TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: BACK WHEN / REBATES / READABILITY

Back in 1995 and 1996 I worked for BoardWatch Magazine, covering the world of Bulletin Board Systems and the fledgling Internet. Tonight I did a bit of reminiscing and decided to scan three of those stories and put them online for posterity. You'll find those classic reruns, along with great advice about online rebates in this issue. Read on!

Back In The Days...

My interviews with Dave "Mr. Mall" Taylor (Jul 1995), Randy "You Can't Make This Stuff Up!" Cassingham (Jan 1996), and Joel "It's Not Easy Being Virtual" Comm (Apr 1996) provide an interesting snapshot of the early Internet from the perspective of these online innovators.

I've kept in touch with each of them over the years, and all three are still actively persuing online ventures. I'm sure you'll find it interesting to see what we talked about 8 or 9 years ago.

http://www.internettourbus.com/backwhen.htm

The Best Things in Life are Free (After Rebate)

Everyone loves to get free stuff. Free After Rebate will point you to stores that sell products that end up free after you send in for a rebate. Trustworthy netizen Kevin Savetz says this new site is a "scam-free, spam-free resource with info about free-after-rebate computer gear, consumer electronics, and office supplies."

You’ll have to pay for the item up front, then submit the rebate materials. Some time later (usually six to eight weeks) you’ll get a rebate check. Only products with 100% rebates are listed.

http://www.FreeAfterRebate.info

Do You Read Me?

Website developers and students who are working on papers will want to check out this site. Readability.info produces quick readability scores for Web pages or MS Word documents. If you're curious about how convoluted your documents or Web pages really are, you can use this tool to analyze the characteristics of your writing and get a variety of readability scores, or compare to other writing samples.

http://www.readability.info

That's all for now. See you next time! -- Bob Rankin