h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It seems a reasonable enough entry, with information I didn't know, mainly because I've never thought about it. It certainly goes to show that the fears of parents who are imagining their kids switching on the PC and getting loads of pornographic pictures appearing immediately are pointless.

There are a lot of question marks in funny places. I have read somewhere that Netscape can't cope with certain characters - perhaps you can change these to make it understandable for all users. I have no choice but to use Netscape.

A technical question for general use: Is there a way you can check a link before clicking it? By "viewing source", for example? (As if someone drooling in front of their screen would do that before clicking for "more"!)

Perhaps a bit more in the introduction about the general idea of pornography in the internet - it is after all a very private way of doing things and if you're only looking at pictures, you're not doing any harm.

Hi, can you tell me where the odd characters are appearing, it may b a result of me using Word to do the initial layout then FrontPage Express to get the HTML, or my conversion 2 guide ML within the site. I'll look into it.

Whilst it is hard to find the quality pictures quickly, there are no problems finding some very quickly, as a parent I think you should still b concerned enough to monitor your child(rens) usage. And bear in mind I have come to this late in life, I'm sure there r many children out there who can show me quicker ways.

Yes you can check links but as you say - who would when u want 2 c the next page of nubile young girl with no clothes on?

i wouldn't argue with the not doing any harm bit as long as it stays within the limits I list. I once found a site with sub-10 year olds on and was disgusted. Unfortuneatly I hadn't realisedthere were sites to record such sites who would let the relevant law enforcers know.

Thanks

Kadu

Oh PS it would be cool if you could post something on the Peer Review page as well - that way my entry looks like it has been read and stays near the top.

Kadu

PPS I see the ?s as well and I use IE5, I think it is where I used a hyphen, I will check.

Kadu

As so often, there are two sides to an item.
If you really /go/ for it, then you should disable Java/JavaScript/Cookies in your browser (any page relying on those is not worth it anyway). This keeps away the pop-up windows and such. Almost (but not entirely) it also keeps you from receiving 'invitation' eMails from the sites you have visited. A reliable firewall also comes in handy.
On the other side (if you don't want anybody to access such sites from your machine) there are protection schemes on offer (like NetNanny) which might be worth some research. My guess is that they install some software which looks out for the keywords (within some tag) in order to decide whether an internet page is to be allowed or not.

Word can cause hell with some characters when copied into a web site - I always copy any docs to a text editor such as notepad and check it before copying it up to the web. Hyphens and quotes seem the biggest problem.

Re your article - many web developments have come about because of the porn market; it's a bit like war - lots of good inventions come about as a result of something that not everybody approves of!

I agree - what many people don't realise is that Internet porn sites are one of the few areas of 'e-commerce' which have made a real profit and not just a paper one.

Also, I believe that most 'legit' porn sites (as against amateur ones)do support moves to protect kids from seeing this stuff as they're interested in making money, and the last thing they need is to be dragged through the courts.

It actually makes sense for the Online Porn industry to get behind moves to remove the more nasty sites from teh web as otherwise more pressure for Blanket legislation whcih will put them out of buisness is likely.