from the electronic frontier of the Internet. Why must I sound like a StarTrek "Trekie" everytime I start this column? I have no idea! I guess that is part of the hype of the Internet. Everybody is talking about it and no one really knows where it is going. Wherever it is going, it is going in a hurry. Since I last wrote this column the government has passed a communications bill that no one understands except the big boys who are jockeying for position. What impact will this have on you and I? Well, we will be smarter, more informed, addicted and no doubt poorer.
Yahoo!
This also just happens to be the name of what is known as a search engine. Yahoo is the most well known of the dozen or so search engines on the Internet. The name is a tongue in cheek reference to the long confusing names given to things on the Internet. It means "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle".
A search engine is like the yellow pages on steroids. You type in a word or group of words about a subject you want to research and the search engine will give you all the sites that contain the words that you typed in. It may be one or 40,000 depending on the word.
Yahoo created a special section for Hot Rods. If you type in Hot Rods in Yahoo, you will be taken directly to Hot Rods Online. We were the first and only Hot Rod board on Yahoo.
We have had over 16,000 visitors to our site since we began and are averaging 300-500 hits a day and growing. I am here to tell you that the Hot Rod hobby is alive and growing and has enthusiasts all over the world. We recently had a gentleman send a description and pictures of his custom volkswagen from Jakarta, Indonesia! This is a 1600 CC powered vehicle turning 130 in the Quarter!
It is beyond our dreams the response that has come from this site. We have added a guest book on the opening page and invite you to read the people that have responded from all over the world.
Interactivity is going to be an important part of the Internet and we have added several spots on Hot Rods Online where you can interact with us and other car nuts from all over the world. One of the places where you can get the word out is in the classified section. You can type in cars or parts that you may have for sale. There is also a wanted section where you can list things that you need or the dream car you have been looking for. We are offering this free for a limited time to help us get some idea of the sections we need to organize the ads and allow you to help us make this an effective board for you and the hobby.

Another place that we invite your participation is in the Hall of Fame section. We currently have the El Matador and the Little Duece Coupe. We need your suggestions of cars you would like to see here. Any stories or connections you may have about the cars there would be of interest to all. If you have photos, or know the whereabouts of some of the famous cars & rods of yesterday, let us know.
We have added these interactive areas in the last month and have much more to come.

Some of the visitors to the site have been trying to access through some of the online services and are having some problems. We have used HTML 3 (hypertext markup language) since the beginning and America Online is still using HTML2 but is hopefully upgraded by the time you read this. Online services have notoriously bad browsing tools and are slow to upgrade. We suggest an independent service provider and Netscape Navigator. The good news is that all of the Internet is improving all the time and newer and better technology is coming fast and furious. The papers this month carried the story of the first electronic computer called ENIAC. It filled a building and had thousands of flashing bulbs and no monitor. It had processing power much less than today's calculator that you can slip in your shirt pocket and costs less than $5.
Wherever the Internet takes us, remember it still can't beat a roadster at full song on a country road in the summertime!