My family doesn’t have ancestors from Ireland, yet Dad and I always wore green on March 17. Dad went to the extreme and wore a striped green suit to work. He also had a button that said, “Kiss me, I’m Irish” and a couple of others. (He wouldn’t get away with that kiss me button today with sexual harassment policies.)

My ancestry is tricky to trace as many of them came over from Europe and Russia in the late 1800s and early 1900s. However, Facebook connected me with some relatives on my mother’s father’s side. In ONE day, my family tree tripled. The top of this image shows the family tree before I found my cousins on Facebook and the bottom is what I added based on our conversations in Facebook.

Amazing, eh? Despite all of its flaws, Facebook is an incredible resource as so many friends and family members who aren’t social networkers actually use Facebook.

Brain food…

• Be Authentic: Why the World Needs You to Be You: I wish I could remember where I read a conversation between two people and one person convinced the other to stop ignoring a difficult part of her life. Face it head on. It made a difference in her writing.
• The Bare Bones Guide to Twitter: Get what you need to know and not a drop more. [Link: Lydia Ondrusek]
• Browser Evolution – The History of Web Browsers [Infographic]: Wow! I started using the Internet around 1993 with Internet in a Box and Mosaic. This chart begins in 1994.
• Prithee, Inform Me: The Rules of Writing: Kurt Vonnegut’s eight rules for fiction writing. A keeper.
• 100 Exquisite Adjectives: Need to study these. Not familiar with some, but I like ‘em! Can’t use words like these in writing because they’re not well known.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Another 12 Modern Bookcases: I love the US map bookcase. Don’t think I could handle such a bookcase as I like my books in a neat row. Here’s the original 15 coolest bookshelves.
• 12 Most Creative Objects Inspired by the Rubik’s Cube: That puzzling puzzle from the ’80s has a new lease on life… as a bunch of other things.
• Celebrate Pi at piZone: If you enter your email address, you’ll add another digit to Pi. I did this and my position is my birthday (month and day) with the #7.
• Stop-motion chess game: Builds up… give it time… [Link: Guy Kawasaki]

Where are you from?

Credit: The US Army

My dad was a veteran. My husband is a veteran. True story: They both worked at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, which was how they came to Fort Worth where my mom and I eventually met them. Mom met Dad through a mutual friend while I met Paul through a bulletin board system (BBS).

This sounds old — but I was swamped this week as I had a lot of volunteer stuff going on yesterday and today… so letcha getcha hot links now.

Brain food…

• Rockmelt Is Facebook’s Browser?: I read about Rockmelt and wondered why anyone would want to create another browser even with Netscape’s Marc Andreesen behind it. Also, it only works with Facebook. My prediction: other browsers will adopt some of the ideas presented in Rockmelt. Can’t see Rockmelt joining the biggies. [Link: Alan K'necht]
• Getting Your Foot in the Door with Fillers: Less pressure to come up with a full fledged article and a good way to build up a little portfolio. Key: READ the publication before you query. Can’t tell you how many times people (that I don’t consider writers) break that rule.
• 5 Staggeringly Simple Ways to Create Custom Facebook Landing Tabs: I need to think about how I can help a nonprofit org do this. Ah… time.
• Stick a Fork in Me: I’ve been fortunate to have payment issues only twice in the 10 years I’ve been in business. Disgusted at how Lori’s clients are treating her. Every writer should read this post.
• What Will the Future of Business Cards Look Like: Just wrote an advice column on this topic. Need a cross-platform solution.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Coin Sofa. Well, that’s something I can do with my dad’s coin collection… build things. [Link: Guy Kawasaki]
• 25 Nostalgic Photos Comparing Past to the Present: If you could do one of these… what would you choose? I’d choose my childhood home in Fort Worth.
• 15 Hilarious Newspaper Mistakes and Apology Notes: Bonus points for the first one. Gotta be a cool crew because they can laugh at their mistakes.

One final note… I’m disappointed in my local newspaper. They won’t print a free weekly TV guide anymore. Now they’re charging $0.75 per week. No, thanks. At least, I still subscribe… you should be happy to have subscribers … not add another reason for us to stop reading.

