A man with new computers

I get a lot of feedback from readers of my weekly Internet column, but this is a first.

Letter: I read with interest your articles but find it impossible to access
most of them. The details are not clear enough today I tried both the
Humming Bird & the Fit for an astronaut & never found either of them. the
same thing happened last week. I have both a new top of range laptop P.C/
Acer & a E-mac Apple machine both are brand new please make your details
clearer.
My Answer:
I am unsure as to what "details" are proving problematical. Do you mean the
URLs?
Perhaps, Ken, you would find it easier to go in through The Advertiser's
website where you can hotlink to the sites without having to copy them down.

http://www.theadvertiser.com.au

Net Adventures is on the menu bar.

regards

His Response:

You havent addressed the problem most readers of the Advertiser are
having . I have since spoken to 5 people & their reply is why waste your
time with difficult web addresses. If I dont receive a simple explanation I
will take it up on behalf of our readers & shareholders of News Ltd.
Yours Faithfully


My Answer:
Gee, Ken. I don't create the websites. I simply find them. It would be a pity only to run websites because their URLs are easy. I make an arduous effort to find sites which are varied, interesting, challenging and topical.
Until such day as the web creates an easier form of navigation, we are stuck with www and various extensions such as / and ~, _ etc.
That is why we have the column online - where you can simply hotlink to the web addresses and not have to copy them down. A "hotlink" is a URL you simply mouse click and are automatically taken to the site.
I am surprised at your poll of Advertiser readers. I have been doing this column since 1997 and you are the first person who ever wrote to complain about the structure of URLs.
By way of a simple explanation, I can only point out that the Internet was devised by computer geeks and they have a convoluted way of doing things. It was only a few years ago that we PC users had to key in complex DOS commands to get computers to get anywhere. It was their technology and their language. We just had to try to learn it. Nowadays things are easier - but beneath it all, the language is the same.
By all means, take your complaint to the Shareholders. You never know. If there is a mass revolution against the language of web addresses, the industry may devote research funds to finding a shortcut.

regards

As if.