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T A B L E__T A L K Do free Web page sites like Tripod and Geocities foster "community"? Talk about what qualifies as an online community in Table Talk's Digital Culture area ___________________ Search barnesandnoble.com for great technology book bargains ___________________ R E C E N T L Y Have my shoe talk to your refrigerator By Janelle Brown Neil Gershenfeld foresees a world in which computers get smart by infiltrating the physical world (01/26/98) Addicted to eBay By Stephanie Zacharek The auction site is the perfect place for Web users to get back in touch with the world of things and stuff (01/25/98) The unbearable realness of virtual being By Andrew Leonard "My Tiny Life" is the best book yet on the meaning of online life (01/22/99) Floppy with your Frappuccino? By Deborah Claymon Starbucks, flying under the radar with Circadia Coffee House, woos the tech crowd (01/21/98) Let's Get This Straight By Scott Rosenberg @Home's purchase of Excite poses a new challenge to AOL and leaves Microsoft on the sidelines -- for now (01/20/99) - - - - - - - - - - BROWSE THE 21ST FEATURES ARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - 21st Log What is Netscape on?

-----Microsoft has your number Will Office's new registration scheme stop software pirates or hassle users? BY ANDREW LEONARD Buyers beware -- Microsoft has a new scheme aimed at stamping out unauthorized use of its products. According to the company, it should make registering new software purchases "easy and natural." According to critics, it's likely to mean more hassles for people who use Microsoft software. The latest wrinkle is part of the registration process for some versions of the Office 2000 suite of software applications. Office 2000 users in some countries (and in academic institutions in the United States and Canada) who wish to run their word processing or spreadsheet program more than 50 times must obtain a special code from Microsoft -- a code that will be tied to the specific hardware configuration of the computer that they want to use. If this sounds like copy protection -- an anti-piracy software fad that has gradually fallen out of favor over the past decade -- that's because it is. Unsatisfied with the vast profits that sales of Office continue to generate, Microsoft is aiming to make users live up to the letter of their Microsoft software licenses -- which sternly prohibit purchasers of Microsoft products from installing their software on more than one or two computers. Microsoft has been testing beta versions of the new registration system for at least six months, and plans to roll out official versions later this year in a limited group of countries -- Australia, New Zealand and Brazil. When Office 2000 rolls out in North America sometime between April and June, Microsoft also plans to introduce the new registration plan for the apparently high-risk demographic of "academic" users of Office in the United States and Canada. But observers say they expect Microsoft to extend the new registration procedure to all of its products if the trial is successful. And that could mean trouble. "If they can find a way to do this that doesn't inconvenience honest customers but makes it harder for [software] pirates, that's great," says Peter Deegan, an editor with Woody's Office Watch, a popular online authority on Office-related developments. "I just don't think they can do it." But when you dominate the marketplace, who cares if a few million people are inconvenienced? Jamie Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, D.C., says: "It's always been the case that consumers do not like overly aggressive attempts to limit the way you can use software with your computer, and in the past it's always been competition which has kept companies from overreaching in these areas. I think this illustrates that Microsoft increasingly doesn't think it has any competition ... It's evidence of the power that Microsoft has in the applications market." N E X T_ P A G E .|. Want to use your software? You're off to see the Wizard