The author of our favorite webcomic xkcd redesigned his homepage today as a tribute to the passing of Geocities.

Every so often, someone will tell me something that reminds me of how old I am. For instance, did you know that kids who turned 18 this year didn’t see Aladdin in theaters? Today, it’s the passing of Geocities, which is shuttering its doors tonight at 11:59pm.

Finding that out today is just one big mixed bag of nostalgia for me. I’m writing this from a bus wi-fi connection, which has about as much bandwidth at the 14.4k modem I used way back when I made my first Geocities website. Of course I let it fall into neglect shortly thereafter and Geocities, or the current owner Yahoo, cleaned it off their servers.

For those too young to remember geocities, it was one of the first sites to allow used with a basic knowledge of HTML to code their own web pages. Five million fan pages for Jonathan Taylor Thomas later, we had what was the most garish collection of sites that were perpetually under construction displaying blink tags —perish the thought — and comic sans headlines. Yahoo purchased Geocities back in 1998 for $3.5bil, which was no small sum of money, and has taken care of it since.

However, now that personalized sites are more likely to be found on Facebook or (the equally garish) Myspace, Geocities has become something of a money bleeder, and Yahoo is pulling the plug. Users are encouraged to port their sites over to Yahoo’s paid service.

So, let us mourn the passing of Geocities as it goes into that good night.

Legitscript.com is the only Internet pharmacy verification organization in the United States identified by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as adhering to its standards for certifying Internet pharmacies. KnujOn.com tracks Internet criminality and has succeeded in removing over 100,000 spam websites from the Internet.

The report, released by these companies on August 18, showed that around 80 percent of the search engine’s advertisements concerning online pharmacies reviewed by the researchers were not operating in compliance with United States federal laws. The report states the researchers were able to order and receive medication normally requiring a prescription without one — a clear violation of Drug Enforcement Administration regulation of potentially habit-forming medications. One site even imported the medications ordered from India, which is also in violation of United States Law.

The report also touches on Pharmacychecker.com, the pharmacy verification service used by Yahoo, Google and Microsoft to determine the legitimacy of pharmacies in ads they display. The researchers were able to obtain drugs without a prescription from an online pharmacy listed on and approved by Pharmacychecker.com. These drugs were also imported from India.

Yahoo’s current policy mandates that an online pharmacy advertised through the search engine be “based in” the United States or Canada; however, three sites in the study which were approved based on having Canadian pharmaceutical licenses actually shipped their medications from places like India, Singapore And Barbados. A fourth site, also approved in Canada, stated it could only fill prescriptions in Canada and to do so in other countries would be illegal.

It is important to note that these issues are far from isolated, as a previous report focused on Microsoft’s search engine Bing.com and the findings were similar. Also, the American Pharmacists Association, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and the National Association on Addiction and Substance Abuse have written Google, Microsoft and Yahoo informing them that they were profiting from online pharmacies acting unlawfully.

“We’re making this a public issue because it’s time for this to stop,” KnujOn President Garth Bruen said. “If the search engines continue to knowingly facilitate illegal prescription drug sales, then we’ll continue to issue these reports. Our reports stop when the problem is fixed.”

“Yahoo needs to require that its Internet pharmacy ads adhere to US laws and National Association of Boards of Pharmacy standards,” LegitScript President John Horton said. “These are the same safeguards that govern brick-and-mortar pharmacies used throughout the US everyday. Shouldn’t American Internet users be assured of the same safeguards online?”

If you are someone who gets his or her medications from an online pharmacy, you may be putting yourself and your family in danger. If this is the case, we suggest you look further into the companies from which you choose to procure your medications.

Step aside, Batman.

On February 1 Microsoft announced a proposal to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for $31 per share, two-thirds more than it was worth before the offer.t

Here’s what Microsoft had to say in response to the rejection:

It is unfortunate that Yahoo! has not embraced our full and fair proposal to combine our companies. Based on conversations with stakeholders of both companies, we are confident that moving forward promptly to consummate a transaction is in the best interests of all parties.

We are offering shareholders superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company. The combination also offers an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers
and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market.

A Microsoft-Yahoo! combination will create a more effective company that would provide greater value and service to our customers. Furthermore, the combination will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a
compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising.

The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and
financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!’s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal.

We’re not done hearing about this yet.

Yahoo’s stock soared in early trading Friday, up over 50 percent at times.

“We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners.”

Yahoo said Friday it will “carefully and promptly” study Microsoft’s bid.

Microsoft made an offer to take over Yahoo! last year, but then chairman/CEO Terry Semel scoffed at it. But under shareholder pressure, Semel recently stepped aside. This new offer comes as the ink on new chairman Roy Bostock office door is still wet. In a letter, Microsoft also addressed Yahoo!’s current CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang.

In their letter, Microsoft said it could save at least $1 billion in cost savings generated by the combination, and that they would offer retention packages to Yahoo! engineers, leaders and employees.

“We believe this proposal represents a unique opportunity to create significant value for Yahoo!’s shareholders and employees, and the combined company will be better positioned to provide an enhanced value proposition to users and advertisers,” Ballmer wrote in his letter to Yahoo!.

A combined Microsoft-Yahoo! force would be a stiff competitor to Google, who seems to have all but taken over the search engine world and leads in online advertising.

Microsoft said they would expect regulatory clearance and in the second half of 2008 if the deal is accepted.

The Associated Press has called the offer “unexpected.” Microsoft called the offer “compelling.” A struggling Yahoo! may have to carefully weigh their options.