As the world prepares itself for the millennium, and the Scottish computing fraternity prepares itself for the biggest threat to it’s working life in decades, the millennium party!  I sit here typing away wondering what I could write about that hasn’t been written a thousand times before.   So how do I launch a brand new super duper website?   How can I write witty, yet controversial, commentary  on the world at large and not offend most of the visitors to the new ‘super duper’ website?  How do I keep up with all the recent news and events without running up an incredible phone bill as I trawl the net for little titbit’s of information?   How do I avoid punctuation errors and spelling errers and bad grammar?

The answer as always, is alcohol and lot’s of it.  Then, at least, I won’t care either way.  

So to the topic of this, the first of (hopefully) many rants on topics close to my heart, and I will avoid alcohol for now, at least. 

In the last few months I have became the owner of a Celeron 500 based PC System and to be honest, other than the clunky piece of bloatware called an operating system I really haven’t had any problems with it.  Infact it would be safe to say it is an extremely capable machine.  Infact in recent benchmark tests it has out powered my friends allegedly more powerful PIII450 set-up, much to his displeasure.  This as you can probably tell is where my rant will begin.   Now unless you live in a small third world country you can’t have failed to notice, Intel’s new Web fitter service and you will surely have noticed the PIII angle it is following.   Now, I know it’s merely a gimmick and has no actual use other than to save you downloading plug-ins of the web (they send you a free CD if you didn’t already know this) but and this is a big BUT,  what about people who have gone with their so-called budget Celeron( I Can’t believe it’s not Pentium II)  processor.  Are we to believe that the PIII actually makes the web faster?  Does it turn your phone line into an ASDL line when your not looking?

Have they bypassed the laws on false advertising by supplying a CD to PIII owners to save them downloading plug-ins thus making the net faster.  Who knows and more importantly who cares?  

All I know is that by supplying said CD to PIII owners and excluding all the PII and Celeron owners out there Intel are making it vastly apparent that all is not well with there projected PIII sales.  The advert in question is obviously aimed at the unenlightened, and newbie to the computing world to try and brainwash them into buying a PIII system that is infact, not the best thing since sliced bread.  Just a side note.  What was the best thing before sliced bread?  Answers on a postcard.   Does a PIII system make my TNT2 ultra run faster when using VRML and other 3D plug-ins?  No it doesn’t, infact I struggle to imagine an occasion on the net when I will find myself excluded from running something purely because of the processor I use, other than.  Now wait for it.  No wait a bit longer.  The Intel Web fitter service and all the other sites and retailers they have got their claws into.  Is this due to a deficiency in my processor?  No it’s due to the check they run on your system to see what processor you have.  What next?  You can only use this software if you are over six foot tall?  This surely could be described as processorism, a technological form of racism.  You haven’t got a PIII so you aint getting in.   Not only do I find it offensive but also completely out with the spirit of the internet.  Things like this are not acceptable in a modern society so why should we accept it on the web?  So to Intel and any other hardware or software manufacturers considering entering a similar venture, I merely have this to say to you.  Don’t do it!

Slarti Nov 99