Entering Stealth Mode

We're in the home stretch, finishing up our Dreamweaver 8 book, so we're going to be kind of scarce around here for the next week. Blogging will be light, and email and chat communications may get short shrift, too. We'll see you again when we emerge.

Apple's Birthday Present to Me

Apple eNews: October 27, 2005 has a nice blurb for one of my recent books, Creating Keynote Presentations with iWork: Visual QuickProject Guide. Thanks, Apple!

Birthday Rogues Gallery

Today is my birthday, and I was curious about who else shared this celebratory date. It's a diverse list:

• Kelly Osbourne (talentless spawn of Ozzy)
• Matt Drudge (right-wing sleaze merchant)
• Scott Weiland (drug-addled rock star)
• Simon LeBon (Duran Duran frontman)
• Veronica Hart (porn star during the Golden Age of Porn, producer/director; born in the same year as me)
• Robert Picardo (actor, holographic doctor)
• Roberto Benigni (Italian actor and director)
• Fran Lebowitz (chain-smoking sardonic author)
• Ivan Reitman (producer/director)
• Carrie Snodgrass (actress)
• John Gotti (The Dapper Don)
• John Cleese (dead parrot purveyor)
• H.R. Haldeman (Nixon chief of staff, political thug)
• Ruby Dee (pioneering African-American actress)
• Roy Lichtenstein (dotty artist)
• Dylan Thomas (brilliant tortured poet)
• Theodore Roosevelt (revered 26th POTUS; he always wanted to be "the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.")

Consulting via chat

I heard today about a new company and service called FlavorSofa: Buy & Sell by the Minute with your Webcam & Apple iChat.

The way it works is, say someone wants me to help with a project or answer a question. If they're a Mac user, I tell them my FlavorSofa IM account, and they contact me via iChat. They'll need to set up a FlavorSofa account in the first place (with a credit card), but after that, they can just ping me whenever they see that I'm available. FlavorSofa handles the billing (by the minute), and I'll periodically get a check.

I think it's going to be a handy way to deal with those folks who are asking their 35^th book-related question, and who would be happy to pay me some money if they could just get a few minutes of my time interacting with them directly. Check it out.

It's Yummy, but is it Art?

Dori and I have a little game that we play when we see public (or private, come to think of it) displays of art. The game is called Art/Not Art. One of us points at something and says "Art/Not Art?" The other answers. We tend to believe that some art pieces are really artistic, while others are just alleged artists masturbating and calling it art. It's interesting to see when we agree and don't agree, and it often sparks a fun discussion. Here's one on which we may disagree: The City, which is a replica of the city of San Francisco made of Jello. So, Dori: Art/Not Art?

(Via Paul Music.)

Conference hotels

For some reason, I'm the person that people ping about where to stay at conferences — I guess maybe because I've been known to have an opinion or three? Here's a give one, get one:

For Macworld, we always stay at the Hotel Palomar. We've stayed at almost all of the hotels on the available hotels list, and the Palomar has been the winner, by far. If you want a place within a couple of blocks of Moscone with broadband Internet access at a reasonable price, they're the way to go.

For SxSW Interactive 2006, I'm still trying to figure out where to stay. Here's the hotel list and the hotel map. So far, I've received recommendations for the Hampton Inn, the Omni, and the Driskill Hotel. Got an opinion on these, or on any others? Let me know in the comments, and thanks!

Update: I'm now booked at the Hampton. Thanks for the info, all!