The Webbed World Cup -- links to some of the leading sites, and to software you can download for your handheld computer or desktop PC running Microsoft Excel.
Guardian Online

Cheap printers, expensive cartridges -- a business model that could be under threat as the European Commission moves to investigate cartridge prices and any attempts to discourage recycling or refilling cartridges.
Second Sight

Surf Anytime not all the time; the Bill Gates "free money" mailtracking hoax does yet another circuit of the net; reading Locoscript files on a PC; making sites with small type readable; how to get rid of Internet explorer branding and those logos nobody likes; and a reader offers a better way to start more than one Windows program at once. It may not be clear fromthe Guardian presentatin but the four lines of Ben's sample script should read as follows:
Dim WshShell
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.Run ("C:\PROGRAM1.EXE")
WshShell.Run "C:\PROGRAM2.EXE",7
Ask Jack

Beware proprietary data formats. Follow Schofield's First Law and don't lose access to your own data.
Computer Weekly Strategy > Technology Standards > Columnists

Kazaa and Madster revisited, streaming the Soccer Six, London Tourist Board, the annual 5K Web-page competition, checking the security of your browser, and The Matrix 2 -- first video sample. Six of the best: Festivals.
Guardian Webwatch

How to write a batch file to run two Windows programs from a single icon; converting WordStar files for Microsoft Office XP; blocking Shockwave ads with Proxomitron; overwriting Windows Me with XP; and Backchat with readers' responses.
Ask Jack

The world's most comprehensive exhibition of videogames -- hardware, software and associated artifacts -- has just opened at the Barbican Art Gallery in North London. It will be on for four months so see it if you can.
Guardian Online: Game On

The PaceBook is a tablet PC of the sort Microsoft boss Bill Gates reckons will become popular, using a new version of Windows XP, when that appears. PaceBlade is a Microsoft partner so this provides an early look at the direction. (And while I haven't used it, I don't think I would find any Windows machine powered by a slow Transmeta Crusoe usable.) The AlphaSmart 300 is yet another run at the AA battery-powered portable for text entry market. The IBM ThinkPad T30 and similar notebook PCs are much more conventional and therefore much more attractive, if you're buying.
Notebook computers

The jdbgmgr.exe virus hoax; directory services in Outlook Express; ways to delete deleted mail in Outlook Express; and the very slow Windows Explorer problem. Also, readers write back about the ADSL/USB problem with VIA chip sets, stopping popups and other matters.
Ask Jack

What amounts to Microsoft's retrial -- being held for the benefit of the nine non-settling states and Microsoft's competitors -- is thankfully drawing to a close. It only remains to be seen how much (if any) extra damage will be inflicted on PC users as a result.
Computer Weekly > Politics > Strategy & Law

Chris Locke, aka RageBoy, changed the way some of us thought about the Web back in 1994, and his message is becoming more relevant by the day. I sat down with him on his recent visit to London.....
Guardian Online

Star Wars and Spiderman are hot topics on the Web at the moment -- it's the Hollywood movie effect. Plus: a dancing Queen, Lucy Kimbell's LIX, EggPay (or not), new Nasa Mars pictures, and six of the best robot sites.
Webwatch

Connecting to BT Openworld's ADSL service: the VIA chipset problem still hasn't gone away. Other topics include software to block unwanted popups; bug-reporting features in Windows XP; where to report child porn sites. Plus: if you leave your PC switched on all the time, is it likely to burst into flames?
Ask Jack

Nintendo lauches the GameCube in the UK tomorrow (Friday) and it looks like being a cut-throat battle for the games console market. The GameCube isn't as good as the Xbox, but it's worth buying just to play Rogue Squadron, if you like that sort of thing.
Guardian Online

Yesterday (Wednesday) saw the official opening of the Cambridge University Computer Lab in the Bill Gates building, and the Microsoft Research Cambridge lab is right next door. I went to talk to Professor Roger Needham, former head of one, who founded and has been running the other for the past five years.
Online: Microsoft in Cambridge

The Microsoft cumulative bug fix gave people problems. The main ones were: which Service Pack for IE5.5, and the lack of a patch for IE5.01 on Windows 9x (95/98/SE/Me). Also: what to do about mail stuck on the server, and leaving your PC switched on all the time.
Ask Jack

The Zaurus SL-5500 handheld running Linux has finally reached the UK
What's New

As a judge in the annual Advanced Card Awards, for outstanding smart card developments, technology and applications, I am getting used to handing out gongs to Americans, and now they are going to Moscow and Malawi. It would be nice if the Brits put up stiffer opposition....
Computer Weekly