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Article compares iSyndicate and Screaming Media, and mentions two new firms, YellowBrix and Correspondent.

RSS stands for Rich Site Summary and is an XML-based standard created by Netscape for describing web services. One of the most quickly growing uses of RSS is to describe and access syndicated news services.

Web Reference has an article about Using RSS News Feeds and there are also services that will do all the work for you. For example, when I subscribed to Moreover.com they sent me Javascript that I inserted into a RSS test page to produce a dynamic news headline list. [Note: when I tried to insert the Javascript into this site using Pitas add-entry, it did not work correctly, probably because the browser textbox for entering the text modified the Javascript slightly.]

If you know Perl, you can use CGI to retrieve the news feeds yourself instead of using Moreover's site and Javascript. I looked for a Php script to retrieve RSS news feeds, but only found one, Jonah, that assumes you are using the Horde framework.

To syndicate your own content, you describe it via RSS and publish the description. Here is how Netscape describes the process and here is a sample RSS file.

The xmltree site is a directory of XML content on the web, much of which is RSS-based.

Server Farms are the return of the classic service bureau. Back in the sixties, most companies did not have their own computers. The investment was too great. Instead, they used "service bureaus". You would prepare your data on punched cards or magnetic tape, then courier it over to the service bureau. They would courier back the reports later. It looks like those days might be returning, except that now you will be sending your data and receiving your results in real-time via the Internet.

Fortune Magazine has a feature story about "server farms" (aka Internet data centers) such as those maintained for major Internet sites like Lycos and Hotmail by hosting outsourcer Exodus. You can click here to read the article, which includes sections on outsourcing the IT department of a startup airline and a list of applications for rent as web services.

You are starting a new venture. Of course you need IT services (financials, personnel, sales and marketing, payroll, etc.), but you don't have the funds or the staff for a large IT department. And even if you did, the complexities would distract you from your primary business mission. What are you to do?

Rent your IT applications! There is a new type of service called the "Application Service Provider" who will rent you industrial strength, high quality business aps. They run them on their servers and you access them from your PCs over a network. Until they are rewritten, existing name-brand business aps will probably require a specialized client on your PC, not a web browser. But new, browser-aps are appearing fast.

Read about "Renting Software Apps" in Forbes and in PC Magazine And consider an example: Employease does human resources IT through the Internet and your web browser.

Many well-known ERP packages can be rented too, but may require a secure dedicated network instead of the public Internet. Corio will rent you the PeopleSoft package by the month.

And USi operates Enterprise Data Centers where you can rent software from Siebel, PeopleSoft, Sagent and Broadvision. But not all software vendors will make the switch (Interactive Week)

Remember, you can outsource almost any function over the web.

Connect your office to the fiberoptic backbone at 622MB, through the air. AirFiber uses a narrow beam laser.

iSyndicate offers hundreds of sources of content for your site. Or, if you are a writer, they will syndicate your content for you.

Instead of linking to Amazon as an affiliate, Vitessa allows you to have your own serious ecommerce offerings, all branded like your site. Only costs $100,000 to signup, $100K per year and they take 5-10% per transaction.

Free voicemail for your home phone. Check your voicemail from anywhere in the USA or have it delivered by email. Or try Virtual Voicemail: you don't even need a phone at home.

From Industry Standard: "How do heavily trafficked, popular sites stay up and running around the clock? A strong Web hosting service helps. If you want your site to run nonstop, you should think seriously about a top-shelf Web host. "Deluxe" outsourcers not only put your site up on the Net, but also keep it with a variety of technologies. Here's a look at a few of the many offerings available."

Do It Yourself. Although there are eServices that provide forums for web sites (Take It Offline and Bravenet come to mind), it isn't that difficult to manage your own bulletin board, assuming you have CGI access on your web host. The Ulimate Bulletin Board is one of the most widely used packages with over 100,000 installations. For example: The Elite Trader, a forum for day traders.

Monitor your new eServices business, be notified if it goes down.

... with a private label solution (optional co-branding).

...about Terabeam's plan for laser networks in the air.

I tried Visto last year, but the web calendar was too slow with my 28.8 modem. They have added a lot of new features, including many email functions. Allows a group to share files. However, it still seems slow even over a faster connection.

Focused on on starting a US-based business.

Silicon Isle has links to some Internet tools for running your business from a tropical beach.

vJungle is a web home for your small business, with calendar, email, web page, accounts, group chat, etc. Basic services are free, with a small fee for enhanced services.

Eproject.com: "eProject express is a free service that allows teams to collaborate on their projects through the Web. Included within the service are such common project related modules as Project Calendar, Document Sharing, Task Management, Team Directory, and Messaging services." I have tried it briefly - the look is like MS Outlook and you can put HTML links into descriptions, making it able to link to the rest of your web site. Although more capable than iTeamWork, I have not found a daily email report of open tasks.

Web project aims to provide MS Project style functionality through a browser. Buy the software for your own server or run it on their ASP.

