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There are things I'd rather do than clean my computer
mouse. Really, there are. For instance, licking envelopes
is fun. I also like to cut duct tape with dull scissors.
The thing that separates these other items with cleaning
a mouse is that I need my mouse to perform about 95
percent of my work duties. I need duct tape and envelopes
the other 5 percent whenever I mail chain letters to
I hope at least a few of the 17 people who read this column are interested in building their own Web site, or already have, or would want to if all the letters on their keyboard weren't missing.
The trouble with starting from scratch on the Internet is it's tough to find your newly created URL in the search engine. The good news is there are ways to make it easier. The bad news is you will need more than just the return and shift keys to accomplish this.
Sometimes keeping computer terminology straight is difficult. There are so many definitions, words and acronyms that it is easy to confuse one for the other. For instance, I was talking to my mom the other day about a keyboard, and she thought I meant a music keyboard. Needless to say, she spent hours looking for a delete and escape key on her piano.
I like to dance. I may be the only columnist on the
Web who would make such an outrageous statement.
Not to put other columnists down, but I can't imagine
Dave Barry breaking out into Salsa or George Will doing
the Lambada. If I could imagine that, I wouldn't, because
it creates a very unpretty picture. With or without
guacamole.
Maybe if they had more time, they would visit their
Which of these is greatest thing about the Internet?
A. You can spend hours and hours, even days and weeks
sifting through site after site, finding everything
you ever wanted to know about anything.
B. You can hate
clowns and actually be welcomed to a Web site.
Of course, the answer is B, but only because there's
In the current state of the U.S. economy, it's pretty difficult to avoid being laid off, fired or, for whatever reason, not having a job for a certain period of time. True, sometimes the employee is entirely to blame for his/her predicament, but more often than that, a company is trying to consolidate, move offices or, in general, save money against the bottom line. Many times, those doing the actual firing and layoffs have to make decisions they would prefer to ignore, yet they have no choice.
Maybe you've heard of Sequoia Capital, Craig Newmark and Deep Blue, but do you know what they have in common? They are part of Yahoo! Netrospective: 10 years, 100 moments of the Web.
It's hard to believe that Yahoo has been around for 10 years already. I remember the first version of Yahoo, amazingly enough. Things have changed a lot.
Although this occurred two weeks ago, the Evansville Courier & Press ran a little article about me and my book, "The Developers" just before my signing down there. The paper may do a review at a later date, but I was extremely pleased with Becky Coudret's article. Here it is:
Humor/ tech writer at Border's
By REBECCA COUDRET Courier & Press staff writer 464-7509 or coud@evansville.net
January 21, 2006
Ben Woods calls himself a humor/technology writer - which has to be considered a new genre of literature.
Recently I was in one of those click-and-conquer moods. You know, where you find something decent to read on a news website, then you see another link, which takes you to something else that looks pretty interesting.
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"?