Imagine that you could surf the Web, trade e-mail with friends, even visit chat rooms - while you sleep.
It's not ridiculous. In fact, some of the people you might meet in chat rooms aren't real.
What we're talking about are Bots, which is another term for intelligent assistants. Bots are computer robots, little pieces of programming that can automatically manage information for you.
Looking for a mint-condition vintage Corvette? A Bot could search the classified sections of hundreds of newspapers looking for it, and alert you when it finds one.
Think the local newspaper is boring? A Bot could build one for you from news articles posted in online newspapers around the world.
Or a Bot could automatically track your stocks, mutual funds and other investments. Or search hundreds of frequently-asked-questions (FAQ) files, making you unbeatable at Trivial Pursuit.
Or how about a Bot that would search almost every Internet index and directory in one fell swoop.
Sounds great - and they all exist.
The AdOne Classified Network www.adone.com uses a Bot called the AdHound to search online classifieds and to e-mail registered users with the ads that match their interests.
If you want a personalized newspaper, try CRAYON (CReAte Your Own Newspaper) www.crayon.com or one of several ''InfoBot'' sites on the Web.
Quote.com www.quote.com offers personalized investment tracking and quotes for individuals or corporations.
FAQFinder http://infolab.cs.uchicago.edu/faqfinder/tst/ is an information retrieval project at the University of Chicago. Ask it a question, and it will query several newsgroup FAQ files. (You need password access, though.)
And DogPile www.dogpile.com will search a dozen Web search engines, seven newsgroup databases or three FTP search engines.
Links to all these can be found at The Bot Spot www.botspot.com, an excellent site devoted to the phenomenon of Internet bots. Here, you can see the latest programming marvel at the Bot Spot of the Week, or chat with Eliza, the first online therapist www-ai.ijs.si/eliza-cgi-bin/eliza_script and arguably the world's first bot.
Created in 1966 as an experiment in man-machine communication, Eliza carries on a faux counseling session with a pre-programmed series of responses. Because all she can handle is silly small talk, she's officially called a ChatterBot.
ChatterBots are the latest Bots to inhabit the Web. They pop up in chat rooms and IRC sites, monitoring and annoying the real folks. They can also pretend to be system administrators; if you've ever had a strange online conversation with a tech support person in the wee hours of the morning, you might have been chatting with a support Bot.
More information about ChatterBots can be found at British teen-ager Simon Laven's home page www.student.toplinks.com/hp/sjlaven/ Aside from links to online ChatterBots, the page has some Bots you can download.
BOGUS VIRUS:
Perhaps it's the weather, but another virus hoax is sweeping through e-mail these days. You might have received an e-mail warning of the deadly ''Penpal Greetings'' e-mail virus.
According to this dire-sounding missive, which is usually forwarded by a well-meaning friend, IBM is warning users about an e-mail virus that, if downloaded, will destroy a computer's hard drive.
It's all a joke. A hoax. A fake.
Penpal Greetings is about as dangerous as the Death69 virus, or the killer virus spread by the Microsoft home page. Or that other terrible e-mail virus, Good Times.
(One report claims that the hoax was started to thwart an e-mail chain letter.)
To read about these hoaxes and several other non-viruses, visit the Symantec Anti-Virus Center home page www.symantec.com/avcenter/hoax.html
WEB COMPETITION:
Our thanks to the more than 100 readers who submitted their home pages in the Enquirer Top 10 Personal Web Pages competition. Our crack team of Web surfers is busy rating them, and the results will appear in this column next week.
E-mail Charles Brewer with questions, comments and suggestions at CBrewer@enquirer.com This column and Charles Brewer's past columns can be found at The Enquirer's Web site, http://enquirer.com/columns/brewer
