Archive for January 2002

Sorry for using the same title, Meryl, but it was my exactly. *g*

Meryl gave me the report I needed so I can go to bed as an American who has fulfilled her duty in knowing what happened during the State of the Union.

It was the one time I turned off the TV while working on the computer. Though I was not watching it, it was annoying. The sound of clapping (fake and real – OK, I exaggerate here) every other minute followed by a droning voice… It drove me nuts. Yeah, little ol’ deaf me. It was bad background noise.

<edit>Todd says it loud and clear about why some of us are just plain tired of Washington, D.C. (for me, it was the traffic and the rush, rush, rush, too).</edit>

Aw, what the heck? Jish is right that we should say “Howdy” to our neighbors.

Jish asked me to say <edit>Howdy</edit> to my webloggers webring neighbours.
» to the left of me: Maroonmint.
» to the right of me: They Won’t Buy the Cow.

Interesting combination. Too bad it’s not a Googlewhack.

Trillian, is a lifesaver of a program that lets you manage all your instant messaging services in one application, but it’s in a little trouble right now because AIM is not working. Even following the suggestion to fix the program doesn’t always work (it didn’t for me). According to the Web site:

Many of you reported difficulty connecting to AOL this morning, and the fix is to go into your preferences (Prefs->AIM->Misc) and turn off the "Activate SecureIM Capabilities" feature.

NOTE: If you still cannot login and receive a “you’ve logged in too many times” error, wait 5-10 minutes for the flag to clear on the servers.

Cerulean Studios, the makers of Trillian, is working to remedy the problem. I tried shutting down Trillian and letting it rest, then logging back on. AIM still shut down.

This news overshadows a new release: 0.72. Ouch.

No, I ain’t cussin’, though with this headache, I should. These are from the HTML 4.0 Entities reference page. That last one is the symbol for the Euro. Click on PREVIOUS and NEXT to get more reference goodies such as HTML Quick List, HTML Tag List, Standard Attributes, Event Attributes, 7-bit ASCII, Colors, and HTTP Status Messages. If you’re reading this, the HTTP status is 200. [Link from DavidGagne.net]

Jonathon has gone back to surfing via dialup. That’s why I continue to pay monthly fees on my dialup account. It paid off when @Home went down.

It’s all about priorities, and mine is to always be connected!

Found a nifty place full of all things glossaries and languages resources at Vincent’s Glossblog. Plus, the days of the week in the Glossblog are giving me a French refresher.

No, I’m not trying to insult you. It’s A Glove That Speaks Volumes by translating American Sign Language (ASL) to text. Now, if they would just translate people’s voices to text… [Link from Chris]

Yes, we’re talking Washington, D.C. and congress. Let’s quote Mae West, “When I’m good — I’m very, very good. When I’m bad, I’m better!”

According to a study quoted in USA Today, Ms. West’s quote is true except when congress Web sites are bad, they suck.

Congressional Management Foundation awarded 15 Web sites with the “Gold Mouse Award” (doesn’t that bring back memories of Al Gore’s Golden Hammer?)

Senate sites fared better over House sites, but Senators receive bigger budgets since they have longer terms than Reps.

Overall, congress received a C-. Back to school, congresskids.

Not bad! Texas got two of them courtesy the two Kays (Hutchison and Granger) won the gold.

The deadline for nominating a Web site for The Webby Awards is January 31, 2002. Get mooovin’!

Do you have any idea what this post is about from reading the title or did it make you think longer than you wanted? Actually, the title should be, “Communicating Simply” and that’s the point of ia /’s communicating simply entry.

I laugh when I read my old college papers. Sure, that kind of writing pleases professors because they write like that in their books, papers, research, etc. Even the title of such works take 20 minutes to translate. Good for you, Professor. I’m so proud that you know big words. One word for you, Professor, &#147snore”. Congratulations, you’ve insulted your reader, Professor. I feel stupid when I attempt to read this stuff that helps you keep your job.