A good place to catch up on Gregory's stuff (so you can comment on it here!) is: http://austin360.com/tech/browser/archives.htm Here are some of the columns: Orwell's Big Brother comes home to find a digital roost 01/07/99 Weirdest of the Web: My favorite freaky sites 12/31/98 Coolest companies send out their URL-tide greetings 12/24/98 Dear Santa: I want to be king of my own domain 12/17/98 Proud to be the spokesnerd for the Geek Generation 12/10/98 Holiday shopping a cinch on the Net 12/3/98 Talk about your childhood wishes: a Digital Anvil tour! 11/26/98 No pocket protectors here, but tech age has redefined 'geek' 11/19/98 Tech-set can surf for spirits at Reuben's Emporium 11/12/98 A father, a son and the struggle to be the answer guy 11/05/98 Oh, the humanity: iMac's simplicity makes it more like us 10/22/98 GimpBox is filled with dark humor of Whitney Ayres 10/08/98 Human Code adapts Hollywood strategy to CD-ROM biz 10/08/98 Internet mob thinks hanging's too good for the president 9/24/98 Hello, my name is (your name here), and I'm a net addict 9/10/98 The rise of the 'estronet' 9/3/98 Torch passes to a digital gereration 8/20/98 Ransom seeking online center 8/13/98 Let (cyber) freedom ring 8/9/98 Linux takes aim at crashing giant windows 7/30/98 Come on and take a freedrive 7/23/98 Entering a new age of advertising 7/16/98 Internet tall tales start young 7/9/98 Online biz: It's your baby, baby 7/2/98 A designing woman of the web 6/25/98 I'm in a death match 6/11/98 Neverending quest for speed 6/4/98 The future of trading cards 5/28/98 The sound of satisfied gamers 5/21/98 The time is ripe for Olivedesign's organic approach 5/14/98 Your home could be a sweatshop 5/7/98 Go outside now! 4/30/98 Computer! Camera! Action! 4/23/98 Web sites made easy: part one 4/16/98 Going wireless on the 'net 4/9/98 E'Zines evolving not dying 4/2/98 Kind strangers and computers 3/26/98 Interactive festival cut its teeth 3/19/98 Interact on the cheap at SXSW 3/5/98 Survival of the fittest providers 2/26/98 Caught in the cheating 'net 2/19/98 Cyberlove gone bad 2/12/98 The power of the meme 2/5/98 CASA has a dream 1/29/98 Now entering the lightning modem age 1/22/98 'Dwango Bob' blazes gaming cybertrail 1/15/98 SXSW Interactive Festival revamps goals for '98 1/8/98

Today's Kallenberg "Upfront: Browser" mentions www.Spring.net - "It seems a lot of fans of this tres cool Austin site missed my call for the 2nd annual Golden Pebble Awards (best local sites). They are up in arms they weren't included. Well, guys, here's spring.net for all to click upon and bookmark. I hope you're happy." Does that picture of Kallenberg remind you of Kramer just a little bit? Hey, we're happy!

that's good. makes me double glad i sent that letter.

me, too...all of us who e-mailed him should send him a thank you, as well...

(and another invitation to be a regular participant, as well...)

Great idea, please email Gregory and thank him. mailto://gkallenberg@statesman.com

Has it occured to anyone here that the line "I hope you're happy" was a polite way of saying "Quit bugging me"? If he wanted to be a regular here, he would have been by now, don't you think?

maybe...

after re-reading that line, i have to agree. it did seem like kind of a nasty letter.

I have exchanged a couple of real nice emails from him since then. He seems very friendly. I turned him on to Fritz Blau, the Motorblade postering guy who cruise around town to the various bulletin boards on his rollerblades. Good feature article material. This is the third time the Spring has made XL. Media Mention Score: XL 3 Chron 0 KXAN 3 Too bad we're so civilized, or we could get some *negative* publicity! The best kind! (heh)

You want some negative publicity? Really? hmmm...

Just kidding!

aw, shucks...

