Seen, Heard, Said

Watching SNL, Weekend Update reports that Seattle is America’s most literate city. From MSNBC:

The latest “America’s Most Literate Cities” survey reports that in 2005, Seattle unseated Minneapolis for the No. 1 spot among the 69 largest U.S. cities (with populations above 250,000). Minneapolis is now in second place, after topping the list for the past two years. The news was better for St. Paul, which moved up from No. 16 to No. 10.

Released this week by Central Connecticut State University, the study rates cities “not on whether their citizens can read, but whether they do,” taking into account a range of cultural factors including newspaper circulation, number of bookstores and libraries, education levels and publishing resources.

[tags]literacy, seattle, weekend update[/tags]

What's your ideal drink?
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Link found via Laura L..

Saw this on Lifehacker today.

The Phishing IQ test offers up ten different emails, then asks you to determine whether each email is legit or a phishing fraud. From InternetNews:

MailFrontier Phishing IQ Test II [via InternetNews]

I got 10/10 correct, so that puts me in the 4% group. How’d I get so good? Here’s a couple of things I look for:

• Does the email use my first and last name? Most legitimate companies will, especially eBay and PayPal.
• If the email contains a link, where does it point to? Links should always start with standard company URL. Links to PayPal should always start with http://www.paypal.com, not something else, like http://www.signupaccount.com.
• How’s the grammar/spelling? You’d be surprised how many phishing sites don’t run spell/grammar check.
• Are they asking for information that they should already have? If a bank or website loses your information, you probably shouldn’t be doing business with them to begin with. Companies ALWAYS have backups and should will never ask for it. NEVER EVER!

Hope those tips help. If you find something that you think is a phishing scam and really have no idea, feel free to forward it to me and I’ll take a look at it.

[tags]Lifehacker, phishing, tips, suggestions[/tags]

Cleaning out my various Inboxen, so expect more random stuff like this:

Data: May I suggest a course to take?
We could, I think, quite safely make
Extinguishers from tractor beams
And stop the fire, or so it seems…
Geordi: Hurray! Hurray! You’ve saved the day!
Again I say, Hurray! Hurray!

Picard: Mr. Data, thank you much.
You’ve saved our lives, our ship, and such.

Troi: We still must save the Indran planet —

Data: Which (by the way) is made of granite…

Picard: Enough, you android. Please desist.
We understand — we get your gist.
But can we get our ship to go?
Please, make it so, PLEASE make it so.

Link via Bonnie via BoingBoing

[tags]star trek, tng, dr. seuss[/tags]

Windows 1.0 came out just 72 short days before I was born. To celebrate Windows 20th, Download Squad has listed 20 facts abouts Windows 1.0:

