How do you categorize yourself?

My new Mac G5 arrives...

As a faculty member of the University of Colorado, Boulder, I have access to academic pricing, which is a hit-or-miss thing. I found out that pricing is pretty standardized on Apple hardware, so I went to the Educational area of the Apple store and priced the system out at $2295. Plus tax. Plus shipping.

That didn't seem like a great bargain, so I ....

Continue Reading "My new Mac G5 arrives..."

Millions of address labels!

Tired of being virtually single? Now: imaginary girlfriends on eBay!

"Tired of having to explain to family and friends why you are single? Sick of people trying to fix you up on blind dates. I am offering you a service that could change EVERYTHING. I am NOT a playboy model, but that is why this is more believable than the other ads! I am a real person and my photos are real. I do not discriminate, therefore this offer is open to people of all races, backgrounds, and GENDERS.

I will be your sexy, loving, girlfriend, available to you through email, Instant Messenger, postal mail, and occasionally by telephone. (Phone calls will have to be set up in advance). If the final bidder pays more than $50 then I will be sure that I send a little bonus gift with his or her first letter. I will make your fantasies come true from afar, you just have let me know what type of woman you are looking for, what you hope to get out of the relationship, and I will make those things happen for you.

You will receive love letters from me on beautiful stationary, scented with my perfume. You will get two pictures of me immediately, so you will think of me at home and while at work. I will send additional photos throughout the relationship, and you get to set the guidelines. If you want pictures sent more frequently, just let me know. You are in control of this fantasy. This service will last two months, and can be renewed (at seller's discretion).

When it is time to break up, you give me the terms of the break up and I will play along. Happy Ebaying.

*This is an Imaginary Relationship, therefore you will never meet the seller in real life. This agreement will end in 2 months, unless otherwise specified by the seller.

**Seller will be available daily for instant messages (at an arranged time) and will check email frequently, so response time should never be more than 24-48 hours."

The most valuable keyword on Google?

"Predictive dialers�-�A predictive dialer is an outbound call processing system designed to maintain a high level of utilization and cost efficiency in the contact center. The dialer automatically calls a list of telephone numbers, screens the unnecessary calls such as answering machines and busy signals, and then connects a waiting representative with the customer."

And, by the way, the keyword predictive dialer is worth less than the keyword predictive dialers, believe it or not!

Press Release: "Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther"

Beyond Panther--Unlocking Mac OS X's Unix Core
O'Reilly Releases "Learning Unix for Mac OS X Panther"

Sebastopol, CA--Renowned for its friendliness, Mac OS X continues to delight old and new Mac fans with its combined ease of use and underlying strength. By no means simplistic, its intelligently designed operating system and user interface boast of sophistication and power, while still offering accessibility to even the most inexperienced computer users. But Mac OS X has gone one step further: it's turned unsuspecting Mac users into Unix users, too.

Bookscan: for better, or worse?

When Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken were arguing last month about who had sold more books, online muckraker Matt Drudge stepped in with the final word by citing an inviolable source: BookScan.

The point-of-sale data service run by Nielsen and owned by Dutch conglomerate VNU (a competitor of PW parent Reed Elsevier) is on its way to becoming a standard-bearer in an industry starved for hard data. In the space of a few years, it has gone from a sputtering pipe-dream to a recognized tool, used in everything from settling a celebrity debate to setting the price of a rights-sale. With Penguin becoming one of the last of the large houses to sign up, publishers have firmly embraced the system.

But while the media and the industry increasingly cite BookScan, questions have cropped up about how accurate a picture it paints - and how it might be misused...

The Intuitive Life: A One Year Anniversary

"I know, I know, Randy Cassingham has the delightful This Is True, Cecil Adams has the always-entertaining The Straight Dope, and even Chuck Shepherd has News of the Weird, but, darn it, I have a humble but interesting list worth mentioning too: Pearls of the Net. Pearls of the Net grew out of my personal mailing list where I'd forward funny or peculiar news stories to friends and colleagues, and when I broke 100 people on the list, I decided to drop it on Topica so people could manage their own subscriptions. Today membership is around 500 people or so, and I definitely think it's kind of cool to know that many people are interested in what I find interesting online!"

An interesting JavaScript code listing

The things you learn poking around on the net

<script language="JavaScript1.2">
var bookmarkurl="http://www.RealLifeDebt.com/"
var bookmarktitle="RealLifeDebt - debts, bankruptcy and more"

function addbookmark(){
  if (document.all)
    window.external.AddFavorite(bookmarkurl,bookmarktitle)
}
</script>

Online Tonight with David Lawrence

But don't panic! I'm not about to release a few CDs of my guitar and flute playing, or my gospel re-interpretations of contemporary music, thankfully! Instead, I'm working on some audio book recordings. Stay tuned for more details, in a few weeks.

It's January 1st, and that means...

find . -type f -print | xargs grep '©'