Stream a Little Dream: The Best Broadband Sites
Dennis O'Reilly
Broadband changes everything. Forget text and still images. One glimpse of the fancy sites people are putting on the Web these days, and the old stuff will seem practically as passé as a poodle skirt. Prepare yourself for sites that move, talk, sing, and caress your psyche like a soft summer breeze.
But not every site tailored for broadband access is a winner. In fact, of the 100 or so sites I visited via my home-office DSL connection, most delivered less-than-compelling content or were so heavily ad-laden that I couldn't wait to leave. Still others, such as the high-profile AtomFilms.com, generated choppy, unsatisfying video playback in my tests.
Eventually, I found a handful of sites that truly take advantage of broadband to provide content with a serious hook, either informational or entertaining. Undoubtedly, between the moment I describe them and the time you read this, the sites will metamorphose numerous times. But of course, that variability need not be seen as a problem: Never knowing what you'll find the next time you visit them is simply part of the fun.
News/Information
NBCi-Broadband may be the trendsetter in merging television news and entertainment with the Web. It promotes NBC programs, of course, but not exclusively or overzealously. You get the standard personalization features, along with local information for cities and towns across the United States. The videos are primarily news reports, plus interviews with business executives and entertainment personalities, though I found a handful of links to other video sites for short films and animation. The high-speed portion of the site doesn't run very deep, but it sure is broad.
Other news/information sites: ON24 Financial Network's video categories include roundtables and interviews with CEOs and strategists. At Zatso, you can see and hear video reports from any of several dozen local U.S. television news stations, as well as national news, weather, business, technology, and health reports.
Film/Video
Digital Film Festival would be even easier to like if it didn't have the name of its liquor-vending sponsor plastered on just about every page. Once you get to the films, though, you'll forget all about the Big Brand Name and obtrusive banner ad. You can either stream the videos using QuickTime or download them for later playback (often with a choice of two or three resolutions). The lineup of films changes regularly. When I last visited, my favorites were The Wedding by Agnieszka Holland, who won an Academy Award for directing Europa, Europa, and Shaken Not Stirred, David Veloz's account of a single man's night-long efforts to overcome the unkindness of strangers. Additional features: a rudimentary movie-maker that lets you create a custom video snippet, and a 90-minute traveling festival consisting of 20 short films or clips from longer films, all available for download. If you like video, especially the no-commercial-potential kind of video, you're going to love Dfilm.
Other film/video sites: Ifilm is trying to be the Amazon of Internet film, but it's too much Hollywood Reporter and not enough playable film for me. On2 provides near-full-screen video playback. But first you must install the site's proprietary video player application, and on top of that you must have a broadband connection with a download speed of at least 256 kbps.
Animation
The eclectic animations at Wildbrain blur the line between cartoon and art (though some fans might argue that no such line has ever really existed). Wildbrain's short cartoons are available in both RealPlayer and Windows Media Player formats, and you can choose among three download speeds. I'm hooked on Romanov, a little guy with a yin/yang face whose adventures mix elements of Chaplin, Kafka, and Inspector Clouseau. Though this site has fewer animations than some of the others, you'll still find plenty of interesting content to amuse yourself with. And when you tire of them, you can spend some time with Wildbrain's assortment of games.
Other animation sites: The cartoons at Heavy.com skewer any and every popular-culture icon. But scarcely concealed behind the wall of cynicism and biting satire is the radiant joy of life. (Just kidding.) Nose Pilot is a 15-minute Flash romp that dances about, sings, and bounces, and then lets you play with a Rube Goldberg-like device. One word of caution: Neither Wildbrain nor Heavy.com is for the faint of heart--Heavy's Behind the Music parody of the Smashing Pumpkins was so scathing that it touched off a boycott among infuriated fans of the band.
Art
If you can easily spend entire afternoons in a world-class art museum, beware of ArtMuseum.net. Don't visit just before an important meeting or appointment, lest you get to mousing around and lose all track of time. Of the three exhibitions on the site as I write this, my favorite is "The American Century: Art & Culture, 1900-2000," which juxtaposes American art and artists with each decade's cultural milestones. Its unifying timeline is a marvel of Web design. Other featured exhibitions are the Webby Award-winning "Bill Viola: Selected Works 1972-1996," "Van Goghs: Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam," "Refresh: The Art of the Screen-Saver," and "One Stop Warhol Shop."
