December 3, 2008

Discovering Internet radio ...

I know I'm a bit of a late-comer here, but I've become addicted to Internet radio, even to the point where I paid $4.95 to try Radio Io for a month ad-free. At $50/year, it's a lot cheaper than XM/Sirius, and it provides a pretty wide range of stations. I'm listening to a progressive rock station as I write this, and I'm also frequenting everything from radioioGrunge to radioioNewgrass to radioioJambands. It didn't take much tinkering to repurpose an old Mac laptop to work with my stereo and wireless network for streaming purposes.

So this post on A VC caught my eye today. Apparently, CBS Radio is positioning itself to be a key player in Internet radio. Much of the focus is on TargetSpot, which apparently allows targeted ad avails to be delivered in streams.

So I started wondering. If they can rig Internet radio so that targeted, relevant ads are appearing in streams instead of the endless jewelry ads Radio Io was feeding me, would I feel compelled to spend $50 a year for ad-free streams? Probably not. And those satellites that XM and Sirius launched into orbit? How long before they're as useless as the person who paid tons of money to put category 5 cable throughout his new house only to have wireless technology negate it a few years later?

Things are moving fast. I love it ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

October 29, 2008

My head is in the stars ...

I've always loved that scene in Harold in Maude where Maude tells Harold, "The earth is my body. My head is in the stars." That quote popped into my mind when I found Stellarium, a program that basically turns your computer into a planetarium.

I've always been interested in astronomy, but I get overwhelmed when I look up and try to figure out what's what. Stellarium puts things in perspective quickly. You tell it where on planet Earth you're viewing from, and it configures the sky as it appears. You just need to figure out if you're looking north, south, east or west and line it up to figure out what's what up there. On my MacBook Pro screen, it's pretty stunning. The sky moves in real time, and you can speed it up if you want to watch the moon rise and set or see the planets move across the sky. It's definitely worth checking out ...

And what better way to finish than with another quote from Maude ...

"The stars are shining right now. We just can't see them. Just another instance of all that's going on that is beyond human perception."

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:09 PM | Comments (0)

August 8, 2008

Rage, rage against the "dumbness" ...

I've been frequenting Marlon James' blog since I read his book John Crow's Devil. He doesn't post often, but when he does, it's awesome.

His most recent post might be his best yet, even though it's utterly gut wrenching. Is black culture "allergic to intelligence"? he asks.

"Of all the interviews I’ve had the most stupid was from a fellow Jamaican who couldn’t think of something more profound than 'did you write the book to get girls?' I complained and was told that it was all about publicity and fun and sometimes one had to play the game. What game was that actually, pin the tail on the dumb-ass-sex-mad Negro? I was offended by the question. I’m as irreverent as anybody and pride myself on a perverted sense of humour, but I bristle at stupidity and go apeshit at dumbness commoditized and thrust upon me."

Wow. Just wow. Great read.

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

August 2, 2008

Check out Root Clip. Now!

Voting is open in the latest installment of Root Clip. I posted a note on the Maroon Ventures blog about this, so I won't ramble on here. Just go vote. It's very cool and worth checking out.

Posted by Bob Benz at 9:06 AM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2008

Cool twangy Brit humor Led Apple goodness

A few cool tidbits that I've stumbled across during the past few weeks. Not claiming any of this is new, but it was new to me ...

Shameless -- This might be the coolest thing I've ever seen on TV. Part soap, part British comedy, totally hilarious and always off-the-wall. At times, even I'm appalled and offended. That ain't easy to pull off. Kudos to Sundance for having the balls to air it in the U.S.

Mad Men -- I stumbled across this in the iTunes store when I was looking for something to download to my iPod to ease a mind-numbing flight to Montana. It worked. The second season just started on AMC, but I'm only about half-way through the first season, thanks to my iPod and Apple TV. It hooked me with the Pete Campbell character. It would have been so easy to make him the stereotypical oily villain, but the writers gave his character complexity and actually manage to make you feel sorry for him at times. It's also amazing how different today's world is from the 1960 Madison Avenue setting of the show. The characters are constantly drinking and smoking in a creepy patriarchy that makes you wonder how anyone ever came to idealize the '50s and early '60s. Great stuff.

