OneStart IU's version of AOL?

Technology is best when it's kept simple. Like Telnet. It\'s so delightfully low-tech, but it looks like you actually have to know something about computers to use it. And it's so not cutting-edge technology, making it almost impossible to download any kind of Trojan horse virus onto a computer.\nThen Webmail comes along -- not low tech at all. Sure, now I can click on links and see pictures of my grandma, but it\'s a whole lot slower and not as safe. Still, I don\'t mind Webmail so much since it has its uses.\nBut now there\'s talk of this OneStart portal. The idea is that students, faculty, staff and alumni will be able to customize their desktops based on their individual needs and preferences. The portal hasn't been implemented yet, but was recently presented to the Bloomington Faculty Council by University Information Technology Services. \nSo with OneStart, you can put whatever you want on your desktop. You can bookmark your favorite Web pages. You can even (gasp) make your own Web site.\nBut, um, can't we already do that? And shouldn\'t someone smart enough to get into IU already know how to bookmark Web pages, without having UITS spend our technology fee on developing ways to do it for us? At first I thought, OK, maybe we might already be able to do this stuff, but maybe OneStart will make doing it easier, the way Webmail made checking e-mail easier. After all, they make it sound so sophisticated.\nSo I went to IU\'s OneStart site, www.bursar.iupui.edu/OneStartSplash.htm, hoping to see something really amazing, and to find out exactly what this "portal" is all about. Even that word "portal" just sounds so space age and high-tech.\nBut what it is, basically, is an IU version of America Online. It's got different "channels" the way AOL does, but they're all related to the University. You can see the Bloomington weather forecast right there on the screen. It almost seems like it would have made more sense to use the technology fee to provide everyone with AOL rather than developing OneStart. The only difference is that on OneStart, everything is red and white. There isn't a button to click that doesn't have something to do with IU.\nUnfortuately, AOL is synonymous with AOhell. It's an incredibly inconvenient way to surf the Internet. While I'm not saying OneStart will be just as irritating, it looks so similar, I can't help but wonder. What happened to being smug and low-tech? OneStart may not pose any security problems, but it will be slow and cumbersome, just like anything that caters to point-and-click dependent computer users.\nPoint-and-click technology always comes at a cost -- yesterday it took me about three minutes to check my e-mail on Telnet. The person standing next to me used the supposedly more convenient Webmail -- and by the time I was done, he was still waiting for his password to be accepted.\nI can see how OneStart might be good for alumni who aren't used to the Internet, or for freshmen who can't be weaned from AOL. But I can't help missing the old days of a highly wired yet low-tech IU.