Matt's Webpage - Articles - http://www.dorm.org/~matt/webpage/4/articles/

After hearing numerous arguments from my colleagues who support AOL, I still disagree. AOL isn't a good service.
Since AOL took over the world, it owns everything from Netscape to CNN. Yesterday, AIM invaded my computer through Netscape. Every single time I start up my computer, about 40% of my RAM (I have 32 megs) is completely wiped out. It forces me to sign up and look at these pesky advertisements every two minutes. AIM has destroyed all of the good that was still kindled in Netscape. It now takes over 200% longer to load up than it did before. Now, Netscape makes IE look like the Mach 3 XB-70 Valkyrie. I personally use IE more often, but my dad likes Netscape. He wont let me uninstall it, and if I did, the AIM files have already infiltrated my Winsys and Regedit files. There's no way out. AOL says your security is perfectly safe and impossible to decode. Ha! Do you really believe that? I was surfing the net one day and I found a website that showed detailed instructions to find IP addresses, e-mail, home addresses, and other private things through AOL hacks. AOL was referred to as being a "hacker's haven". Scary, huh?
Spam is known as two things: lunchmeat and junk e-mail. With AOL e-mail, you get plenty of these messages from companies, individuals, and weird cult groups. No way AOL can keep them out. There are simply too many people they're "serving". Is that faster and easier if you have eighteen hundred thousand spam messages in your mailbox?
AIM vs. ICQ: another battle I've considered writing about. Most people aren't on the computer often, or on AIM or ICQ. If you want to say something to your long distance friend about your big soccer game when they're offline, you can just double-click on their name and send them a message so they can read it when they get on. Try that on AIM, and you'll get a message window that tells you something you already knew, they aren't online. Got a cool file to send your friend? Click on their name, select File Transfer, and send it to them. Two cable modems will send them fast and easily. On AIM, do pretty much the same thing, then wait for the painstaking process of AOL servers sending your files. This is fast and easy?
Hmm, $21.95+ a month for loads of spam mail, slow servers, terrible mail programs, overwhelming censorship (which disallows many from speaking what they feel, even though its probably not bad), and all sorts of different things you probably don't notice because youve never used anything else. Try something else. Here are some things you can do for all of the same features on AOL, only better and free (yes, free).

For e-mail get a Excite account at excite.com
For free web space get an angelfire.com account. Or you can go to expage.com if you are HTML illiterate.
For an instant messenger get an ICQ account at icq.com. There are numerous more great features.
For a search engine and "channels" go to yahoo.com

All of these are FREE and have several more features than AOL.
There you have it. In conclusion, learn to stop!

