ZooNews has reached an exciting milestone this month. It was one short year ago that Montreal Web site design company Zoonini Web Services launched its monthly newsletter... so Happy First Birthday to us! If you did not yet receive a birthday treat to commemorate this auspicious occasion, it means either (1) the mail to your town is slow, or (2) we did not have a postal address for you. To make sure you receive future goodies, please add a mailing address to your ZooNews subscription by clicking the "update preferences" link provided at the end of this message.

This month I'd like to elucidate two bits of Web miscellany that may have had you scratching your head and wondering... What Is This?

Ever come to a form to be filled out on a Web page and notice that some of the fields are yellow? Welcome to Google's "autofill." A feature of the Google toolbar – a handy browser gizmo that comprises a search box and a pop-up blocker, among other tools – autofill is active by default and tries to make form-filling easier by turning yellow any fields it can help you fill out with stored personal information. Yellow fields driving you nuts? Turn it off by selecting "Options" in the Google toolbar menu and unchecking it. Learn more about autofill here.

Ever notice a tiny little icon to the left of a URL in your browser's address bar? That minuscule graphic (a mere 16 by 16 pixels) is called a favicon, short for favourites icon, because it also shows up in your favourites/bookmarks list. While these cuties only used to be visible in Internet Explorer, they are now a standard feature of many popular browsers, including Firefox and Safari, and can be easily created in a number of popular graphics programs.

Ever seen someone surfing the Web on a laptop while sitting on a park bench, a train, or in a cafe? Whether you knew it or not, you were witnessing WiFi in action. WiFi (pronounced Why-Fie) is a method – or "protocol" to use the geekier term – of wirelessly connecting computers to the Internet or a network. (The Wi stands for Wireless, while the origin of the "Fi" part is more debatable.) If you crave more technical details, check out the WiFi Wikipedia entry.

A WiFi hotspot is a public or private "access point" where a WiFi signal is made available, either freely or commercially. According to Wikipedia, "Some smaller countries and municipalities already provide free Wi-Fi hotspots and residential Wi-Fi Internet access to everyone. Examples include the Kingdom of Tonga or Estonia which have already a large number of free Wi-Fi hotspots throughout their countries." Here in Canada, Via Rail now offers WiFi on its first-class train cars, while many cafes around the globe offer either free or paying WiFi for customers who want to send email or surf the Web while sipping their lattes. There is even a controversial plan in the works to make all of downtown Toronto a giant WiFi hotspot.

To find a WiFi hotspot near you or on the road, check out one of the myriad WiFi hotspot directories, including:

• Wi-fiHotspotlist.com– offers a handy search-by-postal-code feature
• Wi-Fi-FreeSpot Directory – lists free hotspots around the world
• Wi-Fi 411 – gives lots of results, lists the type of venue (i.e. restaurant, hotel, etc.), lets you locate only free or commercial hotspots

Got a technology term you'd like demystified in ZooNews? Send it to questions@zoonini.com.

Hot of the virtual presses comes our bilingual site for Travel-Buggy/Bébés-en-voyage, an innovative baby-equipment rental service launched by Lisa Knight to help out visitors to the Montreal area who want to avoid shlepping all their baby gear while travelling. An integrated, searchable blog will allow Lisa to regularly post up-to-date news and events of interest to visitors in a section entitled What's On In Town. The site features a fresh, fun logo from AR Design Solutions and search-engine optimized Web content from A.C. Riley. We wish Lisa much success in her new venture!

We recently launched a blog called Possibility Virus on our site for Canadian Coach of the Year Michael Bungay Stanier. Since its debut last week, it has already begun to foster an appreciative online community with comments by visitors from around the globe.

Apple recently announced with much hullabaloo that its new Intel-chip Macs will be able to run Windows XP natively using its Boot Camp software. But with an ominous caveat: "Windows running on a Mac is like Windows running on a PC. That means it'll be subject to the same attacks that plague the Windows world," Apple warns. "So be sure to keep it updated with the latest Microsoft Windows security fixes."

With a sales pitch like that, I think I'll take a pass...!

À la prochaine,

kp
aka Kathryn Presner