If you're using Yahoo for email or any type of service and you want to criticize the Chinese government, you may want to think twice about it.
London-based Reporters Without Borders said recently that Yahoo gave key information to jail southwest China's Li Zhi for subversion in 2003, after he posted comments about official corruption.
For those of you who are unfortunate enough to be up ridiculously early Sunday morning, I will be appearing on WHAS-11 in Louisville, Ky., sometime around 7:10 a.m. to discuss "The Developers." I'm not sure what I'll say about it, but maybe I'll juggle, since it's silly to juggle while on the radio.
Everyone these days is interested in whether or not their sites are listed in Google. OK, maybe it's just me, a handful of companies and search engine optimization people. Nevertheless, there's a simple way to find out how search keywords compare to one another. At Google Fight, you have the ability to compare two sets of search terms and see which one has more results.
If you can get to a radio at 8 a.m. Friday morning, be sure to tune into 99.7 WDJX in Louisville. I will be on with Kelly K. talking briefly about "The Developers" and Sunday's book signing at Carmichael's on Frankfort Ave.
Kelly K graduated from Purdue, as I did myself, so we're going to turn Louisville briefly into Boilermaker country.
OK, maybe it will last like 41 seconds, but that's better than nothing.
For the fourth straight weekend, I'll be making a book appearance, this time at home in Louisville, Ky. I'll be at Carmichael's (2720 Frankfort Avenue) 4-6 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 12. Make sure you don't go to the Bardstown Road one because I won't be there!
Please stop in and say hi to me or my local publicist, Elizabeth Woods, if you get a chance. Elizabeth is my grandma, one of the main proofreaders for 'The Developers' and an avid bingo player.
It's official: The Developers has an official distributor. Biblio Distribution, out of Lanham, Md., will handle all distribution of The Developers, effective immediately. OK, it's sort of effective immediately because right now, Biblio doesn't have any books. But I've just ordered a third printing, and the company should have the books at the beginning of March.
There have been rumors for many years, that eventually, it will cost a user to send an email. And since spam has become a ridiculously annoying part of everyday work, the chatter for paid communication has picked up again.
But I still didn't believe something like this would happen anytime soon, until I saw that America Online and Yahoo are beginning to implement a system that will give preferential treatment to companies who pay for sending bulk emails.
Because I receive a decent number of questions about a multitude of things, ranging from writing and publishing to computers and programming, I wanted to make myself a little more available to those of you who can't get in touch with me.
Starting today, I will be available on both AOL's Instant Messenger and Google Talk around the clock. So if you have a question or comment, just send it along, and I'll get back to you. It might not be immediate, but I'll try to within a day or so.
AOL screenname: WoodsBenA
GoogleTalk screenname: bwoods43
If you're close to my age (under 80, but older than 5), you may remember one of the earlier educational games, Oregon Trail. This game possibly accurately depicted random people following Lewis and Clark in their quest for new land, gold and Texas tea. Or, wait, Texas wasn't around yet. Was there tea?
Anyway, the game taught multiple skills, none of which helped you make tea. But they did help kids make critical decisions on how best to outfit a caravan across an unknown wilderness, with food, clothing, weapons, etc.
For my third straight weekend, I'll be making a book appearance, this time in New Albany, Ind. I'll be at Destinations Booksellers (604 East Spring Street) at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4. Destinations is a relatively new bookstore, but the place definitely does great work in supporting local authors. And of course, you can find a lot of main stream books there as well.
I will also be introducing my local publicist, Elizabeth Woods, for the first time. Elizabeth is my grandma, one of the main proofreaders for 'The Developers' and an avid bingo player.