Do your homework, iqProsoft.com

Recently I was re-reading the Writer's Yearbook 2010 issue of Writer's Digest magazine, and saw an ad for a word-processing program targeted for professional writers. In trying to distinguish the program from both open-source programs like Open Office, and from online writing solutions like Blogspot, they made a wild leap of disconnected logic, as thus:

Unlike Open Source, iQ Word is an installed program in your computer. No link to the Internet is required.

Once more, for the class:

• Open Source has nothing to do with the program's installation. Open Source simply means the program's source code is made public so that anyone with knowledge of the program's operation can fix bugs, add features, and so on.
• Installation, in this context, refers to whether a program places files in the Windows or Windows/System directories, or if it makes changes to the Windows Registry. OpenOffice.org is a suite of open source programs, but it is fully installed in your computer, if you install the full program. There is also the no-install version -- one that does NOT create files in the Windows or System directories, or make changes to the registry -- that can be kept on a USB drive or a CD for use in whatever computer one comes across;
• Blogger, WordPress.com, Google Docs, and other online writing systems require an online connection.

Bill Gates as Frustrated with Windows As the Rest of Us -- in 2003!!

TheInternetPatrol.com has a copy of an email Bill Gates sent to various Microsoft personnel six years ago itemizing his frustrations with trying to download Windows Movie Maker and beign made to jump through hoops only to find after numerous s-l-o-w downloads and at least one reboot that the one program he wanted is not there, though plenty of other unwanted stuff was.

Great book

i've been reading The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. It's a fascinating book about what makes some trends, fads, and ideas take off, while others are dead in the water. It first came to my attention when the phrase was chosen for the title of a CD by Tha Roots. But I guess if that's gonna be my criterion for choosing books to buy then I have to get Things Fall Apart next -- that was a Roots CD title also...

Big Brother? No, more like Big Nanny

Towards a Nanny Internet -- "Are we moving towards a Nanny Internet? Between network neutrality, laws requiring dating sites to perform background checks and ISPs to rat out their users, laws banning anonymous posting, and cyberbullying legislation, one might argue that the Nanny Internet is shaping up nicely. Or not."

BUMP: Signs (and billboards, and spam) of the times

I found the following post while I was Googling for something else (never mind what).

I see ads when I watch television, or read a newspaper or magazine. I hear ads when I listen to the radio.

The football stadium in my city is Invesco Field. The baseball stadium is Coors Field. The basketball/hockey arena is the Pepsi Center.

When I surf the web I get hit with banner ads, pop-up ads, and an email inbox full of spam.

Companies buy product placement in the movies I watch and the video games I play.

I go to get the mail and come back with a fistful of credit card solicitations and other junk. I have to sign up for a no-call list to avoid getting a dozen telemarketing calls each day.

There exists something called the "Insight.com Bowl."

Billboards litter the landscape. When I pump gas, an ad on the pump handle informs me that candy bars are 3 for 99 cents. NASCAR... 'nuff said.

Ads are stuck to the floor at the grocery store, spoken in pleasant tones over the sound system, and printed on the back of my receipt. An ESPN college football analyst casually refers to the late-December bowls as "Capital One Bowl Week". During the half-hour before movies, when people used to chat pleasantly, we are now shown continuous ads for soda and pop music.

Blimps and airplanes pulling banners turn the heavens into ad space. A Super Bowl champion announces that he is going to Disneyland.

Am I worth anything beyond my ability to consume?

My apologies to Lonnie Jordan and WAR, but the following "lyrics" popped into my head as I reread this post:

Don't you know that it's true
That for me, and for you,
The world is a billboard...
(from The World is a Ghetto, by WAR)

When I first found this blog post, two things came to mind. First of all, the poster was absolutely correct. Advertising has gotten entirely out of hand, and the recent boom in stadium naming rights fees is a perfect example. I remember when the indoor arena at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey was first built, and the area was named the Brendan Byrne Arena, after the governor whose efforts were instrumental in getting it built. Made perfect sense to me. But then some years later, when the naming rights craze came along, the arena was renamed the Continental Airlines Arena. I suppose it made a kind of sense, since the Meadowlands complex is right next to Newark Airport, but still, to discount the man who built the place in favor of the highest bidder just seemed stupid to me.