Contents: Home E-mail me ICQ me Music Collection Virtual Planet StarCraft Tribes About Me Friends Katie: the Gerbil Stuff Articles Old Page Archive Rate my page!		Articles Well...Here they are. Articles from the FMS newspaper that I have written. Hopefully, all the rest of mine will be posted up on here too (when school starts). Enjoy! Franklin's Section of the Web Franklin Webpage Update AOL: Learn to stop AOL: More reasons to stop AMD crushes Intel Exerpt from "The Millenium News" Volume XII, Issue 1, December 1999 Franklin’s section of the web By Matt Herbst Have you seen the Franklin Website the past four months? A lot of us have heard about it in the newsletter, announcements and assemblies. It’s maintained by Andy Dorman and Matt Herbst. Some pages that have been added are Sports, News, Technology, Staff, Classrooms, About Franklin and After School. Hopefully, some new sections will be coming soon. This site has features for students, too. It’s not just for parents and teachers. You can check sports scores and schedules and see when your next class field trip will occur. Hopefully, soon we’ll even have a list of links to students’ web pages. Of course, many of us don’t have Internet-ready computers at home, but everyone can see the new site on the computers at school. At the time this article was written, over five hundred people had visited the site! The site’s URL is: http://www.cr.k12.ia.us/fran/ Happy surfing! Exerpt from "The Millenium News" Volume XII, Issue 2, March 2000 Franklin Webpage Update By Matt Herbst Wow. The FMS Website has really taken off! Over 1550 visits since November 99. It's still managed by Andy Dorman and Matt Herbst, and many others have contributed, too. The webpage is updated more than three times a month, and is quickly growing. Many new and student-oriented additions are attracting more people, and soon, there will be many more. Some up-and-coming features are, a "Virtual Tour", a greatly rumored trip through our great facility, a "Shout-out", a moderated message board, and also, an entire student resource area, known as a "Student Center", nice name. Some current features of this site are sports schedules (if you lost your sheet), team news, contacts, Franklin info, and other little FYI pages lying around. Note: if you know HTML, have a webpage, or want to learn how to make web documents, contact Ms. Dvorak for information to manage your team's page. If you don't know HTML, we will show you the basics, what you will need to manage it (it's relatively simple). Well, check out our school's webpage next time you have time to get on at: http://www.cr.k12.ia.us/fran/ Again, happy surfing! Exerpt from "The Millenium News" Volume XII, Issue 2, March 2000 AOL: Learn to stop By Matt Herbst Bleep. Bloop. Warning! Crash... Another frustrated AOL user. A woman by the screen name ValkyrieMEA454 gets a crashed computer, over-paid AOL bill, and total aggravation. Many AOL users don't realize what they aren't getting, and what they are. Many former-AOL users complained that AOL service was slow and tedious. Disconnects are a commonplace and servers are down often. On older computers, the AOL software takes up a lot of hard drive space, before a cache can be stored. Also, AOL's user-friendliness has made many things inaccessible. The main reason millions users have joined is that they are computer illiterate and want the software quick (through the samples in the mail). But usually the CDs sent out are used as Frisbees. If you are suffering from AOL-usage, just STOP. You may not realize it now, but there are better things out there, like better service and faster connection. But, for most users, just stopping cold turkey can be painful. Let's use the gradual step down method that we've all seen on TV. Get with your parents and decide to gradually take away certain AOL "features". Slowly, over three to six months drop out from AOL service. Get a Hotmail account, or something. Use ICQ instead of insignificant AIM. But if you actually like AOL, I will quote one of Mr. Hatfield's [Awesome teacher] pins. Your problem is probably hard to pronounce. Well, this solution will end all AOL blues for you. Now, tell your friends. Have them tell their friends. AOL would die off in oblivion. Some might say, Oh heck, AOL is a huge company, too big for us to destroy! Well, having no customers means no AOL, if everyone did it, this would work. Others will say, Well nobodys going to see this and boycott AOL. They're probably right. But a few people is a start. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Help us, use telnet and ICQ, and other non-AOL Internet programs. Still, I know, most of you are saying, Yo! AOL rocks, man! Hey, I explained this, didnt I? See a physician! Or you can just try boycotting AOL and try out CompuServe or something. AOL isn't as great as you think. Believe me. I've used AOL, it wasn't a fun experience, but I did. Spooky. Get out of the trap. Don't get sucked in. Exerpt from "The Millenium News" Volume XII, Issue 3, May 2000 AOL: More reasons to stop By Matt Herbst After hearing numerous arguments from my colleagues who support AOL, I still disagree. AOL isn't a good service. Since AOL took over the world, it owns everything from Netscape to CNN. Yesterday, AIM invaded my computer through Netscape. Every single time I start up my computer, about 40% of my RAM (I have 32 megs) is completely wiped out. It forces me to sign up and look at these pesky advertisements every two minutes. AIM has destroyed all of the good that was still kindled in Netscape. It now takes over 200% longer to load up than it did before. Now, Netscape makes IE look like the Mach 3 XB-70 Valkyrie. I personally use IE more often, but my dad likes Netscape. He wont let me uninstall it, and if I did, the AIM files have already infiltrated my Winsys and Regedit files. There's no way out. AOL says your security is perfectly safe and impossible to decode. Ha! Do you really believe that? I was surfing the net one day and I found a website that showed detailed instructions to find IP addresses, e-mail, home addresses, and other private things through AOL hacks. AOL was referred to as being a "hacker's haven". Scary, huh? Spam is known as two things: lunchmeat and junk e-mail. With AOL e-mail, you get plenty of these messages from companies, individuals, and weird cult groups. No way AOL can keep them out. There are simply too many people they're "serving". Is that faster and easier if you have eighteen hundred thousand spam messages in your mailbox? AIM vs. ICQ: another battle I've considered writing about. Most people aren't on the computer often, or on AIM or ICQ. If you want to say something to your long distance friend about your big soccer game when they're offline, you can just double-click on their name and send them a message so they can read it when they get on. Try that on AIM, and you'll get a message window that tells you something you already knew, they aren't online. Got a cool file to send your friend? Click on their name, select File Transfer, and send it to them. Two cable modems will send them fast and easily. On AIM, do pretty much the same thing, then wait for the painstaking process of AOL servers sending your files. This is fast and easy? Hmm, $21.95+ a month for loads of spam mail, slow servers, terrible mail programs, overwhelming censorship (which disallows many from speaking what they feel, even though its probably not bad), and all sorts of different things you probably don't notice because youve never used anything else. Try something else. Here are some things you can do for all of the same features on AOL, only better and free (yes, free). For e-mail get a Excite account at excite.com For free web space get an angelfire.com account. Or you can go to expage.com if you are HTML illiterate. For an instant messenger get an ICQ account at icq.com. There are numerous more great features. For a search engine and "channels" go to yahoo.com All of these are FREE and have several more features than AOL. There you have it. In conclusion, learn to stop! Exerpt from "The Millenium News" Volume XII, Issue 3, May 2000 AMD crushes Intel By Matt Herbst Since I've been a kid, we measured our processors by kilohertz and megahertz. One of my first units was only 40 MHz. My current machine runs at 233 MHz, almost slower than I can bear. But, my dad has always known to buy AMD processors, because they were much less expensive and worked almost as well. Recently, one word changed the processor world. Athlon. Several articles in PC World, PC Computing and Computer Games magazines all say the same thing. AMD Athlon processors crush Intel Pentium III in every single test. Graphics appear faster, 3D models are clearer, programs run more efficiently. Winamp doesn't skip while clicking and Windows doesn't lock-up every eighteen minutes. Is it a miracle? Yes. Intel has usually been known to outrun its competitors, but was left behind in a cloud of silicon dust. In Sunnyvale, CA on March 6, 2000, guess who announced they had rocketed to one GHz. You guessed it. Athlon. Whats GHz, you ask? One gigahertz is equal to 1000 megahertz, 1,000,000 kilohertz, and one billion hertz. What is hertz? Hertz is a measure of cycles per second. It usually takes from one to seven cycles of a microprocessor's internal clock to fully process an instruction. The faster the internal clock, the more instructions can be processed per unit of time. The more cycles per second, the faster the microprocessor. Of course, the smarter PC system manufacturers got the best of this revolution. Gateway and Compaq have both decided to make models such as the Select 1000 and Presario 5900Z with one GHz Athlons with 3DNow. How intelligent. Take that Intel! Wasn't it just a few years ago when we were sitting at our little Apple ][es experimenting with Apple-BASIC? Time flew by, didnt it? Remember, whenever we nerds suggest a computer system, we demand an inexpensive, high-quality, lightning fast Athlon. YOU HAVE THE POWER!
		Copyright Matt Herbst 1998, 1999, 2000