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21 November, 2002

Fun With Google

Bored? Try searching Google for misspelled words. A few examples:

  • Occurence (for Occurrence): 175,000 hits
  • Seach Engine (for Search Engine): 47,100 hits
  • Micosoft (for Microsoft): 26,700 hits
  • Mircosoft (for Microsoft): 25,200 hits
  • Psycology (for Psychology): 15,300 hits
  • Bankrupcy (for Bankruptcy): 11,100 hits
  • Steve Balmer (for Steve Ballmer): 4,200 hits
  • Microsoft Excell (for Microsoft Excel): 3,180 hits
  • Lisence (for License): 15,300 hits
  • John Walkenback (for John Walkenbach): 540 hits

For even more fun, restrict the searches to a particular domain -- oh, let's choose microsoft.com. You'll find that the microsoft.com domain contains 93 occurrences of "Micosoft" and 246 occurrences of "Mircosoft."

Posted on 21 November, 2002

My Book is Shipping

Well, it looks like Amazon is now shipping my new Excel Charts book.

It was supposed to be available on 5 November, so it's a bit more than two weeks late. But they're still showing the wrong book cover.

And, of course, I still haven't received my sample copies. This seems to happen with every new book that I write. Maybe I should check the local bookstores and buy a copy for myself.

Posted on 21 November, 2002

Valley of the Geek Banner Ads

You can find many more like this. Here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Posted on 21 November, 2002

Celebrity Blogs

Somehow, my browser led me to a site that lists the First Annual Celebrity Weblog Awards. Two are particularly notable because they are so bad. And I mean really bad.

Melanie Griffith I've seen a few of her movies, but her web site reveals a whole new side -- and it's not good. It's so not good that it's humorous. It's as if she sat down with a web designer and said, "I want the most obnoxious web site in the world." I think she got her wish.

Melanie has turned from "Working Girl" to pseudo New Age Guru. To enter her blog, you must survive the sounds of low-grade Enya-esque drones and the digitized chirping of both bird calls and Ms. Griffith's squeaking invitation to "sign my guestbook." Enter the gates of her misty, waterfall-peppered cyberspace island called "Avalon," wherein Mrs. Banderas attempts to lead you to enlightenment -- extolling the benefits of writing form letters to your dreaming "Inner Self", leading you through Flash-styled specialized-meditation guides, and offering you membership in the "Goddess Club".

Jeff Bridges: Apparently, Jeff doesn't own a keyboard. For a real treat, try viewing his site with images turned off in your browser.

Jeff Bridges, on the other hand, has decided to write his rambling notes in massive scrawling cursive font that will have you reaching for the Advil within seconds.

I especially like this note from Jeff at the bottom of the main page:

Some dude has been posing as me on the guest book and message board. I don't plan to communicate that way so any postings from 'me' on there are fake. Please use good netiquette guys.

Posted on 21 November, 2002

RIAA: CDs Are a Better Value Than Ever!

Yes, the RIAA claims that:

...consumers are getting far better quality than ever before in terms of fidelity, length, durability, ease of use at home and on the road, range of choice, etc.

So why are they planning to add copy protection to all new CDs? That would certainly eliminate the "ease of use" benefits.

Fact is, CDs are already vastly overpriced, and consumers simply won't buy copy protected CDs at current prices.

There is only one entertainment medium in which copy protection has been accepted by consumers: DVDs. And why is that? Because they are cheap. A typical DVD contains a movie, extras, multiple language options, 5.1 channel sound, and can be purchased for under $20 (less than the cost of two people seeing a film at a movie theater). A typical price for a music CD is about $18.

So, my advice to the music industry: If you must add copy protection to your products, use the DVD industry as a model. That means your CD prices should be priced accordingly. $5.00 per unit seems about right. And there's a nice side benefit: Music piracy would become pretty much a non-issue.

Posted on 21 November, 2002

A "Standard" Office Document Format?

From InfoWorld:

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information (OASIS), known for creating key technologies around XML, said Wednesday that it has launched an effort to develop a standard file format that would allow office documents such as spreadsheets and word processing files to be opened by applications from different vendors.

As you may know, XML will play a large role in the next version of Microsoft Office, currently known as Office 11. But...

Microsoft, a member of OASIS, is aware of the technical committee but will not initially take part, a spokesman from a Microsoft outside public relations firm said in an e-mail message Wednesday.

Why don't I find that surprising?

Posted on 21 November, 2002

The Internet Simulator

If you know someone who is thinking about getting connected to the Internet, here's a short Flash presentation that will provide a quick overview of what they're in store for. Very realistic!

Posted on 21 November, 2002

The Art of Pen Spinning

Have you ever wondered how some people can spin a pen around their fingers? I am determined to learn how to perform this trick, with the help of the detailed instructions provided at pentix.com.

The site also has some short videos that show various pen spinning techniques.

Posted on 21 November, 2002