Every Monday through Friday-ish, we post a new Monkey Bite on our frontdoor for your edification. This could be a little news item, a link to a useful site, a handy coding tip, or just some random piece of information we think might be of interest to Web developers. Expired Monkey Bites are stored right here, growing tastier and more sophisticated with each passing day.

This month's Monkey Bites:

01/30/02

FingerWorks brings you the TouchStream Stealth, an ergo-getter keyboard/mouse with a "zero-force" touch and an amazing gesture recognition system that replaces many popular multi-key actions (save, paste, and so on) with a kind of digit-dancing reminiscent of Chisenbop.

01/29/02

Blogger goes Pro for US$35 a year (an early adopter discount off the soon-to-be $50 annual fee — act now!), which lets you spellcheck, post into different space/time continuums, update websites via email, and more. But will people cough up for the extra features when still-greats like Diaryland, Moveable Type, Greymatter, and even Blogger classic continue to deliver free and easy? Huh.

01/28/02

Don't forget to vote for your fave finalists in the Bloggies (polls close at 10:00 PM, EST, Tuesday, January 29) and the SXSW People's Choice Award (you have until high noon, CST, Friday, March 1). And this Thursday is the drop-deadline to submit your site for Webby Award consideration — but be warned, the entrance fee is now a whopping US$150 ($95 for non-profits), and that's per site, per category!)

01/24/02

The Death Star's trash compactor may have been implausible, and the science of Star Trek was perhaps a trifle spotty. But The Six Million Dollar Man wasn't all that far off, and, with a little reverse engineering, even Barbie has a real-world equivalent.

01/22/02

Peep! (The Network Auralizer) lets you monitor your network by listening to the soothing sounds of babbling brooks and tweeting birdies. Peeps are tasteless marshmallow blobs that stare and stare at you and seem to know exactly what you're thinking. (But not what you're planning! No-ho, no!)

01/21/02

OG Webmonkey Josh uses Moveable Type to manage the crystal-fine content on his site. (Incidentally, Joshie, we just received, via post!, that cute, little {cutelit?} book of yours, the So New Media-published Strain 17, and we simply adore it!) Moveable Type's excellent server-side tech is also behind such Webmonkey faves as Coudal (home to Photoshop Tennis), Dollarshort.org, and lomolog.

01/17/02

You don't need money, don't need fame, don't need no credit card to get back in time. No, just type an URL into the Wayback Machine and get a glimpse of the way the Web once was. Neato!

01/14/02

Why think for yourself when you can oh-so-easily, and automagic(thegathering)ly, generate your very own pretentious artist's statement, crossword puzzle, Canadian irony, numbers (perfect for cryptographic keys!), and names (for those times — crank calls, false papers, IDing your espresso beverage at Peet's — when your real name simple will not do).

01/11/02

Pardon me, but do you have the time? In Flash? In Java? In hexadecimal? In a 28-hour day? Of course, if you're the proud owner of the pig toilet clock, the correct time is probably the very least of your worries.

01/10/02

Some people believe that Peter Jackson should direct Star Wars Episode III, others are convinced that Leonard Nimoy should eat more salsa. But I think we can all agree that the crazy kids who're hoping to set a world record for waiting could find a cause more worthy of such a fierce dedication. Volunteer? Join a militant anti-litter movement? Something! Anything!

01/08/02

Christopher Tolkien argued his father's work was "peculiarly unsuitable" for film adaptation, but it certainly makes for a remarkable roman à clef. Speaking of The Dark Lord Sauron, Bill Gates keynote'd the Las Vegas CES, where he crowed about the success of the XBox and Microsoft's upcoming SmartPhone 2002 (AKA "Stinger") and "smart displays" (detatchable flatscreen monitors/stylus tablets).

01/07/02

Anticipation and trepidation came to a head today, with curtains opening on the latest iMac, as well as an (intentionally) creepy Kevin Costner production. Meanwhile, Napster blithely tried to make some noise for its new pay-for-MP3s "service," which should be about as popular with file-sharing enthusiasts as O'Douls non-alcoholic brew is with the frat crowd.

01/04/02

Rumors and counter rumors abound about the Apple iWalk, possibly an outsized PDA running an OS X-inspired operating system and outfitted with an agressively handsome leather carrying case. We can see it now, entire tree-dwelling villages* drumming out messages with sleek, silver styli. Lumdie, lumbdie, lie! Ai, Ai!
* According to Evany, this is some sort of iWalk/Ewok joke. Yeah, we didn't know what she was talking about either.

01/02/02

Kamen's Segway paved the way for the lovely Megway, which comes with a built-in beverage holder and really, really cute hair, and is "the first human transportation device to run on water."




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