Then the whole naming rights thing caught fire. Now it's actually rare to see stadium names like Camden Yards, named after the section of Baltimore where the stadium is located, or Shea Stadium, named after Bill Shea, who was instrumental in getting National League baseball back in New York (in the form of the Mets). Who can work up enthusiasm for the ridiculously named 3Com Park, or Minute Maid Park? I would think the Astros (who play in Minute Maid Park) were probably happier, at least from a stadium-name standpoint, with the Astrodome. Too bad the former Enron Field (now there was a cool name) couldn't have been built as a domed stadium, and too bad about that Ken Lay business that forced the team to strip Enron's name from the building in favor of Minute Maid...

My New York Mets will begin playing in a new stadium in the 2009 season, and there was much public support for the idea of naming the new stadium after Jackie Robinson. Even the City of New York got into the spirit of things by giving Interborough Parkway the new name Jackie Robinson Parkway, since its northern end lies right next to Shea Stadium. But then the team went and sold the naming rights to Citigroup, and so the new stadium will be Citi Field, which sounds utilitarian if you don't know the story (or see the spelling).

Another thing that struck me with this post, was that that original blog, and the site that hosted it, have disappeared into the ether. I don't really want to go trampling on anyone else's "intellectual property," but is it wrong to repost a blog entry or article from a defunct site? I totally agree with the sentiment, but with the site being down there's no way for me to contact the blogger to get permission to repost...

When the Past Comes to Visit

Reposted from a Yahoo mailing list related to writing...

One of the strange aspects of web publishing is that it's ethereal. Unlike books, where the public can usually get their hands on an original edition. How many hard print authors would like to expunge their earlier works if only they could? A lot, I bet. Well, I can to some degree, and I've been exercising that right to date. But I probably won't forever. It's just going to take a lot of work to sort out and remove references to some early writers, artists and models who have asked to be 'edited out' of the history, or I have chosen to remove. That's the real work -- honoring those wishes.

Of course, as all the Myspace and other social network participants are about to find out, it's hard to totally remove your presence from the Net. How many people in their 40's to 60's are going to be haunted by strangeness they posted on Myspace in their teens or twenties? A lot. Especially given that everything on the net has been archived since the relatively recent arrival of the likes of Google. I've read that they have vast disk farms which will allow future wayback machinery to dig it all out as a function of time, even if the system today is clearly focused on caching and delivery current content. That old stuff, uncounted terabytes of content, is getting stored. Future detectives are going to have some very interesting and rewarding work (like publishing something in 2038 about a congressional candidate's Myspace postings in 2006).

Imagine if the detailed records of our current politician's activites in the Frat house in the 1960's or 70's was possible to dig out? Down to every girlfriend, every drug taken, every beer consumed, not to mention their immature thoughts about
everything imaginable. Every forgettable event and mistake in their lives. Despite pseudonyms, real identities aren't hard to figure out. A person's foolish youthhood should be forgotten and forgiven, not recorded in intimate detail forever. But I guess the Myspace bloggers will also represent most of the voters and journalists eventually, so maybe that strangeness will just be accepted as part of the culture. But that seems hard to believe today.

When I asked Shadar, the original poster, for his OK to repost this here, this was his reply:

Feel free to echo my comments into any forum you wish... although please attribute it to me as you indicate below. I suspect you might get some heated discussions out of it on some forums.

Digital culture is changing so fast its impossible to predict the future, but I do know that I'm glad I (and more importantly everyone else) has forgotten most of the insanity of my first 25 years on this planet. Also that I've never had to explain away any of that stuff in an interview because it was never recorded (we're talking 1960's and 70's). . Privacy and the forgetfulness of time are wonderful, wonderful things. People could re-invent themselves, and unless you had a criminal record (those were recorded for all time), then the 'old self' disappeared to be be replaced by the new.

And our ideas definitely change during our lifetime.

