all five of you:

Fair warning: you might wish to turn off the feed readers for a bit.

I’ve been investigating search engine querys that have hit my blog pages. Consequently, I’m going to be updating some of my posts with metas and tags over the next several days. The reason for this is that while some queries show up with a direct link to the page in question, others do not, and land on the blog’s front page, making finding the article difficult.

I know, I should have started this from the beginning, but who knew? Not me, obviously.

Of course, I would be most pleased if at some point you would turn me back on.

I’ll be using All in One SEO Pack for this - another plugin.

“We are making a responsible decision in recognizing the status of the record industry and the increasing impact of technology,” said Bobby Sniderman in a press release.

What’s a record?

The store, located on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto since 1961, will close its doors on June 30. The founder, Sam Sniderman, began selling recordings in 1937 in the family’s radio store.

I don’t think so. Do you?

SEATTLE - A 27-year-old man described as one of the world’s most prolific spammers was arrested Wednesday, and federal authorities said computer users across the Web could notice a decrease in the amount of junk e-mail. - from the Associated Press

Yesterday I dusted off my résumé.

I know, I know, it goes against every single precept that I have been preaching to myself for the past seven years - or longer - but it’s for a position that I just can’t ignore. At least, that’s my story, and so far, I’m sticking to it.

It’s actually a management position, overseeing and directing an existing operation while developing, funding and implementing additional technology to complement the existing. I’ve done this before, so it’s not new to me by any stretch of the imagination; however, I’ve not done it on such a small scale as will be required. It should be interesting, to say the least.

Consequently, my operational background and experience shoehorn me into the somewhat enviable position of being capable of competing for the job - which, per se, isn’t really a ’job’ to me. It sounds as though it might be ’fun’ - which is how I characterize every job I’ve ever had.

For the most part, I have tended to look at employment this way: If I can’t wait to get to work in the morning, and, subsequently, can’t wait to lock the door and go home in the evening, then what’s the point of being there? And, in fact, that’s the reasoning behind why I abandoned my last period of well-financed career employment seven years ago.

I’m not counting chickens, though. I’ve been a vagabond for so long now that my work-related experience seems to me to be only a figment of an overactive imagination. Has it really been seven years since I was last gainfully employed in the profession that I chose as a teenager? It seems to me to be only a heartbeat. That seven year layoff may end up costing me, but then, that’s all right too.

If I’m fortunate, I’ll still get a bike ride to a job interview that’s over a hundred miles away, plus expenses.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

It never ends. Just when I think I’ve found all the blog software and more that I’ll ever need, I learn of another useful little ditty that I can’t resist downloading and trying. That goes for this, too: Post2Blog 3.00 from ByteScout, which is now free for all.

Probably the sweetest surprise is that the software can be put on a USB stick and used in its portable version. Converting it over isn’t too difficult either. Simply go to the Start / Programs menu and select “Create Portable Version”. Yes, it’s that simple.

It interfaces with FireFox and IE as well as MS Word. It handles image uploading. For a complete list of what it does, scroll down to the bottom of the Post2Blog page and read up.

Oh, yes, and one more thing I must mention: the spellchecker is live! - which, of course, can be turned off.

The New York Times has a brief article on how King George’s administration is fighting to keep American meatpackers from testing all of their animals for mad cow disease ((BSE - bovine spongiform encephalopathy)). Meatpackers presently test less than one per cent of beef carcasses for the disease. The problem is, as the USDA sees it, that wider testing could lead to false positives that might harm the industry.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m in favor of anything that will cull diseased products from the food chain. One would expect, in light of the failure of the inspection system to discover contaminated toothpaste, dog food and other materials - including contaminated cattle feed - in a timely manner, that the government would view favorably and not challenge a business that wants to put the safety of it’s consumer base first.

Alas, that isn’t the case.

The U.S. federal court system has ruled that the government doesn’t have the right to restrict mad cow testing; however, the USDA has appealed the decision which will delay implementing the testing by a small meatpacking company in Kansas - Creekstone Farms Premium Beef.

Cost is the argument being used by the larger beef producers against wider testing. I wonder what the human cost will be in the future for testing less than one per cent of the beef carcasses in the present?

Ah plugins. Where would we be without them?

Clean Archives, from Geek With Laptop, cleaned up my archives page instantly. I didn’t have to make coding changes, other than to insert the appropriate link on one of my sidebars and the bottom menu. The plugin comes with a configuration menu as well. It will put a link on the topmost menu of your blog, if in fact you use a top menu. Obviously, the plugin can be prettied by means of modifying the .css file. Check it out at the top of my page.

From Beast-Blog.com, I found a slick little email contact form as well. It too is very configurable. Take a look at mine, or go to Beast-Blog for the full monte.

Over the last six years I had become accustomed to riding almost every day, but with this winter’s riding layoff I knew that my skills would be rusty. Consequently, since spring arrived I’ve been going on short, 200 mile runs to get back up to speed. It doesn’t take long to clean up the rusty reflexes, balance and friction-zone control, but breaking in a sore butt and a tired back certainly takes a while.

There’s no doubt that daily riding keeps one conditioned for the rigors of the road. Scanning ahead, using the mirrors regularly, checking intersections, vehicle separation, watching for left-turners or people talking on cell phones or eating or opening a car door in your path – all becomes second nature for a rider’s safety. When you’re invisible, it pays to treat everything as a hazard. Daydreaming – especially when riding in cities and towns – isn’t allowed.

City riding on a regular basis is boring, as far as I’m concerned. There’s nothing I dislike more than stop-and-go impeding the enjoyment of my chosen lifestyle. Plenty of others will ride up and down those same streets like it was Friday night, going nowhere or hitting the peeler bar and nightclub circuit with friends. Not me. My preference is for the open road where the ride is the enjoyment. Getting there is more than half the fun, and when the destination arrives, the gypsy in me is anxious to be just a little farther down the road.

So, once again I’m happy to know that I am going to be saddlesore again after the winter. Fortunately, it was a mild winter with the ground mostly barren of snow, and that allowed many others to get in their share of winter riding.

No matter how long the wait, I’ll take the open highway over that every time.

Note: This article has disappeared from the web. I reprint it here as a matter of interest for those who wish information on trolls and their methods. The original article was Copyright © 2001, 2006 by Timothy Campbell.

Update: You can read more on trolling here.

What is a Troll?

An Internet “troll” is a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet. He (and it is usually he) tries to start arguments and upset people.

Trolls see Internet communications services as convenient venues for their bizarre game. For some reason, they don’t “get” that they are hurting real people. To them, other Internet users are not quite human but are a kind of digital abstraction. As a result, they feel no sorrow whatsoever for the pain they inflict. Indeed, the greater the suffering they cause, the greater their ‘achievement’ (as they see it). At the moment, the relative anonymity of the net allows trolls to flourish.

Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism (constructive or otherwise). You cannot negotiate with them; you cannot cause them to feel shame or compassion; you cannot reason with them. They cannot be made to feel remorse. For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules of courtesy or social responsibility.

Perhaps this sounds inconceivable. You may think, “Surely there is something I can write that will change them.” But a true troll can not be changed by mere words.
Read the rest of this entry »

I discovered a sweet little Windows app that makes arranging open windows a breeze. Previously I was using Madotate to spead out the mess, but over at CyberNet they’ve done a brief review of some freeware called Nubs:

It essentially puts tabs (which the program calls Nubs) around the border of your screen so that you can quickly access all of your applications.

You can read the details over at Cybernet, so I won’t go into them here. It does require Net2.0.