Other art sites: Artchive.com provides an alphabetical list of artists and periods represented, as well as a virtual exhibition and high-resolution photographs of the art images, including the ability to zoom in on each piece. The National Gallery of Art lets you tour selected collections and search the 100,000 items in its collections by artist, title, subject, provenance, or accession number.
A Word About Players
You may think your PC is equipped with all the latest media player programs. But visit the sites listed here or other broadband-specialty sites, and you'll quickly realize how many more players are out there, not to mention new versions of old players. So the question is: to download the player, or not to download the player? If a site prompts you to update your current version of QuickTime, Flash, RealPlayer, or Windows Media Player, it's probably a good idea to do so. On the other hand, installing one of the more-obscure players, such as On2's proprietary video player, is probably not worth the bother unless you frequently visit sites that use it. And even an essential player such as RealPlayer can be a nuisance, putting its icons (see Home Office) all over your desktop and filling your in-box with spam. If possible, settle on a few favorite media sites and stick with the players they require.
Dennis O'Reilly is a PC World senior associate editor.
Safe, Secure Speed
Is it safe online? Well, nobody can reach in through your Internet connection and grab you, but bored, mean-spirited hackers do have a habit of looking for connected PCs that incautiously leave all their doors and windows open. In a worst-case scenario, a nosy Netizen could exploit your always-on connection to examine your files (including whatever sensitive data they contain), delete files, crash your computer, or plant a Trojan horse--a program that conceals nefarious code within what looks like a normal application.
All of these dangers are more real for broadband customers than for dial-up users (see " Five Reasons Why We (Still) Love Dial-Up").
Essential Security
What can you do? First, gauge your system's vulnerability. Go to Gibson Research's Shields Up Web site (it's free), click the Shields Up link, and run the tests for system vulnerabilities. Depending on what these tests turn up, site author Gibson offers plain-English suggestions on how to plug your system's security leaks. Anyone who uses Windows and has a broadband Internet connection should also read Gibson's Network Bondage page for instructions on how to reduce exposure to snoops.
Next, install a personal firewall product such as Network ICE's $40 BlackICE Defender, Symantec's $70 Norton Internet Security 2001, or Zone Labs' free ZoneAlarm 2.1. All three do a good job of blocking access to your system's 65,000 network port addresses and even masking your computer's existence altogether. Most personal firewalls display probes into your system's ports in real time, and you may be disturbed by the number of probes you receive.
Or you may be pleasantly surprised to find that your service provider has already set up a firewall for you. When I installed a copy of BlackICE Defender to monitor the cable connection that I'd had newly installed from AT&T@Home, I discovered to my delight that my PC didn't draw a single port probe or attack. Apparently, at least in my neck of the woods, AT&T takes security seriously enough to put up its own firewall. Still, I don't plan on taking any chances. Even though the only probes BlackICE has reported so far have come from my own computers, AT&T's, or the Shields Up site, I'm leaving my personal firewall up. Just as you can never have too much bandwidth, you can never have too much Internet security. --Scott Spanbauer
The People's Voice: How Readers Rate Cable and DSL
We asked 500 PC World readers with broadband connections* to tell us what they thought about their service. Neither form of high-speed access emerged as the clear winner--but all in all, most users were happy:
Setup
Advantage: Cable 54 percent of cable customers had the necessary equipment installed within a week of the time they placed the order; 91 percent got it within three weeks. Only 17 percent of DSL users were up and running that quickly; 15 percent were still waiting after six weeks.
Reliability
Advantage: DSL 38 percent of DSL users said they notice significant connection slowdowns no more than once a month. Just 22 percent of cable users see delays that rarely.
Overall Satisfaction
Toss-up: 86 percent of DSL users say the service is worth the money that they spend for it; 87 percent of cable customers feel the same way.
Monthly Cost
Toss-up: 93 percent of all respondents spend less than $60 per month for either type of broadband service.
*Of survey respondents who have no broadband connection, 42 percent said the cost was too high; 37 percent said broadband wasn't available in their area. Only 6 percent said they didn't need a fast Net connection.