Monday, August 28, 2000		Kids Chat

 Jackhammer to break the online queue

Windy : Friends! Our friend circle is increasing day by day. We are getting mails from our valuable readers. We are trying to answer their queries. Keep reading till yours get answered.

Cliparti : I also have a few pen pals. Making new friends can be very exciting.

Windy : It can also be dangerous if safety measures are not met. Crimes are being committed over the Net on a regular basis.

Fluppy : Then we should not make pen pals.

Windy : Why not? We can take safety measures. Being safe is a lot easier than you may think as it deals strictly with common sense.

Cliparti : I have my pen pals at http://kidspenpals.about.com. This site not only has pen pals but also tells you how to play safe.

Windy : There is also a kids club at http://cbs4kids.ca. It has a clubhouse where you can talk with other kids, play games. There is a joke shop, quiz and also a worst song contest. Fluppy, you can surely send in your song and win a prize!

Fluppy : Not if you too are a contestant !!

Cliparti : Hey guys, don't fight. If you really want to win, the ACE awards are offered for young kids and teens that have been creating their own personal Websites. Even you can submit your personal home page. You can go to http://www.zen.org and participate.

Fluppy : With so much of computers though schools will not be outdated, yet I feel that soon books will be obsolete.

Windy : Yes, but only in their present form. Over the years to come, they may not be in paper but what is written on these books will always be available in digital form.

Fluppy : Yes, and then children will not need to carry heavy books and thus a heavy bag.

Cliparti : You can carry a whole set of encyclopaedias on a disk, pop it into a drive and look up what you want to.

Windy : Yes, like britannica.com is easily available on the Internet which gives ready access to the encyclopaedia for students for school projects or to prepare for a class.

Fluppy : Since there is such a large number of people trying to access the same link at once, doesn't it get difficult to reach the Website?

Cliparti : Yes, it was similar when the encyclopaedia Britannica went online with free access. Within a short time, the Website became so busy it couldn't handle that many visitors. So new arrangements had to be made and Britannica was back again.

Windy : Jackhammer would have been handy in this situation. In order to jump the Internet queues, insert a troublesome web address, and Jackhammer will try again and again to access when it finally breaks through, a new browser window containing the results will open.

Meanwhile, you are free to surf the Web while Jackhammer does its work in the background. You can Search & Download this software tool from the Internet.

Cliparti : That's really nice. Now I can look up all sites, which I was finding difficult to reach. I'll tell you some of them. www.kidsspace.org has a search engine, especially for kids. It helps you to find the stories on keywords selected by you. Further, there are fun & games, learn all about it, the fact-finding mission and things like "Did you know" on www.pbs.org.kids.

Windy : Yeah, there is lots of good stuff for us kids on the Net. Kids on the Web at www.zen.org have been in the top 50 great sites for kids and parents from the American Library Association. The goal of this page is to collect, in one place a body of information which people can use either to let the kids play with stuff on the Internet or to find the things they need for their work related to the care and education of children.

Fluppy : Net is doing a lot for us, kids.

Cliparti : Not only for us, but also for everybody.

Windy : Yeah.

— Ira Verma