EDGAR Zamora once asked me how many megabytes my notebook's video memory had, and I told him it was 4Mb. His eyes popped out and exclaimed, in unison with his brother Eric, "Four!?!" No, we were not playing golf or something. They were just stunned to learn that I had 4Mb of video memory.

Of course, I was mistaken. It wasn't 4Mb. It was 8Mb ("Eight!?!," I could hear them exclaiming at the same time).

By any standards, 8Mb of video memory is monstrous. But that is exactly how much the Macintosh PowerBook G3 has. Okay, the notebook isn't mine. It's a test unit from Apple Philippines.

What strikes you first as soon as you open the PowerBook G3 is its display. It has a 14.1-inch active-matrix display with the 8Mb ATI Rage LT Pro video card, which makes 3D graphics look like they're being displayed from a powerful desktop.

I have always been a Windows user, but I must admit the PowerBook G3 blew me away. I was supposed to discuss the PowerBook in this week's column, but that has to take the backseat for us to discuss the issue between the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and Gerry Kaimo (oh no, not again!).

I guess by now you've read or heard about the PLDT case against Kaimo, unless you've been marooned somewhere in the Babuyan islands for the last week or so.

PLDT is suing Kaimo, webmaster of the www.pldt.com site, to the tune of P1.35 million. PLDT says Kaimo's site lures Netsurfers into webpages critical of PLDT. Unfortunately for PLDT, Kaimo owns the rights to pldt.com (the address of the official PLDT site is www.pldt.com.ph).

But what is PLDT complaining about in the first place? Is it the fact that Kaimo beat them to the pldt.com domain or is it because of his scathing parodies about PLDT (Kaimo is a director of the Philippine League For Democratic Telecommunications Inc., a group which is strongly against PLDT's metering plan).

Interestingly enough, a news item from another newspaper written by our Cyberpress colleague Marigold Yao-Endriga says that PLDT has identified "a number of groups engaged in the rampant practice of international simple resale which cost the firm P3 billion in revenue losses last year."

The story quotes PLDT CEO Manny Pangilinan as saying that the company "has no intention of lodging any legal complaint against the unscrupulous firms."

"It is not our style to do that (file legal action)," Pangilinan was quoted as saying.

This is where I stopped for a while and asked: "If they're incurring P3 billion in annual losses because of these illegal resellers and still decide not to sue them, why bother asking Gerry Kaimo for a 'measly' P1.35 million?"

I mean, you lose billions from these people every year and you're just willing to let it go and along comes citizen Kaimo--who's not even a competitor of yours--and you sue him for P1.35 million in loose change?

Admit it guys: You just want the pldt.com domain and you want Gerry to shut up. The same way I know you would love it if the Inquirer would shut up.

But then, PLDT says the Kaimo case has nothing to do with freedom of speech issues. The same way, I guess, Erap and his business partners--both inside and outside the government--don't see intimidation as a way to suppress that freedom.

"This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It is an unlawful appropriation and use of the PLDT trade name and a legitimate defense of a 71-year-old company's good name," PLDT executive vice president Antonio Samson said in a statement posted at the PLDT website.

Okay, Tony. So fair is fair. But still, Gerry got the pldt.com domain from your web development guys right from under their noses while they were sleeping. It is debatable whether or not he performed anything illegal by acquiring the domain. If PLDT wants it so badly, then why don't you just buy it from Gerry?

Jim Ayson, administrator of the PH-Cyberview list, posted these interesting tidbits:

1) The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) does not own "www.bpi.com." It's owned by Business Products Inc. in Colorado.

2) Purefoods does not own "www.purefoods.com," which is instead owned by USA Global Link.

3) The Ayala Corp. does not own "www.ayala.com." It belongs to Ayala e-mail services in Vancouver.

4) Philippine National Bank does not own "www.pnb.com." It is owned by Pacific National Bank in Miami.

5) Smart does not own "www.smart.com" and Globe Telecom does not own "www.globe.com."

In addition, try going to "www.nationalbookstore.com." What you'll see is a single webpage with the words "This domain for sale."

Any buyers?

Also from the PH-Cyberview mailing list:

The following domain names are available:

1) malacañang.com

2) malacañang.net

3) malacañang.com.ph

4) malacañang.gov

Which means anybody could register any of these names and set up a parody site about the Estrada administration.

If somebody does, will citizen Perfecto Fernandez sue them for inciting to sedition?

And by the way, the White House does not own www.whitehouse.com. Try going there and you'd be taken to a porn site. The real White House site is at www.whitehouse.gov.

I guess this just goes to show that society in general, with all its structured rules, is not ready yet for the Internet. Cyberspace is changing entire social structures, business methods and rules of governance and administration. Maybe it is us who are not yet ready to adopt these technologies and adapt to the inevitable onslaught of cyberspace.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is a big day for most of us.

First off is the reincarnation of Lazarus a.k.a Baan Co., which has appointed Strategic Integrated Systems Inc. to distribute the full range of Baan solutions. A couple of months ago Baan bowed out from the local scene, but tomorrow Baan COO Tim Tyler himself will be in town to show its Phoenix performance.

Tomorrow is also the local launch of NetAid, which would hopefully create awareness for Filipinos to share their resources, time, money or expertise to help their less fortunate countrymen. The NetAid website (www.netaid.org) aims to generate a billion hits that hopefully would lead to donations.

US president Bill Clinton, former South African president Nelson Mandela and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were among the first to visit the site during its Sept. 8 launch.

The site is a project of the United Nations Development Program and Cisco Systems Inc. All the funds generated by NetAid will be used for anti-poverty projects around the world.

Still tomorrow, Epson will launch several products at the Virgin Cafe.

Tomorrow will also be a day in cyberspace history as Gerry Kaimo goes to court against PLDT. The case is one that would be watched worldwide because the entire Internet industry could be affected by it.

Good luck to you, amigo. I mean Gerry--not you, Manny P.