Archive for May 2004

Do you know someone who is an editor of a paying publication? Please send me her email address. I interview editors on a monthly basis for a writer’s magazine and my first deadline is days away. I have emailed many people and have surprisingly gotten no responses.

We all have days when we want to tell someone, “Get a clue!” Sometimes, we’re guilty of being the ones who need to get a clue. Going blank and doing things we normally wouldn’t do happens to all of us. In this month’s The Remediator Security Digest, learn about the things we could do that we think are fine, but aren’t.

Expect my blogs to be quieter in the next few days, maybe longer depending how long the union employees at the company I work for go on strike. I’m scheduled to work long days until the contract is signed. Just one of those perks of being an management employee. Thanks for all your support and eyeballs.

The design world gets its own fab five who tackle the usability guy‘s Web site in a design makeover. They go through the whole routine and we don’t have to see anyone half naked in the process (whew!).

Instead of hair products, paint, food, and furniture, they discuss smooth typefaces, sexy markup, a dash of color, and a little shtushing for attitude. Educating stuff. [ Link Webreference ]

The book I’ve long waited to read has been read and reviewed. Meet Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Thanks to William. He knows why.

I’m obviously a stickler for grammar and enjoy finding grammatical errors, typos, and other funny goofs with the English language as evidenced in the Gotchas (new design coming) and the series I’ve written for Webreference. Imagine my excitement when hearing about this runaway bestseller in which the author takes a “zero tolerance approach to punctuation.”

It hasn’t been in America very long and already it has reached the coveted bestseller lists, and this despite retaining its British syntax. In reading the introduction, I was pleased to find the publisher had decided not to change the UK spellings, phrases, and even punctuation rules in the American version of the book. Hurrah! It would have been a nice touch to add a note regarding the differences in the rules of American and British grammar.

A couple of problems do come with leaving the British intact, however. A sign mentioned in the book is racist in American English and should have been omitted. Also present is the word “fag,” harmless in Britain, but a prejudicial term in the US. Not everyone realizes this.

Writing this review is stressful knowing the punctuation is going to be checked with a magnifying glass, while I remain true to what I have been taught. Here’s an example of where we disagree:

Rule eight in using apostrophe to indicate the plural of words such as do, don’t, but, and and. In reviewing my entire library of grammar-related books, a majority indicate the apostrophe is not needed when the context is clear. Thus, use dos, don’ts, buts, ands, Bs, CDs, and so on. Use the apostrophe when minding your p’s and q’s and trying to remember to cross those t’s.

Truss clearly explains the purpose of ellipses and [sic], two items that have confused writers and readers. Since this book has given me a renewed and refreshed outlook into punctuation, I’m on the lookout for more gotchas.

Those hemming and hawing at this review and the thought of saving punctuation won’t want to come within ten feet of this book.

Update: Someone asked me if this would make a good book for learning the grammar rules. No, not this one. This is more for people who know the rules and need a laugh. It’s the ‘fiction’ of grammar more than a how-to.

VITAL STATISTICS:
TITLE: Eat, Shoots & Leaves
AUTHOR: Lynne Truss
PUBLISHER: Gotham Books
PUBLICATION DATE: April 2004
ISBN: 1592400876
FORMAT: Paperback
PAGES: 240
PRICE: US$17.50

Big words, optimal images. Don’t let the fancy words throw you. The Influencing Histograms tutorial is short and shows you how to use Photoshop to reduce the size of images by minimizing banding and maximizing bit-depth reduction. [ Originally posted at InformIT ]

Digital Web Magazine – The Transformation of an Industry looks at the past 8 years of the Web design industry through its own history. It’s an adventure to look at its past cover pages. Whoosh! That’s the sound of flashback. We’re lucky to have a quality resource freely available to us.

Excel Hacks book review has been posted. Those with very short attention spans. It’s good!

I have bent Excel over backwards to do stuff it was not meant to do like track training metrics and use it as process bug-tracker (think programming bug tracking system except it’s for processes). These spreadsheets require many workarounds not found in the help file or on the Internet. It just takes a few keyboard banging sections and formula screw ups to make these workarounds work.

Excel also has a few glaring features that are missing and the workarounds are available on Microsoft. One such feature is the lack of totals on a stacked column chart. Excel adds the total for each item in the stacked column, but doesn’t add the value for the whole column.

PivotTables are useful, but when I need them, I have forgotten how to use them to their fullest. My mind goes blank when I face the PivotTable wizard. A whole chapter is devoted to its magic and scanning the hack titles helps you quickly decide what you need and go to work.

The hacks go from easy as pie to tough as nails. Did you know the comments boxes don’t have to be square? It’s a simple hack and the first cool thing I learn from Excel Hacks. The hacks covering XML and macros are for the advanced users, but intermediate users should be able to do them and hard working beginners can get there.

Excel isn’t just for accountants anymore and the book shows how to use it for other things. The book is worth the investment for anyone who uses Excel. Make it break a sweat with these hacks and have fun doing it.

VITAL STATISTICS:
TITLE: Excel Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools
AUTHOR: Raina Hawley and David Hawley
PUBLISHER: O’Reilly & Associates
PUBLICATION DATE: March 2004
ISBN: 059600625X
FORMAT: Paperback
PAGES: 304
PRICE: US$24.95