RIP

Not job hunting, but...

I like being self-employed, but every so often I think about working for someone else again and do a little poking around to see what the economy's like and what's out there. If I was actually looking I'd be really tempted by this one—hell, I think I'm actually even qualified for it.

What to think?

I don't really know what to think about this: Karl Rove and Bush are fans of Babylon 5. But it's weird enough to pass on.

PowerPoint the devil?

Via Scoble: SiliconValley.com asks, Is PowerPoint the devil?. Having watched (and given) too many PowerPoint presentations, I think that the problem isn't so much the tool as the tool user. There's too many people who think that you're supposed to put your entire presentation in PP, and then just read off the slides. Nothing could be duller, and that's a lot of what's given PP its bad rep.

All I put up on the screen is the bare minimum that's required to remind me of what I want to talk about. In theory, that should be enough for attendees to glance at later and remember what I said. If you weren't at the talk and you just look at my slides? You'll get maybe 10% of the content. Most of the people complaining in this piece don't understand that concept, and imagine that there's this dichotomy where you can be creative or use PP, when in reality there's no such restriction in the software at all.

Oh, and btw, I'm using Keynote now, in spite of (or because of? <g>) being married to someone who's written two books covering PowerPoint.

Al, Ti, and Fry

Unsurprisingly, Tom's put in his order for a new 12" PowerBook, and we've found that we keep getting confused about which machine here we're talking about. There's the big PowerBook, the little PowerBook, the old iBook, the old PowerBook, and so on, and so on. So, I've given that model a name: the FryBook. And if you've ever placed your hands on the palm rest when it's been running for a little while, the reason behind it is painfully obvious.

SOTU reaction

In Slate's A Reveille, Not a Record, William Saletan points out the essential emptiness of much of Bush's State of the Union speech. One excerpt:

What Bush said of Saddam's disarmament record could equally be said of Bush's domestic record. He has given no evidence of progress. He must have much to hide.

Monitor comparison

Thought for the day:

• Dell FP2000 20" flat panel monitor: $759, on sale last month
• Apple 20-inch Cinema Display: $1299, announced today
• Deciding that I made the right purchase decision last month: priceless

Answer leads to more questions

You might recall that I recently wondered why our hit count suddenly went through the roof, and I didn't get any answers back that fit the situation. A close analysis of our logs led to something bizarre: this page is, for some reason, being reloaded every two minutes around the clock by a machine at 102-2.kinkos.com. One page that's almost three years old, being reloaded over and over and over again.

So, one question answered, but it resulted in a whole bunch of new questions. I don't know what the story is, but that IP address is now blocked from hitting this site.

RIP HWG

Some time back, Kynn Bartlett asked me if I was interested in being on the board of the HTML Writer's Guild (HWG). I told him that I'd heard that they were going through some rough times, and after a previous fiasco with a volunteer tech organization, I was a little leery to agree unless/until I knew just what was going on. He said he couldn't say at that point, so I declined. Now, he tells all, in How Ann Navarro Killed the HWG. Woof. Via Joe Crawford.

Will edit for food

Will edit for food: This eBay auction item, Turnkey editorial/production staff, is a bunch of (presumably laid-off) people formerly with ZDNet Tech Update selling their services. It's another sign of the times. Kudos to them for finding an innovative way of getting their message out. Via Karen Heyman.