Maybe we should start a conference about shooting the president. That always gets publicity. (If the Secret Service monitors this site -- hey, just kidding! ;-)

Not *that* controversial.

You is definately my kinda guy, George!

Gregory has the next Matt Drudge emerging from the Austin scene. I read this today in the Browser column: But how does he get to be a magnate? Barb should set up a Web page. While there are a lot of sites capturing the Austin scene, his easygoing style and Austin roots make his voice perfect. His voice, through his Web page, could be the one people log on to in order to see the goings-on of Austin, a veritable Harry Knowles for the city. From there, he could take his site and make it a portal site like Excite. The users could see what the Catfish sees every morning when they turn on their computers ("You've got catfish!"). From there, maybe an E-commerce site like Unmall.com. Sell Catfish T-shirts and signed photos. Then an IPO, then Roger Barb and his "Blues Across Texas" will be synonymous with Yahoo! and Amazon. He'll be huge. Roger Barb's only connection to the net now is an email account where he sends an immensely popular column to Germany or somewhere. I say, let's give this guy a web page and help him out. I don't want to slow down the next Internet superstar. Hey, and there's all those IPO possibiblities.

See my note on this in the porch conference. Under folks we'd like to invite here and give webpages.

April 22, 1999 was Gregory's last column. As the Editor's note says: Editor's note: Today marks Browser's final appearance in XLent. Writer Gregory Kallenberg is taking his high-tech focused stories on the road, so look for them all over the paper and especially in the Life & Arts Section. Some quotes from his last column: What would happen if technology ended today? Your ATM card didn't work and neither did your computer. You woke up and the digital watch you got for Christmas was blank, and the VCR wouldn't play any of your Disney tapes. I'm not talking about a glitch like Y2K -- wherein technology hiccups and then all is better. I'm talking about a total shutdown. Someone, somewhere throws a big switch, and the whirring engine of technology moans to a stop. "I've been thinking about if there was no electricity," said Bob Atchison, a local Web design guru and owner of PallasArt Web Design. "You know, databases would basically disappear. If they disappeared, there would be nothing left to represent our culture. It's not like we put anything on paper anymore. If technology disappeared, our (modern) culture could disappear in a few seconds." Certainly, things would be less bright. The glow of monitors and the buzz of fluorescent lights would be gone. Forget about television as a beacon to eat by. There would only be a dimmer, natural light to help us on our way during waking hours and the tribal Halloween orange of fire to illuminate our homes at night. "Wow! If technology went away, I'd have to go back to reading books and the newspaper," said Hugh Forrest, event director of South by Southwest Interactive. "At least for me, the world would be a better place. I've become a total product of the Web -- a click-through-short-attention-span-everything's-connected-so-I-look-at-nothing-for-very-long kind of guy." What would we do if our loss of technology took away our entertainment? Televisions would become furniture, and CD-ROM games could become weapons in hunting. Other things would change, too. "Collecting data" would mean sniffing the wind or listening to the ground. "Processing" would be what you do to deer and rabbits to make them dinner. "Monitor" would return to being a verb rather than a noun. "What would it be like without technology?" mused Jen Scoville, editor of RX.com, an online health magazine and pharmacy site. "It would probably be terrifying. But then, everyone would take a breather and the information glut would end. For one thing, it would definitely free our brains up for some old-fashioned thinking." "There would be definite chaos and havoc," said Doreen Lorenzo, president of digital media at Frogdesign. "My children are so tech-driven, you'd have to go through a generation before everyone would calm down. We would be less informed, but is that a good thing?" Would people aimlessly roam the streets, distraught from their loss of e-mail? At least the annoying person in the restaurant booth behind you wouldn't be able to whip out his cell phone and tell his friend what he's just ordered. Curly faxes would go the way of the dinosaur. Would violence ensue if we couldn't check our voicemail pagers? Or would there be peace and calm? Would we all again sit down at the table together? We'd have to actually meet face-to-face and spend precious minutes chit-chatting before getting to the point. Telling stories (which are too long and complicated to put into e-mail) would come back into fashion. Longer, more leisurely lunches would cease to be interrupted by ringing phones and buzzing pagers. You know, it doesn't sound like such a bad place to me. Maybe we should look for the switch.

maybe so...

