Stamp Column Archives

The Glassine Surfer Column Archive

This column originally appeared in the American Philatelic Society's monthly magazine, "The American Philatelist." Since then some of the information may be out-of-date depending on how far back you're reading.

March 2000

A Rose is a Rose?

Internet domain names are the words between "www" and "com" or "org."  They used to be limited to 22 characters which led to some peculiar contractions for very long names, but recently the maximum has been extended to 63 characters.

The result could be a URL of www.theamericanphilatelicsocietyinstatecollegepennsylvania06803usa.com, which only uses 62 letters.

Someone will come up with a reasonable use of the new maximum, and maybe Mary Poppins' song with the long silly name might wind up on the net.  

And in a related development, moves are afoot to create new domain name extensions so that .com and .org may soon be joined by .web and other such last names.

Internet URLS are important to businesses and there's a whole industry that simply buys names to resell later to late-comers.  Just check out www.stampcollecting.com.

When I went, I was redirected to a reseller, and there wasn't much in the way of stamps.

Anyone interested in registering their own domain name and web site might want to start at Network Solutions, the granddaddy of the bunch.

Network Solutions
http://www.networksolutions.com

For a look at the world of buying and selling domain names, check Domain Notes.

Domain Notes
http://wdvl.internet.com/Internet/Domains/

Month of Days

If you work at your PC for any length of time, you have a preference for your desktop wallpaper.  Usually, my desktop is so littered with files, directories and shortcuts that I can't see my wallpaper.  But if you're neater, then you might like to check out the stamp-themed monthly desktop calendar that I design.

The stamps vary from month-to-month, but you'll always find the monthly calendar running along the bottom of the screen just about the Windows toolbar on the bottom. (We wouldn't want to obscure the stamps, would we?)

Stamp Calendar
http://collectstamps.about.com/library/desktop/bldesktop.htm

Guide to Portals

Portals are those sites that offer stock quotes, weather, sports scores and news-lets, along with free e-mail and appointment calendars.  Now if you want to check up on the Web's newest portal tools there's a site called Traffick.

As they say, "Our mission is to search out portal features and tools and provide the user with timely, informative and helpful analysis on the world of portals."

They have columns and news that cover AltaVista, AOL, Excite, Go Network, Go2Net, Lycos, MSN, Netscape, Snap and Yahoo!, as well as some tutorials and a 'test drive' area where you can see how some portal features actually work.

It's a good site to help you find and choose what online services really suit your needs.

Traffick.com
http://www.traffick.com/

The Private Stamp Collection of Helen Cho

Stamps are an artform begun in the 19th and exploited in the 20th century to uphold the then-current political ideology, to be perforated ambassadors to the far flung corners of the earth and to proudly extol a country's virtues.

But to San Franciscan artist Helen Cho sees stamps as an art not for government but for people, and "The Private Stamp Collection of Helen Cho" is a wonderful online gallery of her work.

The designs have names such as "The Terrors of Formlessness," "Rat Piano Series" and "Postage Due," that made me wonder if personalized stamps such as Australia and Switzerland's may some day transmorgify into issues such as Cho's.  Or perhaps one of the New Zealand private posts may someday bring the avant garde into the mainstream.

The Private Stamp Collection of Helen Cho
http://reality.sgi.com/grafica/stampa/