Alan Baratz (the Java guy) has quit Sun to work for an investment bank.

Andover.net (the guys who bought Slashdot) have created an online tool for creating and editing Web pages through a form based interface. The tool is called HTMLWorks. The only question I have is about network security; you can save the files you edit using FTP, but you have to enter your username and password and submit them to Andover’s Web server. They say that they throw away all of the login info, but I still worry about the fact that malicious folks might snoop their site, which has bunches of passwords going through it every day and is thus an inviting target.

Here’s an interesting potential business practice being made available by Cisco — ISPs extorting money from Web sites by threatening to slow their customers’ access to those sites unless the sites pay up. That’s right, they’re setting things up so that, for example, Microsoft could pay @Home to provide slower access to Netscape’s Web site if they wanted. I guess this is the dark side of the Quality of Service feature set.

Symantec suffered the ultimate indignity for any security software company when their site was hacked recently. (Actually, the ultimate indignity would be to ship an installer for an anti-virus product that is actually infected with a virus, but I don’t think that’s ever happened.)

Encouraging data today from the fascinating world of market research. A CBS/New York Times poll found that Microsoft’s approval rating is down, but that’s not the most interesting thing. A Harvard marketing expert characterizes Microsoft’s relationship with its customers as “master-slave“, as opposed to more benign types of relationships like “best friend,” or “childhood buddy.”

A US Court of Appeals has warned litigants not to use Microsoft Word in preparing court documents, not because of anti-trust violations, but because of a bug involved with counting words.

Phil Agre (of the excellent Red Rock Eater mailing list) has written a scolarly article about writing for webzines.

This week, Web Review takes on the topic of Web browsing on the Palm.

One thing I know for sure is that any legislation entitled the Tax Relief for Responsible Encryption Act can’t be good.