1. Bill Gates wanted to call Windows 1.0 "Interface Manager." Marketing exec Rowland Hanson persuaded him that Windows was a better name.
2. Microsoft began work on Interface Manager in 1981, though at that point, it lacked a GUI and many of the other features that would later come to be associated with Windows.
3. Early prototypes of Interface Manager used menus at the bottom of the screen, which was consistent with the UI of Word for DOS and some other popular DOS programs.
4. Microsoft sent out a press kit featuring a squeegee and washcloth to announce the launch of Windows 1.0. The press kit was sent out in November 1983, a full two years before the program was eventually released.
5. In 1983, Microsoft pitched Windows as a potential GUI for Atari’s ST computer. Atari, however, didn’t want to wait for the program, and settled on Digital Research’s GEM instead.
6. Despite claims that Windows was Microsoft’s attempt to copy the Mac (or Lisa) OS, the real inspiration, according to some histories, was the VisiOn desktop environment, which was released in 1982. Bill Gates was reportedly so impressed by a demo of the system that he saw at Comdex that year, that he sat through it three times, and flew in other MS execs to check it out.
7. The system requirements for Windows 1.0 were 256KB of RAM, DOS 2.0 and two floppy drives.
8. After taking a look at a very early pre-release version of Windows in 1983, Byte Magazine declared it a system that would "offer remarkable openness, reconfigurability, and transportability as well as modest hardware requirements and pricing."
9. Windows 1.0 used a primitive file manager called MS-DOS Executive. A later version of this program, which is largely unchanged from the original, is available for download, and still runs under Windows XP
10. Windows 1.0 included multitasking capabilities, but did not allow windows to overlap.
11. Microsoft bundled a calculator, clock, calendar, notepad and a handful of other small apps (including the games Reversi a puzzle) with Windows 1.0.
12. Despite the limitations of the bundled apps, early ads for Windows boasted that the system included "an extremely useful set of applications."
13. In addition to failing to get other companies to create apps for Windows 1.0, Microsoft was slow to port its own programs to Windows. Excel and Word were available for the Mac in 1985, but didn’t bow on Windows until, respectively, 1987 and 1989. So few customers had purchased Windows that Microsoft had to include a runtime version of the GUI environment with the programs so that they could be used.
14. Among the applications featured in early ads was a terminal session used to retrieve stock quotes. The stocks listed on the screen were IBM, Compaq and Apple. Microsoft wasn’t included for the simple reason that it was a private company at the time; it didn’t go public until 1986.
15. In 1984, PC World said that Windows "provides a simple, powerful, and inexpensive user interface that works with most popular programs. That alone is enough to guarantee consumer support to make it the de facto standard of the personal computer market." The magazine was right, of course, though its prediction took several years to come true.
16. Shortly after its release, PC Magazine gushed of Windows 1.0: "If you’ve ever complained about DOS and envied those more skillful at reaping its inherent productivity bonuses, Windows is just what you need. It makes dealing with DOS a snap and opens up all sorts of new possibilities. Once you try it, unless you’re already a DOS master, you’ll wonder how you ever got along in DOS without it."
17. Windows 1.0 was out for only about two weeks before Microsoft released version 1.01, in order to fix several bugs. This was the beginning of a long tradition of dot releases, service packs and other incremental fixes that continues to this day.
18. An early PR photo for Windows 1.0 shows Bill Gates sprawled on a desk leaning on a computer monitor. Behind him are several other computers, including an IBM PC —and a Mac.
19. From the beginning, Windows could display color, if hooked up to a color monitor with an appropriate graphics adapter, while Macs available at the time were strictly black and white affairs. This led PC Magazine to declare that "after an hour In-a-vision (the first of the native applications to be offered for Windows), even the most devoted Macintosh user will be a convert."
20. The retail price for Windows 1.0 was $100. Adjusted for inflation, that’s equivalent to $177 in today’s dollars — roughly the same price you’d pay today for a full retail edition of Windows XP Home.

Technorati Tags: microsoft, windows, download squad

via xkcd

Technorati Tags: drawing, xkcd

I’ll admit, I use Facebook. I’m even convinced that I’m the one responsible for bringing Facebook to Mines (I setup a script on my site so that every user who visited by site also submitted a request to have Mines added to Facebook). I think it’s cool and so do 80000 daily new users. Yup, the Seattle PI says that about 8000 new users sign up…every day. As of August (before most schools even started up again), Facebook had over 3.4 MILLION users. TechCruch goes on:

Facebook is on a tear. There are rumors that their total page views will surpass some of the top internet sites in the next few months. 85%+ of all college students us it and 70% of them log in daily.

Via TechCrunch

Technorati Tags: facebook, techcrunch, seattle pi, web 2.0

Blogging pointers from Maryam for her son Patrick. Good points….

1. Remember that what you write is out there in the public for EVERYONE to see. Guard your privacy against your desire for public attention.
2. Everything you write could someday be used against you. Write so that you give your friends pleasure, but not your enemies.
3. You have entered a whole new playground and there are so many great friends to meet, so many new things to learn. Enjoy your new experiences and cherish your new friends.
4. Just like every playground there are some bullies in this one too. Don’t let the turkeys get you down! If someone leaves an inappropriate or mean comment, don’t take it personally and don’t dwell too much on it. They are not worth it.
5. Before you publish something, ask yourself what your Dad, your Mom or your friends would think about it? Would they approve? What about a future college recruiter? Or someone who is interviewing you for a job? If you are not sure, ask someone. Remember rule #1.
6. Don’t write about someone without their knowledge; portray others as you would like to be portrayed yourself. Remember rule #2.
7. I hope that you continue to ask questions and keep alive your curiosity and take us along in your journey.