Hayes Carll -- I've been hearing his stuff on WDVX and never seemed to be able to catch his name. During a drive from Crested Butte to Denver, "She Left Me for Jesus" came on XM's X Country station and I caught his name and realized he's the one who also sings "Good Friends" and "Chickens" of WDVX fame. I've been downloading his stuff ever since. Twangy-ass country goodness.

iLife '08 -- I resisted buying this upgrade for a while but finally broke down when I wanted to synch photo libraries between my laptop and desktop. I didn't realize how much cooler iMovie is in the upgrade. They've finally taken the same approach with iMovie that iPhoto has been taking almost from the start. It allows you to create a library of all your video. That alone was worth the price of the upgrade.

Led freakin' Zeppelin -- I loved these guys when I was a kid, but I grew tired of them and drifted away. My rediscovery came from the strangest of places -- John Baker. I never thought Zeppelin would be his thing, but he's a total convert, preaching the gospel of Plant and Page while sipping a Cold Smoke microbrew. I was dubious at first, but then I burned a few of their CDs, including a copy of "Jimmy Page & Black Crowes Live at the Greek" and "How the West Was Won." (To show how far I'd drifted from Zep, my iTunes library had only Led Zeppelin III in it.) I'd forgotten how good this band could be when they were hitting on all cylinders. Total rock. I even had to dust off my air guitar ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)

June 26, 2008

Penn doesn't want to be your friend ...

... and he thinks agnostics are pussies

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:57 PM | Comments (1)

Passive aggression in KnoxVegas

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is passiveaggressivenotes.com. It never fails to amuse me, and today's passive aggressive missive from a Knoxville chiropractor is a hoot.

I know people who swear by chiropractors, but my experience with one back in the mid-90s was more in line with this experience. They seemed kinda cagey and reluctant to go over details of my special x-rays, and their end game seemed to be a protracted (perpetual?) series of chiropractic visits. My goals were vastly different. Fix my back and send me on my way.

Posted by Bob Benz at 9:51 AM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2008

Be the star of your own movie ...

When I was at Scripps, we created a fund to invest in innovative ideas. We called it the Entrepreneur Fund, and it's spawned a lot of neat projects. But the one I'm most geeked about has just gone into beta and it's definitely worth keeping an eye on. It's called RootClip, and the general idea is that someone creates a one minute video segment of a story -- a root clip. Other folks then jump in and create the next segment, with site users voting on which one should become the next installment. Ideally, you end up with a coherent story created by multiple filmmakers and driven by popular vote.

Check it out. If it's going to succeed, it will need to attract a broad range of aspiring filmmakers who are willing to play along ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 6:51 PM | Comments (1)

January 17, 2008

Return of the tirade

Leanne is back. And she's pissed ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:26 AM | Comments (0)

November 25, 2007

Diver down ...

My buddy Ken posted photos from his latest dive trip. This time they went to Little Cayman, and the photos are, as always, spectacular.

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:40 PM | Comments (0)

September 28, 2007

Suffering the porn

Apparently, the fine folks at Panera Bread in Knoxville have decided that this post on my site is porn. Paul was trying to access it while he was using their wifi network and received this nastygram.

I'm so proud to be an official purveyor of pornography.

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:30 AM

June 24, 2007

New location for RSS feed ...

If you're linking to my RSS feed, it's moved. You'll find the new one here.

Posted by Bob Benz at 5:39 PM | Comments (2)

Well, that didn't work ...

So I upgraded Movable Type, but it did nothing to deter spam. They found it almost immediately, even with directories named differently. So I'm now trying Real Comment Throttle to see if I can stop them from hammering the server so hard that my ISP sends me warning notices saying my CPU use is too high.

Posted by Bob Benz at 3:41 PM | Comments (5)

Testing MT upgrade ...