Problem with digital is that its all there staring at you forever... every single bit. Even if you erase it, if it left your PC, odds are somebody's else is keeping it. And now we have Google's disk farms recording (or about to record) the entire friggin' world. Ouch.

UPDATE: Sony BMG music group resorting to spyware

It just occurred to me today, over a year after I'd posted this article, that the Jakarta Post could have another motive for running this story. Indonesia is not a party to the current copyright, trademark, and patent conventions, and thus is a haven for illegal duplication of music and movies, largely for distribution in so-called developing countries. Since the multinational major labels like Sony BMG, Universal, and the others have been pressuring the Indonesian government to adopt the international intellectual property protections, it must make the Indonesians feel good to be able to point out the egg on Sony's face over this spyware mess. Yet another example of opposing parties pointing out the dirt on the other guys just to divert attention from their own dirty doings.

---

(Original post date 11/14/05)
The Jakarta Post, an Indonesian newspaper, has reported on its website that a number of new music CD releases from Sony BMG actually install spyware on users' computers. The article also points out that, with all the means now at new artists' disposal to completely bypass music companies altogether, such a move on Sony's part can only alienate consumers, some of whom are even considering lawsuits. I recently bought Shakira's new CD, Fijacion Oral volumen 1, which I haven't installed on my computer just yet, and now I'm not sure if I should, even though I really want La Tortura in my MP3 player (and I barely understand what she's singing, with my poor Spanish). I may even have to pass entirely on buying Oral Fixation volume 2 when it comes out this month.

Lorem ipsum, with an explanation

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Curabitur ultrices lectus. Donec porta. Quisque pharetra. Nullam posuere semper nisl. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Vivamus tempor. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Morbi imperdiet nisi eu orci. Sed convallis sapien a lectus. Maecenas tincidunt elit ac sem. Fusce fringilla. Ut sed nisi. Mauris consectetuer leo id ante. Morbi sit amet metus nec ligula nonummy facilisis. Aliquam a justo vitae nulla sollicitudin ultrices. Fusce nec mauris. Pellentesque leo turpis, venenatis sed, interdum nec, commodo faucibus, sem. Aliquam erat volutpat. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.

Keep reading...

Vestibulum volutpat. Donec mauris elit, molestie non, mollis sit amet, rhoncus nec, diam. Integer lectus metus, porttitor ut, auctor at, imperdiet bibendum, dolor. Vestibulum quis tellus id nulla cursus hendrerit. Quisque in dolor eu felis ullamcorper faucibus. Praesent luctus, ipsum a molestie adipiscing, felis lorem porta urna, nec posuere ligula nibh vel nisl. Suspendisse et purus. Donec lacus. Praesent aliquam sem ut nisl. In libero. Suspendisse quis nisi. Morbi tempor. Sed condimentum, ligula in mollis nonummy, arcu magna sodales tellus, eu venenatis dui neque vel augue. Fusce id purus sit amet augue dignissim consectetuer.

Don't stop yet...

Nam iaculis fringilla tellus. Suspendisse tempor varius nulla. Quisque facilisis, lacus at condimentum semper, pede leo congue tellus, eget ultricies neque eros quis neque. In quam velit, varius vel, luctus nec, volutpat eu, sapien. Morbi consectetuer lacus a elit. Aliquam erat volutpat. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Aenean orci massa, commodo at, fermentum id, fermentum malesuada, velit. Phasellus ultricies, elit in rutrum egestas, est dui convallis nisi, commodo blandit arcu magna sit amet sapien. Mauris posuere mauris eget nulla.

Curabitur aliquam. Ut sit amet ipsum non dolor consectetuer dapibus. Curabitur ac nulla id nibh rutrum imperdiet. Nunc nisl. Sed velit ante, molestie a, sagittis ullamcorper, nonummy a, pede. Sed magna. Donec nec nulla id eros interdum convallis. Proin dapibus. Donec malesuada. Sed cursus dui. Pellentesque feugiat. In augue. In elit. Sed id nisi. Aliquam erat volutpat. Phasellus ipsum elit, porta tempor, semper vitae, venenatis ac, purus. Sed tempus. Donec euismod aliquet est.

