Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
If you look real hard you will notice a slight change in the front of your Times-Union today.
It's in the folio line - the line of small type under the Times-Union nameplate.
We've added the universal resource locator (URL) of our home page on the World Wide Web.
We've been maintaining the site for quite awhile. Since last July, actually.
The site contains the top local news and sports stories each day. It also contains our News Views and Remember When columns, court news and classifieds. There is an archive of Gary Nieter's photography as well.
There is space available for advertisers who would like a quick, easy way to get on the web.
To me, one of the most interesting pages on our website is the "links" page. There you will find links to people, government, business, education and churches from the area.
The people links page has dozens of current and former residents. Each person on our links page is invited to list his favorite websites. It is a fascinating mix of interests.
I noticed a familiar name in one of those people links. I found out a guy that went to my high school in Plymouth is living in the area. He works at one of the local orthopedic manufacturers and designs web pages in his spare time.
It truly is amazing the things you can learn from your Times-Union website.
The Internet has changed dramatically over the past few years. What started out as a place for techno-geeks to trade Star Trek trivia has turned into an all-inclusive, comprehensive mass of information.
It is almost inconceivable to me how much stuff is available. The other evening my daughter told me she had to find out about rattlesnakes for a school paper. She asked if we could find information on the Internet.
We typed in "rattlesnakes" in a search engine. We got 3,000-plus hits. We found more information - including artwork - in the first 10 hits than we could possibly use. With a little help, she created a cute little paper about timber rattlers.
As I watched this unfold I couldn't help but notice how eager she was to learn. She was smiling and having fun. But it wasn't eagerness to learn about snakes as much as it was an eagerness to learn about computers and information gathering.
With more users going on line, the web is becoming more mainstream every day.
Internet service providers (ISPs) are stumbling over each other for subscribers, and everyone with a presence on the web is wondering what the future will bring.
Count the Times-Union in that group of wonderers.
My prediction is that the web will go the way of satellite dishes. When they first came out, all you had to do was point them toward the equator and, voila, you were receiving free HBO.
It wasn't long, however, before satellite service providers realized the potential for income generation. Now, everything worth seeing on satellite is subscriber-based.
Eventually, I think that's what will happen with the web. Lots of stuff - the stuff worth looking at - will become subscriber only.
But for now, looking at the Times-Union site is free.
We hope you enjoy it.
