Home for Crufty Pages

Yahoo s Spam

In 2002, as the tech bust was growing, Yahoo instituted a new privacy policy, dishonored committments previous made, and indicated they would spam even the users who had given them email addresses under the promise they wouldn't be spammed.

This web site documents Yahoo's breech of privacy. It also show how TrustE, an industry consortium setup to assure privacy policy compliance, actively supported the violation.

austin.* Usenet Abuse
(What it is and What We're Doing About It)

Usenet newsgroups are a discussion forum that achieved popularity years before the Internet was widely available. They live on today, mostly as a means for distributing porn and pirated software. And spam.

Usenet is a decentralized network, so there is no enforcement mechanism when problems arise. This web site describes some work I did, to try to provide such a mechanism for the Austin-area newsgroups.

It was, during its time, rather successful. It even won an Austin Chronicle "Best of Austin" annual critic's award in 1997.

Riverside Library - Web Scavenger Hunt

The Austin Public Library celebrated its 75-Year Jubilee with events at branch locations. For the celebration at the Riverside Drive branch library, the Riverside Internet Trainers presented a web scavenger hunt game. Check out the groovy certificate we awarded to the scavenger hunt winners.

News Update: This web site has found a new home at the Riverside Library Internet Training Center.

LIS 341: Introduction to Internet Resources and Services

From 1998-99, I was a lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, Graduate School of Library and Information Science. I taught a course on the Internet.

It was an interesting experience, particularly since this was in the heady (irrational) early days of the web. I tried to focus less on the flash (and Flash®) and sizzle, and more on processes and information structure. I hope the focus on fundamentals has served the students well, now that the dotcom bubble has burst.

Let's Save the Riverside Library

The 1997/98 City of Austin proposed budget called for the closure of the Riverside Drive branch of the Austin Public Library. There was a huge backlash, and the City Council acted to restore funding to keep it open.

Nov '98 Update: Voters approved a bond to build a permanent home for the Riverside Drive library. Thanks, Austin.

Shot of Rhythm

Back in 1995, Jay Hipps and I co-created the first mailing list for the discussion of John Hiatt. We named the list Shot-of-Rhythm. The SOR Archives was the first web site dedicated to John Hiatt.

The Shot-of-Rhythm mailing list lives on.

Max for Mayor

Former Austin City Councilmember Max Nofziger ran for Mayor in 1997. I worked on his campaign, including operating the web page. How did we do? We spent $10,000. The other guys spent about a million bucks. How do you think we did?

Please pardon the painfully earnest message on the home page. The snapshot posted was taken on election day, when anxiety gets pegged to the red line.

The First Best of Austin Web Ballot

Every year, the Austin Chronicle runs a Best of Austin Reader's Poll. In 1994, they let me collect votes on the Web. That first year, about 37 people cast their vote electronically.