WIRED WEEK

TRADEMARK TERRORISTS

Our Site of the Week is RTMark, the ultimate in subversion of corporate products and mind-sets. RTmark was responsible for making Barbie talk like G.I. Joe, as well as a U.S.A. phone-in-sick day. Check out the rest of their tactics to subvert corporate culture. Getting the treatment this week -- everyone's favourite Nigerian oil pumper, Shell. <http://rtmark.com>

ALL I WANT FOR XMAS IS A WINDOWS FREE $300 PC

Wal-Mart and K-Mart will be selling discount non-Windows-compliant PCs this Christmas after signing a deal with Compu-Dawn <www.compudawn.com>, which thinks the market needs a computer that is cheap and runs familiar applications. It will have a proprietary operating system that runs the same types of applications that palm-tops and cell phones run. But there's no guarantee that software developers will assemble compatible programs. Frankly, PC prices have dropped so dramatically that it doesn't make sense to get the polyester when the cotton is more comfortable and not much more expensive.

SEARCH ENGINES WANT THE MONEY

When a person viewing a website clicks a link to the Lycos search engine <www.lycos.com>, the affiliate site gets a referral fee: two cents for links to Lycos services and three cents for links to the Hotbot search engine. It's part of Lycos' plan to catch up with Yahoo, the top search engine.

The tactics of search and indexing websites are constantly changing. Now they're becoming indexes that pay for customers and get paid for offering links to companies. The integrity of actually offering good search results is quickly becoming a thing of the past.

The truth of the matter is, every time you click on a link in a web browser, someone pays and someone profits.

ONTARIO ONSIDE WITH CRYPTO

In the U.S., cryptography tools are subject to all sorts of laws that seek to give government a back-door key to all communication. In Ontario, however, the government is promoting the use of encryption software -- according to the Ontario Information and Privacy Commission <www.ipc.on.ca>, everyone should learn how to use encryption software. Personal privacy promoted by the government? Very cool.

MORE HOURS OF LAPTOP POWER

Finally: a laptop battery that can actually work longer than you can (or at least longer than I can). In a test by PC World, Electrofuel PowerPad 160, a new notebook battery, ran for 15 hours on an IBM ThinkPad 560 Pentium MMX-233. It's expensive (about $600) but at least you won't run out when you need the juice the most. <www.electrofuel.com>

-- INGRID HEIN