How do you start your day? I still start mine with print newspaper and a small cuppa coffay.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

The campaigns to promote Firefox and demote Internet Explorer keep coming and Google tops them all by promoting Firefox on its home page–prime ad estate–along with the its Toolbar. For a limited time on Wednesday, April 26, users in the U.S. surfing with Internet Explorer saw a one-liner that read, “Firefox with Google Toolbar: tabbed browsing, safer surfing.”

Google specifically promoted the Firefox edition that comes with the built-in Google Toolbar. This effort further strengthens the Google and Firefox relationship. In 2005, Google implemented an AdSense Referrals program in which AdSense publishers earned one dollar every time their visitors clicked the referral button and downloaded Firefox.

Contrary to many reports (including well-respected reporters and bloggers), this is not the first time Google has promoted a third-party on its home page. The company has highlighted other third-party bundles such as the Google Pack and Google Video content from the NBA and CBS, according to Google spokesperson Sonya Borälv. The promotion builds on the aforementioned AdSense Firefox referrals program.

Analysts have noticed more advertising on Google’s home pages sending a message that the company is opening up to large partnerships. Google looks like it’s jumping on things that are big and beneficial for the companies involved, said Emily Riley, analyst with JupiterResearch.

Behind Google’s Motivation

What could Google stand to gain from promoting Firefox with its Toolbar? A likely scenario is that Microsoft could be planning to tie the search tool closer with future releases of Internet Explorer. So as a counter-action, Google encourages users to switch to a browser the company can control. “This may be a prelude to either taking over Firefox or launching Google’s own Firefox-like product, but regardless, this initial effort is to ensure Google’s place on the desktop,” said principal analyst of Enderle Group Rob Enderle.

“Google will gain more Toolbar users, which means more data and more committed Google users. Also, the more Firefox in the world, the better for Google, and the worse for Microsoft,” commented John Battelle, chairman of Federated Media Publishing and author of The Search who posted a screen shot in his blog.

Google plans to continue working with not only Mozilla, but also other technology providers. The company wants “to ensure our mutual users have the best experience possible with our products and services,” said Borälv.

This helps Mozilla expand its reach. Based on the available tools and applications such as Gmail and Google Calendar, Google is moving away from a “pure search.” “Microsoft still has a huge penetration in the browser space and any new offering that’s better will surely take market share from Microsoft. This is sort of the ‘final frontier’ for Google in becoming both the browser and the home page,” Riley said.

The IE 7 Beta Preview has been released and people are talking about it in many places. Some people may have downloaded it and installed it, forgetting that newer versions of IE always take over past versions. Thanks to several excellent resources, it’s possible to uninstall IE 7 and run it separately without losing IE 6.

To remove IE 7 (Thanks, Techenclave):

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs.

2. Check “Show updates” radio box.

3. Scroll down the list to find Internet Explorer 7 and click Uninstall.

4. Restart and IE 6 is back where it was before IE 7 swallowed it up.

Run IE 6 AND IE 7 (Thanks, Jon Galloway):

1. Download IE 7 beta preview.

2. Download WinRAR.

3. Double-click on the WinRAR executable to install it and click Install.

4. Click OK from the WinRAR Setup window.

5. Click Run WinRAR.

6. Click File > Open Archive.

7. Click on the down arrow next to Files of type and select All Files.

8. Browse to wherever you saved the IE 7 executable, select it, and click Open.

9. Open the files to a folder of your choice.

10. Close WinRAR (uninstall it, if you wish).

11. Open the folder where the IE 7 files are located. Find and delete SHLWAPI.DLL.

12. In Windows Explorer while you’re in the IE 7 folder, right-click and select New > Text Document.

13. Rename the next document to IEXPLORE.exe.local. Do not add .txt on the end of the file name. That’s the full file name.

OK, I had to nix the last line because a security update broke this. Whenever I tried to open a link in IE6, it opened in Firefox. I have to use IE 6 for work stuff. Thanks to Jon for letting me know. Jon posted the steps here.

When I run it, the IE7.bat doesn’t stay open in the background. So I ran IE 7 normally and then clicked on IE7.bat again after I closed IE 7. IE6 works again.