The Cyberfeminist RevolutionIn recent years, questions have been raised as to whether students, especially female students, do better in a same-sex educational environment rather than a coeducational one. The root of these questions is not a controversy about whether women and men are equal in intellect, but about whether the traditional classroom environment unfairly favors the male of the species.
by Thomas Caldwell
The theory (which many would label as fact) that the modern educational environment favors males over females has now been carried over to the Internet. An increasing number of women complain that cyberspace has evolved into too much of a male-dominated playground. So some of these women have taken the initiative to band together, with the aim of empowering themselves with the latest in technology.
There are several online magazines geared towards women on the Web. Geekgirl (http://www.geekgirl.com.au) claims to be the first of these publications. According to Laura Jordan, the webmistress and co-publisher of Geekgirl, there is a real need to stick up for women's rights in cyberspace. Jordan points out that most Internet publications ignore women; instead, they are "geared towards men who want extensions of their Tonka trucks." In addition to the publication, the site also sells a wide assortment of paraphernalia, including T-shirts that exclaim GRRRLS NEED MODEMS!
Geekgirl must be doing something right. The Australian government has collaborated with them on a website designed to get younger female students up and running with the latest technology. And guys, be wary of the OL (Japanese for "office lady") sitting next to you. After the US, Japan is Geekgirl's biggest market.
While I'm on the topic of cyberfeminism, there is another active women's Internet group here in Japan that those of the appropriate gender may wish to check out: Japan Webgrrls. According to its founder and leader, May Leong, Japan Webgrrls offers a safe place for women to ask questions about the Internet.
A chapter of New York-based Webgrrls International, Japan Webgrrls currently has more than 100 members. Meetings are held on the second Saturday of each month at the offices of Global OnLine in Tokyo; the overall theme of the meetings is to "help women network and use technology to make a difference."
You can reach Japan Webgrrls at http:// www.webgrrls.gol.com, or by conventional fax machine at 03-5377-7259.
Web cryptography... the saga continuesIn one of its most worthless and foolhardy endeavors since the Vietnam War, the US Government has been trying over the past several years -- and very unsuccessfully, I might add -- to ban the export of encryption software or any software that uses encryption algorithms above a certain level of sophistication. The government rationale is that much of the readily available encryption technology has military applications, and could be used against the US by its enemies abroad.
Which is all very well and good. I, more than anyone, don't want to see the country of my birth sell rope to those who would hang us with it. But as far as software encryption goes, the cat has been out of the bag for years. The current government policy has only hurt US software producers and resulted in massive losses to piracy and foreign competition. The US, thank God, is not an armed camp with barbed-wire borders; publicly available software that wants to find its way out of the country always does.
Now, US efforts at controlling encryption technology have been struck another blow. Shortly after Netscape released the source code for its browser to the public, a group of Australians calling themselves the Mozilla Crypto Group came out with its own version of the popular Internet tool -- one with full-strength encryption capability that previously was not readily available to those who live outside the United States. Check out http://mozilla-crypto.ssleay.org/index.php for more information, and for free versions of Mozilla that run under several operating systems.
Bilingual accounting softwareGiven the current state of the Japanese economy, even companies that didn't blow all their money on worthless golf club memberships are finding they have to watch every single yen. This can get dicey when more than one currency, and the inherent fluctuations in exchange value, come into play.
In the past in this column, I have pointed out the demand in the Japanese market for good quality, multi-currency, PC-based accounting software. At the recent COMDEX show, I discovered a new product that not only has a module to manage foreign currencies, but is both Japanese-English and Chinese-English bilingual.
Happy Accounts (CFOs must love that name) is produced by Canadian-based AICO (Arena International Corporation). Check it out at http://www.happyaccounts.com. Thomas Caldwell takes account of the Japanese computer and technology scene here every month. If you have a relevant question, you can contact him at caldwell@gol.com.  |