I was just browsing through Jerry Pournelle’s web site, and discovered that he, too, installed Office 2003 this weekend. His main problem thus far seems to be getting to newsgroups through Outlook. I’ve managed to avoid Outlook thus far, sticking with Eudora for the last eight years or so. I’m thinking about switching, but I really don’t have a good reason to do so, except that I just paid for Outlook 2003, so I figure I should do something with it. If I start using Outlook for e-mail, though, I’m going to end up wanting to use it as a PIM too, which means I’ll want to figure out how to sync it with my Palm, which will require spending money on a third-party program. Or I could ditch the Palm and just use my Toshiba Pocket PC. It’s all getting too complicated. Maybe I’ll just stick with my three-year-old version of Eudora and my trusty two-year-old Palm i705.
drums
For some strange reason, someone is playing drums outside my window.
Office 2003
I upgraded my home computer to Office 2003 today. I haven’t seen anything exciting yet, but at least nothing’s gone wrong — no mysterious crashes, hard disk corruption, blue screens of death, or anything like that. I suppose it was worth the $200 (educational discount), given that the last version of Office I paid for was Office 95.
Headline
Headline of the week: Screaming Woman Rams Car Into Arena at Bush Rally
Josh Benton
Josh Benton is blogging from Zambia. Some interesting stuff, and a bunch of fairly mundane (but still kind of interesting) stuff.
Singing Detective
Looks like the Singing Detective movie isn’t going to be worth seeing. Maybe it’s time to pick up the DVD set of the original series.
LoTR
I just found out that the Walter Reade Theater is doing a Lord of the Rings trilogy weekend in January, showing the extended versions of all three films, and doing a Q&A with Peter Jackson. Now, if only I knew someone geeky enough to want to go, but not so geeky that they’re turned off by the simplifications and alterations to the story that Jackson had to make to translate the books to movies.
I think everyone I know is on one side or the other of that fence — either they liked the movies, but don’t really feel the need to see them more than once, or they’re seething with rage at the abomination that Jackson hath unleashed unto the world.
Strange Music
Lots of strange music news over the last week or so. I just stumbled across AudioLunchbox, which should be opening on Oct. 31. They have a little jukebox app working already, though, and I’m listening to Steve Earle’s version of Elvis Costello’s Peace, Love, and Understanding right now. Groovy.
Swatch
How not to run an online store:
– First, put in a JavaScript age-checking routine that works under IE, but not under Mozilla, so that everyone using that browser is identified as being under 13, and hence not allowed to buy stuff from you. Hey, why worry about it? Proper cross-browser date handling is well-documented, but who uses Mozilla anyway?
– Next, rely on pop-up windows for some key functions, so that people with pop-up blockers enabled can’t register on your site. Again, why worry? Only communists use pop-up blockers!
Thank you, swatch.com!
(Of course, the sad thing is that I bought a watch from them anyway. after switching browsers and disabling pop-ups.)
Headline
Headline of the day: Groups Fight Over Fate of 174 Feral Chihuahuas