I’ve found it interesting how many people start off email exchanges in an insulting, aggressive tone, even though what they are looking for is a simple bit of customer service or an answer. I don’t speak to people I don’t know like that and expect them to respond, and I wouldn’t expect it if I sent a hateful email either. Guess it’s pretty common. Link courtesy of The Editor’s Log, over at The (Greensboro) News & Record. ...
Well, guess I’m never working for the state.
At least the name. I worked up the stairs from Nando Media for a few weeks during a stint with The News & Observer, and I used a content management system they had programmed in Perl. It’s too bad that the name is going away, given its evidence of the Raleigh newspaper’s pioneering role in online journalism, but I’m glad they aren’t getting rid of the company.
The tribulations of running a game store are recounted in nine Books by Keeper of the Retail Faith/Game Store Owner Gord. Highly entertaining acts of idiocy, unless you were experiencing them. :) Sample story: “What did you call my son on the phone today!” “I labelled him a petty thief.” “No one calls my son a thief!” “Actually, I labelled him a petty thief. Would you prefer aspiring criminal, or the more accurately descriptive incompetent law breaker?” ...
Carly Fiorina being asked to resign isn’t surprising, given the problems after the HP/Compaq merger, but this seems sudden, given all the company had been through in the last two years. Oh well, time to update my resume. ;) Link courtesy of Engadget
Interesting article in PC Magazine reviewing 15 Firefox extensions, but it leads off with this bizarre claim: “By itself, Firefox is a lean and fast browser, but it lacks some of the functions that we’ve come to take for granted from Microsoft Internet Explorer.” Easy way to lead off an article, but as someone who uses Firefox at home and IE at work, the only functions that I’ve noticed are “missing” have to do with being hacked and the privacy function that doesn’t work correctly. Firefox comes standard with functions that were only added to IE in the Service Pack 2 update, such as a popup blocker. ...
Well, the same hosting company that watched our server get fried — to be fair, they also rebuilt it fast, considering — is now moving it to a more secure facility. I just keep imagining a forklift blade stuck through the server rack, somehow skewering only our production server. :)
Amazing how much lightning running in on one server can kill your time and desire to blog. :| (Not this server…our production Web server at my work.) Anyway, another interesting Spiked book review, for two reasons: What the author is trying to tell us, and what the article says about the publication. First, as you can read in the article, the book being reviewed argues that the modern concept of inclusion is reducing the value in our institutions. To become accessible to the masses, they simply require less of us, which has the effect of removing our desire to aspire to the heights those institutions once exemplified. ...
I’ve never quite understood a particular behavior when I’m working with outside vendors: Silence. Particularly when a project is nearing deadline. I want to hear the good news, the bad news, and the no news. I want to hear solid facts, informed commentary, wild guesses, and off-the-wall opinions (although it helps if those are labeled as such). I want to hear everything, even at the risk of being flooded by information, because I can’t walk over and stand in the vendor’s cube to find out what’s going on like I can with people in my building. ...