Webapps is a Manila-based site that highlights web applications. Another source of info.

Add spell checking to your web site's bulletin board, or virtually any text box.

Openair.com offers web apps for time bills, expense reports, and time sheets. Free for small firms, $7/month per employee above 5.

Eality offers a collection of 50 bread-and-butter business apps on-line, from vacation requests to cash receipt vouchers. Pricing is $1 or $2 per employee per app per month. Article in Forbes

Web hosting comes in all flavours and prices. Conxion offers a failsafe guarantee: "If we’re down for 26 seconds, our customers get one month of hosting free. Compare that to the industry standard: one day free for 15 minutes of downtime." They own the servers and guarantee them up 99.999% of the time. Services are so customized there are no prices on their web site.

While travelling, it is easier to get access to a browser than to get your laptop connected to the net. Mailstart is a service that reads your pop email account via any browers (you do need to know the password). I used it on a recent trip and it worked fine. Does not support attachements. I also tried another service, Email Planet, but it could not connect to my email account.

Digital Nation is a dedicated hosting service that offers you your own Pentium II systems (root access) starting at $335/month, NT servers, Cobalt servers, and Sun Solaris Servers (an Enterprise 450-Quad is $4300/month). They offer system management, backup, disaster recovery, database administration, and more.

Does it work? A discussion on Slashdot. Quick summary: it works, but the isolation can get to you.

Salesforce.com provides browser-based support for your sales force.

iTeamwork provides web-based project management - free to sign up. I tried it - it didn't work in Netscape 4.05, but works ok in IE 4.

Problems: The calendar months shown on the AddTask page are for last 3 months, not the next 3 months. I selected Apr-31 as a date, but that is an illegal date (this is a problem on all HTML forms, perhaps the script could just round off to the last day of the month). The User Profile page allows me to select which days of the week to send me a list of open tasks, but so far I have not received any emails. The reason is that it doesn't include the task until it is due or past due; since there is no start-date and many tasks will take more than 1 day, I guess they will all have to be past due to appear in my daily email. There is a Reminder button on the task page, but it isn't clear how it works.

Enhancement Requests: Ability for user to include a web link in the task and project description. When your session expires, the error page should have a link to the login page. The help page should have a link at the bottom of every page.

With a fast Internet connection, you don't care where your browser-based payroll processor is located, only that he is running on a dependable e3000 server from HP.

TeraBeam claims 1GB/sec fiberless beams of light using optical antenna. Also feature in this CNET story.

First is not always best.

Bell Labs transmits 3.28 trillion bits of data per second over 300 kilometers of fiber optic cable.

You may remember the story last year about the 16-year old Irish school girl who won a science prize for her innovative new method of encrypting messages. Read the follow up of what happened to Sarah Flannery in the ensuing media frenzy, and also what happened to her crypto algorithm.

I ran out of treehouse links to highlight. You might want to visit the archives, which contain dozens of treehouse web links, plus a tutorial on how to build a Pitas site (try all the links along the left side of the page too!). Or use the Search engine form at the bottom of this page.

So I have changed the topic of this blog from "I want to build a treehouse" to "Bandwidth + Freedom = eServices". It also inherits the mantle of my Silicon Isle blog which proposed: "The Internet Allows Programmers to Work Anywhere - Or Does It?" (it has a deep archive of links).

"It looked like a scene from the Wizard of Oz-- but far scarier. Eleven- year- old Josh Dooley watched the funnel cloud carry his treehouse into the air-- and then level his father's garage."

Another tornado destroyed Chelsea Clinton's treehouse.

Maim intruders.

Heather Docherty. Artist.

Award-winning multi-media treehouse. Whimsical.

Fan fiction from the Magic the Gathering game on the Beyond Dominia web site: Livonya's Treehouse

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
• Part Six

"August 31, 1975. Idabel, Okla.--Lightning struck and killed a 9-year-old boy while he was playing in his treehouse." People who live in treehouses have to maintain a healthy respect for lightning.

An entertaining survey of Nicaragua: "Nicaragua is finally recovering from natural and man-made disasters. So why is it still so crazy?"

Forum question with many answers and comments posted.

A young boy suffering from leuxemia built a treehouse with his dad to celebrate a respite in the disease, but the neighbors complained. So the homeowners group ordered him to tear it down. The world is full of grumps. But bad publicity forced them to backdown. He can keep his treehouse.

For sale in Tasmania. But it is already sold.

"Just about everyone loves a treehouse, except when it permits children to peer into a neighbor's private back yard. If the neighbors complain, the city may well declare the structure a nuisance or a violation of local building codes. 'Neighbors, 99 percent of the time, are behind the complaints which would lead to sometimes ugly confrontations or simply teardowns,' Nelson says. 'If you plan on building one -- particularly if it's in the line of sight of your neighbors or overlooks their yard -- pass all plans by your neighbors first.' Obtaining an official building permit for a house in a tree is nearly impossible."

Where children are heard and not seen.

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