Just a little farther...

Morbi purus eros, feugiat gravida, pulvinar ac, scelerisque gravida, dolor. Sed elit tortor, eleifend vel, bibendum ut, rhoncus non, purus. Etiam egestas tortor vel felis. Nullam aliquam. Vivamus ut augue pellentesque leo pretium aliquam. Vestibulum diam neque, hendrerit nec, convallis vulputate, hendrerit eget, augue. Sed sit amet metus eu orci pulvinar dignissim. Praesent tempor dictum sem. Morbi metus turpis, facilisis sed, vehicula vel, sodales commodo, erat. Nam sapien. Nam ut augue.

This is an experiment. If you've read this far, do me a favor and post a comment, just to let me know someone is reading this thing.

Free Dunkin Donuts Coffee?? Where?! When?! Oh, *Iced* Coffee...

I got an email this morning from TheInternetPatrol.com about a supposed Yahoo promotion, offering free Dunkin Donuts iced coffee to anyone who visits Yahoo's site and prints out a coupon. I've never been a fan of cold coffee, but hey, it's free, and I like their hot coffee. So, I went to Yahoo, and there's no mention of it on the site's front page.

OK, I thought, they want to make you work for it. No problem. So, I did a Y!Search (I tack a "Y" onto all things Yahoo) found a bunch of sites with varying versions of the same story, but no actual links to a Yahoo page with a printable Dunkin Donuts free coffee coupon. One of those sites suggested that it may be just a publicity stunt. Its version of the story claimed that you had to make Yahoo your Web start page in order to be given access to the Web coupon, raising the question (as that particular site did) of how Yahoo could even know that you've switched your start page in the first place.

But, hey, free coffee, even if it is cold. So, I clicked on the link at the top of Yahoo's front page that's supposed to make it my computer's start page, and it didn't work. Not a surprise, since I work in a government office, and the combination spyware/anti-spyware that runs on all our computers probably prevents that kind of thing.

It's looking more and more like a publicity stunt by the second...

Somaya Reece

(that's a link, son)

Nothing more needs to be said. Somaya Reece is a beautiful woman, a nice person, and takes great photos (on both sides of the camera!) Also, her standalone website is being reorganized, so the link leads to her MySpace portfolio.

Check out the Somaya Reece music page also: http://www.myspace.com/somayareecemusic

Sidekick 3 Will Erase Your Credit Cards! and Quickly!

Not spam, not a scam, this is real, and this site has the photos to prove it!

Sidekick 3 Warning: Sidekick 3’s Magnet Will Erase Your Credit Card in Under a Second

This seems just really stupid to me. Don't they test these things? I mean, not just for the unit's functionality, but for things like this? When people start finding they have dead credit/debit cards and unusable electronic media and connect it to the Sidekick 3, there will be lawsuits. And all because somebody didn't think that maybe such a strong magnet would cause problems...

Send in the clowns!

The other day, a coworker was telling a story about a family who had appeared on Family Feud or some such show, and it happens they were a family of professional... clowns. Once another coworker I'll call J heajrd the reference to clowns, she just started cracking up laughing for no apparent reason. She didn't even know herself just what she found so funny about a family of clowns, except she did offer this: "Say you're bringing your boyfriend or girlfriend to meet your family for the first time and he or she asks, 'So what do you do?' and the answer comes back, 'We're clowns...'" after which she broke up again. The girl telling the story made sure to emphsize CLOWN everytime she got to that word, just for the reaction, and every time she did J would just dissolve into laughter. I happened to mention the scene in the Charlie Sheen movie "The Chase" where Charlie's character is trying to convince his "hostage" that he's really innocent of the crime he'd been convicted of (just before he accidentally kidnapped her), and the story involves a children's birthday party where he's dressed as a clown. J managed to get "I remember that!" out before cracking up again.

So, the next day, I thought I'd try to put her at ease, especially since her next-cubicle neighbor was still at it. "Don't worry, J, I won't try to get laughs out of you like I did yesterday afternoon," I said in my most soothing voice. "You don't have to worry, 'cause Homey don't play dat."

