Author: Jeff Milner

I’m glad somebody is finally (almost) doing something about the dihydrogen monoxide threat. Think about that the next time you buy Styrofoam cups and think you’re not putting yourself at risk.

“I’ll buy you an IPOD if you be my GF for one and 1/2 weeks – $300” reads the headline of an apparently desperate 24 year old single white male from New York City. His parents are coming to visit and he “needs” someone to play the part of the love of his life that he has told his parents so much about. Is it a real plea for help or a new marketing technique trying to increase the perceived value of an Ipod. You be the judge.

I have been making some subtle changes today. The Google Search is now customized with a graphical interface (as opposed to the default form) and I added a couple of links to webpages that I have created. I created them a couple of years ago before I signed up for New Media. Anyway I haven’t checked the page in any other browsers yet so if you notice anomalies with the Google Search on the left side of the page, please let me know via the comments. Thanks.

I think more blogs should have trackbacks. What is a trackback you ask? Well the Wikipedia defines it as a system “that alerts and allows bloggers to see who has blogged about his or her posts on his or her blog. The system works by sending a ‘ping’ between the blogs, and there[by] providing the alert.”

In other words it’s a nice way to keep up with what other bloggers are saying about your posts. So far, I haven’t had any trackbacks (except for the ones I pinged myself), maybe that should tell me something. Anyway there’s a possibility that it’s just because not enough people know how to use trackbacks. I want you to know, though, it’s easy to ping a trackback – and you don’t even need to have trackbacks on your site.

The process goes something like this (assuming the trackback is from Haloscan): You read something on someone’s site that you would also like to write about. You then write a post on the same topic on your own site. Now you want to add a trackback, so you just copy the trackback link from the other persons site to the clipboard and ping it at Haloscan. To do that, first you must login to Haloscan and secondly Click on “Manage Trackback” in the navigation bar. There you can click on “Send a Trackback Ping”. Fill out the pertinent data like the URL to ping (the one on your clipboard) and your permanent link URL and then your trackback will be on its way. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Really.

Haloscan has a graphical tutorial, but in the meantime here is a list of other sites that also support trackback pings:

• Bloxsom
• Blojsom
• Movable Type
• Radio Userland

Update: I got rid of the trackbacks. The problem with trackbacks is that they allow comment spammers or in this case trackback spammers to change the content of your site without your permission. I had tons of trackbacks on my stairway to heaven page and many of them were unrelated and, for whatever reason, that just really bothers me.

Paul Tyma is a frequent (and opinionated) computer industry speaker and writer. Paul has two articles which I think you should read.

The first is called “The Internet is full of Idiots”. It’s about Amazon.com book reviews. Paul is writing a book and guarantees that the reviews he will get on Amazon will be good ones, at least the first couple. How can he be so sure? Well he’s going to write them himself. (Read More)

Paul’s next article is titled, “I’ve invented the greatest compression algorithm ever”, and as Paul explains – he’s keeping it a secret.

I still heart Google. So does this NYTimes writer.

The popular party in Spain has lost the election. It is speculated that if the recent bombings had actually been perpetrated by the ETA it would have helped the preceding government win the election. Interesting coverage via The Toronto Star.

Over 3 billion kilometers further away from the Sun than Pluto and 40 years away from Earth in a space shuttle exists Sedna. The article didn’t specify the exact time the discovery was made but NASA is expected to announce details during their news conference Monday. Named after the Inuit goddess of the sea, Sedna has a diameter almost 2000 km, which is the biggest find in the solar system since Pluto was discovered 74 years ago. It is believed to be made of ice and rock, and is slightly smaller than Pluto.

Since there is some conjecture whether Pluto is even big enough to be considered a planet, it seems that these large planet-like objects that orbit the sun should at least have some sort of official name rather than “Space Objects”. At this time I have no suggestions, but I’m just saying!