Tuesday, August 31st, 2004
Steve’s writeup of Gmail is pretty much how I feel about it too. I’m not too concerned with the “privacy” issues people have raised with Gmail — I think you should consider all unencrypted email to be pretty out-in-the-open anyway.
It’s sure fun having Gmail account! If you want to try contacting me, just email me at the user “alancbrooks”, then an “at” symbol, then “gmail.com”.
Tuesday, August 31st, 2004
Pay It Forward works for Gmail
The Pay It Forward concept, popularized by this movie, works in the context of sharing the Gmail invitations that allow you to get on of Google free email accounts.
Here’s the thread on MacRumors forums that is working proof of the pay it forward idea. Also, Gmail swap is another great place for getting Gmail addresses.
Thursday, August 26th, 2004
Apparantly there is now an anti-spyware program out for macintosh called MacScan. Is there a need? Has anyone used it? Steve, are you there?
Wednesday, August 25th, 2004
TLAs decrease the SNR of technical communication. (TLA abbreviates “three letter acronym” and SNR stands for “signal-to-noise ratio”.)
When you examine a technical report or presention about an unfamiliar subject, often the abundant use of acronyms causes a great deal of trouble in understanding. To the uninformed reader, the acronyms increase the “noise” level of the “signal” that the author is trying to convey.
Only when one is familiar with a particular field’s abbreviation jargon do they have the ability to fully understand the information. So, TLAs are kind of “encoded” information. If you don’t know the code, the information is just noise.
(A fun* analogy is in spread spectrum communication: information is encoded and transmitted over such a wide spectrum that is looks like nothing but noise except to the reciever who has to code that pulls the signal out of the noise.)
*fun for dorky engineers at least
That’s the thought of the day. If you love it, eat a burrito.
Wednesday, August 25th, 2004
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Intro
I found a very good CSS introduction here.
Wednesday, August 25th, 2004
I agree with this article by J. David Eisenberg on A List Apart. Forgiving browsers should be considered harmful. Bad bad browsers.
Wednesday, August 25th, 2004
My parents, Randy and Shirley Brooks, are transitioning their fun little haiku company’s website from family-net to www.brooksbookshaiku.com. Be on the lookout for an awesome re-design!
Saturday, August 21st, 2004
The Sixth Annual Davito BocceFest is today! The city slickers (Me, Dave Stopek, Mark Fullarton, and Mick Montgomery) are sure to have our first victory ever. Look for pictures to come! For more on Bocce ball, look at the Wikipedia coverage.
Friday, August 20th, 2004
The story of an article that was only worth it’s while for about 1.2 hours
Markdown has now gone to version 1.0, so my previous story is obsolete. Enjoy. Also, this site is now rendered using Markdown 1.0 — it is nice. If you’re interested in trying this easy tool that allows one to write HTML with out thinking HTML, check out the dingus.
Friday, August 20th, 2004
Markdown 1.0 final candidate 2 is now available. Steve, start your updating engine.
Monday, August 16th, 2004
Parlay of the iTunes Music Store and the iPod on iTunes
John Gruber, the creator of the wonderfully simple writing syntax Markdown, has written an insightful article explaining his view that Apple’s current “licensing” situation with the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) is not similar to thier Macintosh OS platform licensing decisions two decades ago.
I agree. Licensing is little related to the value of the iPod — ripping all of your CDs to your computer and using iTunes/iPod to organize and listen to them is the most compelling use of the iTunes/Pod combination. iTMS is just icing on the cake.
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004
I heard about these a while ago, but forgot the name. A Captcha is a test used to tell computers and humans apart. See the Wikipedia definition and the Carnegie Mellon project.
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004
The Creator of Wikipedia Gives an Interview
Steve mentioned my interest in Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia created by its readers. Some interesting news about it has recently surfaced. As reported on Slashdot, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales responds to some questions about Wikipedia.
The idea of creating useful free content other than source code is certainly intriguing.
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004
I’ve posted a slide show with my photos from our vacation to Washington DC and Virginia beach. If you have any pictures to add (Dad?), please send them my way.
Also, Jessica’s pictures are available in a zip-file.
Monday, August 2nd, 2004
Dan Bailey’s Celestial Imaging
Check out Dan’s new astronomical imaging website. I’m hosting it on my server for a while, so that is fun. He takes many interesting photographs with his telescope. One of the best is from his recent trip to the Badlands.
Suggestion: Eat a Burrito Every Day.
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english-language haiku
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Sublime Promotions
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