Caveat Scriptor...

...or something. I'm trying to say beware of what you post online, because you NEVER know who's reading, or how they might react. You'd think someone in a sensitive profession like law would think long and hard about whether to blog about an ongoing case, complete with enough details for readers to piece together the identity of the writer and of those being written about.

At least I would think so, but what do I know? I'm not a lawyer. Maybe that's a good thing...

The Internet Patrol: Blog Postings Cost Lawyer His Job When Read by Judge

At the time, it seemed like the thing to do...

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

• Newspaper subscription telemarketer
• Credit information verifier
• Cashier
• Bus driver

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over:

• Silverado (the 'form' is Western, but they pack mystery, action, romance, comedy, and a fair bit of intrigue into it)
• Better Off Dead (from John Cusack's teen-movie phase)
• Independence Day (Judd Hirsch is great in this, as are Randy Quaid [yes, really!] and Bill... Pullman? Paxton? I get them confused)
• Canadian Bacon (no explanations, no excuses, I just like it. Michael Moore needs to make more narrative movies. And it's great the way he got Canadian actors to play up Canadian stereotypes -- John Lithgow, Steven Wright, etc.)
• BONUS: The Core (hey, with Stanley Tucci [The Man], Delroy Lindo [also The Man], and Alfre Woodard showing the others how to act, how could I NOT watch?)

Four -- no, Three Places I’ve Lived:

• White Plains, NY, USA
• Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, NC, USA (just a couple of weeks, from what I'm told -- it was supposed to be longer, until my mother saw a mouse!)
• Mount Vernon, NY, USA

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:

• Monk (Tony Shalhoub is yet another Man)
• My Name Is Earl (small-screen Raising Arizona)
• Half and Half (mostly to stare at Essence Atkins and Rachel True, I admit)
• Caliente (outdoor Spanish-language Soul Train)

Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation:

• Disney World
• Myrtle Beach (SC)
• Virginia Beach (VA)
• Martha's Vineyard (MA)

Four of My Favorite Dishes:

• Beef stroganoff
• Corned beef
• Lasagna
• Stewed chicken (with curry)

Four Websites I Visit Daily:

• DeviantArt
• MySpace
• Jazzyville
• My personalized Google front page -- I have games...

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:

• Hawaii
• Grand Canyon
• Mount St. Helens (Washington State, US -- that is, if it's not about to erupt again)
• US Virgin Islands

Last four CD's I bought:

• Different Strokes by Different Folks, by Sly & the Family Stone with new music added by current stars (some great stuff here, and some stuff better left unlistened to)
• Can You Dig It?: The Ultimate Isaac Hayes, by Isaac Hayes
• Soundtrack from Shaft, by Isaac Hayes (I bought Can You Dig It specifically hoping that it would have the 19-minute-plus version of "Do Your Thing," where the musicians live up to the song's title. But it only had the three-minute radio version. The CD liner notes said the full-length song was on the Shaft soundtrack, so I went out and bought that the next day)
• The Cosmic Game, by Thievery Corporation

What's with all the Jessica Simpson mentions?

(or, no accounting for taste)

Anyone reading the previous post is probably wondering why there are so many mentions of Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears, and suspecting it might be no more than a crass play to get viewers. And to those cynics I have to admit that it did cross my mind this morning, even before I left home, that I could get more readers if I found a way to work those names into a post. But when I browsed on the MySpace site earlier today, and saw all the profiles belonging to members all claiming to be Jessica Simpson, I had to vent about it.

But one thing I did wonder this morning when I came up with the idea is, just what is it about Britney Spears that makes her such a popular online search subject? I mean, yeah, I think she's cute, and millions of other guys agree, and even some girls (and of course Madonna). And she does have at least a modicum of talent. But what is it about her that makes her so much more popular than Christina Aguilera? I happen to think that Christina is greatly more talented, at least as a singer. They both have some acting talent (and no, Britney Spears' acting talent is NOT acting like a singer). I suppose Britney's past romance with Justin Timberlake has something to do with it; after all, folks LOVED n*sync (I even found myself able to stand them, unlike most boy bands). Christina didn't really go public with whoever she was involved with, or maybe I just hadn't yet started wondering what it was about them (besides their looks) that made them It Girls.

