A pattern I always come across is that of sites with long (and often pointless) drivel which rarely fits the patience span of readers. According to this item, people will not read an E-mail that is longer than 15 lines. I have come to the conclusion that the more words you write, the less words (in total) will get read.

A good exemplar of succinct reporting is Photo Matt. Here is a bad example:

The E-mail on the right was sent to me from freshmeat.net this morning. It was intended to inform me about an update to Red Feline Backup. Latest release has a progress bar! Could this E-mail not be made shorter?
 
 
 
 
 

This morning I had a recollection of how my Internet experience started. I was about 14 when I went with my mother to buy a modem. Shortly afterwards, while playing tennis, I could not get off my mind the fact that I had spent an afternoon talking to someone from Holland (on IRC). Each one of us has had that first Internet experience, which is worth remembering.

Try it now. Reminisce.

The information revolution is one which few generations live to see. Most will be born to live it.

A retrospective item from 76-year-old Harvey Tobkes led me to making some predictions for the future. In 20 years from now our children will raise an eyebrow at:

• how people used to walk around in supermarkets, which have now become warehouses controlled by robotics.
• how we used to type in data using an odd device called a ‘keyboard’.
• the fact people used to go to work.
• the way information was recorded on paper and later binned.

UseNet participants from uk.comp.sys.palmtops and alt.comp.os.palm have come up with an SOS this morning. It turns out that Tungsten 5 and Tungsten E users (at least) are affected by a serious bug that can permanently disallow Palms from being switched off. The bug came into effect only yesterday. David Gerrie from uk.comp.sys.palmtops writes:

Solved!! Palm have put a fix on the website, all to do with birthday reminders apparently! Obviously posting here (UseNet) provided the impetus to fixing it!

Update: David Gerrie has E-mailed me the direct link to the solution. Here is his explanation:

It’s knowledge base article is number 26450. It’s not an actual patch, merely a workaround solution. Not sure if they are planning on patching or not..!

Cited by: PalmAddict

Thunderbird, Firefox and… RSSOwl!?!?!? Yes, an RSS aggregator that I recently started using. Personally, I do not think it has matured sufficiently; I still use a beta version in fact.

At present it is slow, a little difficult to work with, but on the positive side, it is trivial to install (there is an RPM package too). Only its name and logo, which attempt to associate it with the Mozilla family, had me inclined to give it a go. I would rate it ’7 out of 10′.

From BBC News:

Some of the most vivid descriptions of the devastation in southern Asia are on the internet – in the form of web logs or blogs.

Bloggers have been offering snapshots of information from around the region and are also providing some useful information for those who want to help.

On December 17th I wrote:

Today I am celebrating my 23rd birthday at the Zermatterhof. I received a surprise card from Florida Santa and Mrs. Renoir and I will soon add some pictures from this day.

I promised to post pictures from my birthday, so here goes a bunch. On the right: A photo of me on the Sunnegga; Bottom left: Me, my sister and my father; Bottom right: A basket received from Florida Santa and Mrs. Renoir.