonymity on the Web: stalking, enemy tracking and other techniques; Reality cracking and anti-advertisement techniques and tools; How to search the web: combing, klebing and other strategies; cookies removal; bots and web-spiders trapping; anti-Micro$oft and anti-Netscape scripts and tricks; tools for software reverse engineering; cgi-cracking; user self-defense; corporate survival counter measures; home-pages capering and password cracking techniques; commercial smut sites busting; Java applets reversing; vxd monitoring; steganographical and cryptological reversing matters; Javascript based site protection and deprotection techniques; email patterns reversing"

http://www.amazing1.com

http://www.amazing1.com/surv.htm

Information Unlimited, which for some odd reason has the web address of "amazing1", has some pretty cool and maybe even amazing gadgets and kits for sale.  Some of these appear to be commercial products and some seem to have been invented and designed by the company, but all are the type of thing the jr. skulker will enjoy.  The first link is their home page; the second is to their telephone category, which is of course the most important.  (Ms. Cat points out that the telephone page is most important only because they don't have a page of gadgets for cats.)

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/307

http://www.speakeasy.org/~rwh

A jr. skulker who runs a small ISP told us about these.  An ISP called "Speakeasy.net" sent out a brochure advertising their DSL service with a special price for the first month.  They then got a message on their voice mail which you can hear from the first link by clicking for the MP3 file.  It starts out pretty innocuous and boring, but please listen through to the end and you will enjoy it.  The second link is to a DJ's mix based on the voice mail message.

The company seems to believe that this message is legitimate, from a caller who is weird.  Jr. Skulker Al Bernay hears clues near the beginning that the message is a prank.

Submitted by Jr. Skulker Belinda Navarrete

Who was the most powerful cat in China ?
Chairman Miaow ! 

What do you get if you cross a cat with a bottle of vinegar ?
A sourpuss ! 

What is cleverer than a talking cat ?
A spelling bee ! 

What do you get if you cross a cat with a canary ?
A peeping tom ! 

How do you know that cats are insensitive creatures?
They never cry over spilt milk ! 

What do you get if you cross a cat with Father Christmas ?
Santa Claws ! 

Why did the cat frown when she passed the hen house ?
Because she heard fowl language ! 

There were four cats in a boat, one jumped out. How many were left ?
None. They were all copy cats ! 

What is white, sugary, has whiskers and floats on the sea ?
A catameringue ! 

Why do tomcats fight ?
Because they like raising a stink !

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