through the data stored on their computer by mimicking a three dimensional office.

Software developers, including those at Microsoft, have been working, so far unsuccessfully, to come up with a better system of navigation through computer data by using three dimensional views. The aim is to allow users to access information from multiple places, see relationships between multiple items and get overviews of the available data.

Clockwise Software, Win3D's creator, has not yet found a better answer to seeing and using data on your computer more efficiently than the current method of moving through folders or using a start menu.

But Win3D -- available for free in the beta version at http://www.clockwise3d.com -- at least gives the ordinary computer users a glimpse of the way the technology is going.

The software sits on top of the Windows operating system and instead of the typical folder strewn desktop the user gets to "move'' around in a central virtual courtyard. I found it much easier to navigate around using the keyboard than by using the mouse as I kept bumping into walls or spinning madly out of control.

Once you get a grip on direction you can then navigate through various "rooms'' containing your office, Internet, multimedia, and game-related applications.

Key applications are a desk drawer away. The trash was a pothole in the ground.

I liked the feature in the Internet room with a scrolling ticker on the "roof'' and world temperatures on the window. But I can't understand why the developers force users to leave the "office'' and go into different "rooms'' to use the Internet, access gaming software or use the CD player.

Clockwise plans on making the look and navigation of the virtual 3-D space more customisable before releasing the full version of the software. For now just load, test and hit uninstall after you've had some fun.

Water tech When I travelled in Southern Africa I always carried some iodine to splash on any scratch or cut I got to kill infection. Burn those germs to death! And if I were unsure of the quality of water I was drinking I would put in two, sometimes three drops of water per litre. The water tasted horrible, but that was much preferable to ingesting amoebas or whatever.

Now along comes a handy device that's less messy than iodine liquid for disinfecting water. Researchers have developed a portable pen-type tool intended for travellers, soldiers and victims of natural disasters.

You unscrew the pen's cap to remove a sodium chloride salt pellet, put it into a cartridge, screw the top back on, and then shake to get it vibrating. The vibration creates a solution for disinfecting about a litre of water.

The device was created by a team at the University of North Carolina and will retail for about $100. According to the team the disinfected water has no chlorine smell or taste even though the electrochemical reaction produces chlorine.

The Webbies It was ironic that The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences annual Webby Awards, the Internet industry's Web design Oscars, were presented about the same time as the release of a study showing that the information superhighway was a maze of dead ends.

Researchers from IBM, Compaq and Altavista traced the 1.5 billion links between 200 million separate web pages and found only 30 percent of all web pages make up the heavily inter connected core which most search engines index.

They also found that 24 percent of websites have links that lead to that core, 24 percent can be reached by following links from the core, and the final 22 percent are utterly isolated.

According to the researchers the study indicates that 46 percent of web pages go no where and seems to contradict previous studies showing that it was possible to reach any page from another within 19 links.

A sobering thought to those who are attempting to find a home on the Net.

By the way the winner of the best commerce site at the Webbies was the BabyCenter (www.babycenter.com).

One of my favourites, Slasitot.org, won the People's Voice award for best news, gossip and discussion site.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. Contact Ahmed at ahmedelamin yhotmail.com or (01133) 467901474.