I wish I knew what it was, so I could find someone else with It, get her (and it would HAVE to be a "her") to let me bottle Whatever-It-Is and sell it. We'd be rich. Of course, then the market would be flooded with Whatever-It-Is and it would soon become worthless, meaning no one would care about Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and all the rest, because everyone would have whatever it is that makes the public so attentive to their every twitch and burp.

Myspace fakers

I was just browsing through MySpace.com for the first time in ages, and I can't help but notice the total lack of originality or even honesty in the so-called personal profiles.

I originally joined MySpace because someone posted a message at a Yahoo group I belong to in order to announce that he had started a group at MySpace regarding one of my many online interests (no need to dwell on that right now). I joined MySpace, joined the guy's group, posted some pics, and that was mainly that. I've visited Somaya Reece's MySpace page a few times; she's the model/actress whose site I posted a link to sometime back (and keep changing the postdate -- you'll see it's presently above this post today). But for the most part I didn't really browse the site.

Well, today I decided to browse the site. I have to admit, it wasn't so much that I was looking to make friends or anything like that; I prefer to do that face-to-face, or at least not on a site that's dedicated to such things. And I admit upfront that I was browsing mainly female members in the 18-to-40 age range, looking mainly for photos, because I do a bit of photomanipulation and wallpaper creation (OK, the Myspace group I had joined relates to, uh, photomanipulation. Nothing gross, but there it is). I couldn't help noticing that I was seeing the same profiles over and over again.

A good rule of thumb: if the member is a female, 18 to 25, with a fashion pic or glamour pic on her intro page, and her only listed friend is Tom, the company founder, and her site background has Britney Spears in the top lefthand corner, the profile pic is probably not really her.

I would think that the MySpace management would crack down on something like that, lest someone using the site with more serious intent (like networking) come to doubt how much value there is in it. MySpace has millions of members, but you'll see the same profile pics over and over again, and the same profiles over and over again. Some of them don't even bother to change the contact info in the About Me info they've swiped from elsewhere, which means they'll have conflicting contact info in their intro and their About Me section.

I was surprised to see how many celebrities have MySpace pages, but then, in light of all the copycatting, how can anyone be sure that the apparent celebrity behind any particular page is really who they purport to be? I saw what appears to be Jessica Simpson's site, and Ashlee's as well, and they seem to be on the up and up. There are many members claiming to be Jessica Simpson, but something about this one page in particular had me convinced that it might really be hers. But "Jessica" has Britney Spears listed as a friend, and I have some doubts, after looking at "Britney's" page, that the actual Britney Spears has anything to do with that site. She actually says, for example, that her birth name is "Britney Jean Spears Federline." Um, does that mean she was born married to Kevin? That would explain the need for annulling the 55-hour marriage to her old buddy Jason Alexander rather than getting a divorce. Or is Kevin Federline Britney's brother? (A redneck joke is brewing in my brain but I don't want to let it out here and now.) And I'm sure that if I'd done more looking, more silliness would have jumped out at me.

It's interesting also that "Jessica Simpson", an internationally known celebrity, has only about 10000+ friends, while one of her friends, a "supporting-actress" type from some show on one of the newer TV networks (I should have saved her name -- her site was listed under Myspace Music, and I *think* her name was Alex M) had over 100,000 friends. Would the real Jessica Simpson, assuming she really does have a MySpace site, really be trumped so badly by a newbie? So even the seemingly genuine Jessica Simpson page may be a fake, along with the myriad of obvious fakes. I mean, come on girls, how many sites would Jessica Simspon have anyway? Would she even be bothered to start an account with such a morass of fakery?

One of these days I'll fill out the rest of my profile, and maybe even personalize the layout of the site, but who uses MySpace to look for an over-the-hill type like me anyway?