Welcome to BenWoods.com

You made it! Thanks for visiting.

Next stop ... New York City

This weekend (June 2-3), I will be attending Book Expo America, dubbed the "premier event serving the U.S. book publishing industry." My primary reason for attending is that I'm currently working on a new workplace humor memoir, and I'm looking to meet agents and publishers to pitch my book. I am also interested in networking with others and compiling a list for reciprocal web links. At the minimum, I'll be visiting a new city, so I'm pretty hyped about that.

Oh, and of course, I'll be pitching "The Developers" and my newest project, "Polos to Ties," as I go.

Joke-telling not always easy on IM

IM tellin' takes a look at a bad joke gone .. er .. bad. It's important to note, however, that one great thing about chatting online is that you do have the capability to make up your own sound effects.

Ben: knock knock

Sean: I HAVE A DOORBELL

Ben: damnit

Ben: DING!

Sean: THAT SOUNDED MORE LIKE A MICROWAVE TIMER

Ben: damnit!!!!!!

Ben: DIIIIIING .... donnnnnng

Sean: haha

Spam worries being curtailed

Spam has arrived, so much so that it is now more widely ignored than ever before. People in general, according to a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life project, receive more spam but don't seem to care too much about it.

A recent PC World article shows that the main reasons people don't see spam as a threat is because the volume of messages has decreased, along with the fact that people are becoming more knowledgeable regarding spam.

Hello bot, meet bot

Chatting with bots can be fun ... sort of strange, but fun. But what about bots chatting with each other? Can they determine that each other is not human?

Well, that's a tossup, but Discover Magazine tried to determine this particular item. ALICE and Jabberwacky have been chatting with people for quite some time now. And finally, they have been introduced.

Research help

As many of you are aware, I'm in the process of writing my second novel. This novel is closely based on my experience in the business world, so I'm currently rifling through various books on that topic.

From the Archive

SiteFinder leaves Web users at a loss

Imagine going to the library to find a specific piece of literature. The problem is, you remember the words "corn" and "facade" are in the title, but you can't remember the author or any other information. Was it "The Children of the Corn Facade"? Or maybe "The Facade of Corn Flakes"?



You won't find these terms on ESPN

For those of you who huge basketball fans, here's a little breather from March Madness. All right, maybe you don't need a break from the action, but seriously, it's Monday. There are no NCAA games today. Even Dick Vitale takes a day off.

Website selling personal info ... but how much?

Is it possible to obtain someone's personal information online? There's a site that proclaims this is the case ... for a price.

As reported by Snopes.com, ZabaSearch.com will tell you everything the site can find regarding a particular person. Snopes coughed up $20 and received some personal information, but nothing that couldn't be found already through public records.

SimpleTEXT creates a visual symphony

I'll admit that although I consider myself a technophile, I'm not really into cell phone text messaging.

There are a few reasons for this. First, I'm at my computer roughly 46 hours each day (at least, that's what our time management system says I should be doing). So if I want to send a message, I can easily do it via a keyboard. Second, I'm not that fast in typing the letters and words on a phone. Third, I'd prefer to not touch my phone anyway. I have a Bluetooth headset, so I can hit the button to pick up calls fairly easily.

If you're at your computer 166 hours a week ...

Sitting in front of screen all day is not healthy. Well, if it were a screen door, that might not be too bad, but we're talking about a computer screen. In fact, just sitting all day isn't healthy, either. Let's face it: Do you think the colonies would have won the American Revolution by lounging and playing World of Warcraft all day?

Powered by Drupal