IMG...

He's missing in action. Gregory Kallenberg. I can't let this go unnoticed. He was the Spring's best supporter in the Austin Journalistic community along with Larry Brill of KXAN TV. What a loss to the community! No more Browser column in XL. Gregory, I hope you're having fun.

yep, it's a sad and terrible thing...

I tried to email him today, in hopes he has forwarding set up. Last time I saw him was at the Whole Foods reception for Doug Block at SXSW.

I also heard Kallenberg was working on a new high-tech section of the Austin Statesman. Good for him. But, I still miss the Browser Column in XL. Here's the mindset of corporate journalism: Hmmm. We have a column about the Internet and no other Austin newspaper is covering the Internet. Gregory Kallenberg seems to be getting more and more popular with the readers. Guess we better pull the Browser Column. We don't want anyone becoming bigger than the paper. Besides, the Internet is eventually going to put us out of business.

That's a a mindset to behold, your snakeskin in action. I like Gregory, I met him on a couple of occasions and he was very friendly to us and wanted to see this community make it. I hope he is able to have some impact in his new gig.

Trudy's Texas Star off the Drag is one of my favorite "comfort" places in Austin, the migas are great, the coffee is wonderful and I sometimes run in to a friend or old acquaintance. Sometimes recognition is delayed. I noticed a young couple come in and sit next to us at a table, a curley black haired guy and his extraordinarily good looking wife with long blonde hair and their baby. After a bit, I realized it was Gregory. It was just a slightly different context than the usual cocktail-dotcom party where I meet up with him. I think the last time I saw him was the the premiere of Dough Block's movie about the Internet, Home Page. So we talked and it turns out he's left the old Snakeskin' for the halls of dotcom academe, http://www.notharvard.com. Being such a luminous, high profile journalist, Gregory had his pick from dozens of local Internet startups, and it says a lot for notharvard that he chose this one to be a content producer. Mystery solved about the dissappearance of this great Austin cyberjournalist.

Any idea what has happened with Mike Jasper? Excellent news about Gregory Kallenberg.

No idea about Mike, maybe I'll bump in to him sometime! I would love to see Mie around here again.

Did you note that Mike (aa9il) has created a new Topic in Geo which promises to be fascinating but is gonna take some studying on my part. Seems I have to put some interesting questions on before he posts, which means I have to sound interested in the projects his is interested in without seeming to pry into his personal life - not always an easy thing to do...! Please check it - topic 35. He is erecting a radio telescope in his back yard. That is MY kinda guy!

Awesome, a radio telescope in his back yard! That's the real SETI at home.

Indeed - so check out Geo 35 - it's Mike's and he does not post unless there are questions for him to answer or comment on.

Will do.

Thanks - I see that you did. Now, where is our esteemed Radio Free Cosmo?

No clue, somewhere in Illinois. Maybe he went to Dayton for the big hamfest.

Illinois, I knew... Perhaps he got involved in his back yard projects or is DXpeditioning?!

Perhaps. It's time to do lunch with Greogory.

Bon Apetite!

Thanks and speaking of bon appetit, be sure to cruise over to the restaurant conference and check out this years "Best of Austin" eateries and restaurants, as yours truly takes shots at the Austin Chronicle Reader's and Critics Poll.

Terry, you sly dog, you are hilarious over there in Restaruant conference. I really like this new and spunky Terry. I though you were ministerial material till I read your posts today. It was worth the effort involved in answering your comments. Please come out to play more! You are most enchanting!

How could I have misspelled Bon app�tit so incorrectly! Auwe!

You mean you're ready for more digs at Austin's restaurant scene and the Chronicle?

Yup! Looks like we have been at it rather royally. You are very funny in that conference. I think we should keep you there!