Testing an upgrade of MT that I'm making to try to solve my comment spam problems. I'm going from 3.15 to 3.35, and I'm somewhat astounded by how easy the upgrade has been thus far. I'm going to turn comments back on, too.

When I turned comments off under the previous version, I watched my CPU usage drop from as much as 45 minutes a day to 20 seconds a day, so comment spam attempts hitting my database clearly were the culprit. I'm hoping this install of MT will minimize the problem. I've also changed a few default setting to try to further dodge the comment spammers. We'll see ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 12:55 PM | Comments (2)

June 16, 2007

Comments disabled for now ...

The CPU usage for my hosting account has been soaring, and I suspect it's database calls from spammers who are trying unsuccessfully to post to the site. I've disabled comments for a while to try to figure out if this is the source of the CPU spike. If so, I'll need to figure out a workaround to restore comments but keep the spam attacks at bay. In the interim, you can always e-mail me at bbenz@scrippsweb.com.

Posted by Bob Benz at 5:15 PM | Comments (0)

May 30, 2007

Soul of Athens

I'm in Athens today at Ohio University, so it seems appropriate to give props to Soul of Athens, a new site spawned (I think) for the OU VisCom Department. But what I like most about it is the mix of folks involved. It's good to see academia slipping out of its silos and spreading its wings. And the content is very cool.

The site is Flash-driven and sucks some bandwidth. The wireless connections I've been viewing it on are barely enough to render it, but it does work. And it errs a tad on the side of being too image driven. But given the abundance of text centric sites out there, I think I'd sooner err on the side of photos and video, most of which are beautiful on Soul of Athens.

I particularly liked the Die Donkey Skull piece. Dawn2Dusk also is a nice look at Athens from sunrise to sunset.

For interactivity, they've made it very easy to share each piece, and they have a blog and a Flickr group featuring user-submitted images of Athens.

All in all, great stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 9:27 AM | Comments (0)

February 8, 2007

Genealogy of influence ...

I found this cool site today that shows the links among various writers, artists and philosophers. It's called Genealogy of Influence. Just click it and it's pretty self-explanatory from there. It uses a neat Wikipedia mashup to flesh out details on each person listed. The creator, Mike Love, also has a blog where he discusses the project. Good stuff ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:04 PM | Comments (1)

January 20, 2007

Facebook goes viral on me

I noticed recently that some students I informally mentor at Ohio University created a Facebook group for their online magazine, the most excellent Speakeasy. That was all the excuse I needed to hop over to Facebook and check it out.

First rude awakening: My workplace blocks Facebook, informing me that it is questionable content and bumping me straight to the company's intranet site.

Undaunted, I waited till I got home to check it out. I registered, poked around a bit and kinda forgot about it.

Then I got a ping from my friend Tiffany, noting she was listing me as a friend in Facebook. That drew me back, and I started messing around with it more, adding a photo and details in my profile. Then I stumbled across a really cool feature that allows Facebook to scan your Yahoo (or Gmail or whatever) e-mail address book for people who are already in Facebook. Once you get the list, you can start adding them to your friends list.

Before I knew it, I had 17 friends in Facebook. Very easy. Very addictive. I'm also on Linked In, but I've never really paid much attention to it, to be honest. Maybe it's because I've always perceived that as a place to look for jobs and I'm pretty happy where I am.

Next rude awakening: The damn thing made me realize how freakin' old I am. I noticed most of my friends are in their 20s. I started searching for folks my age (mid-40s), first by looking for Edinboro grads who would be my contemporaries (none) and then by searching my hometown for folks my age (none). Ouch.

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:14 PM | Comments (0)

September 8, 2006

Attack of the Turbo Mirage

My friend Tom's humble-looking but totally souped-up Turbo Mirage is getting rave reviews on Autoblog. His unassuming little wagon is fast as anything. I don't understand half of the details behind it, but it's still cool as hell.

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:19 PM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2006

Galapagos dive photos ...

My buddy Ken did his annual dive trip this month and he's posted a phenomenal photo essay detailing it. The site includes some stunning photos of hammerheads and this amazing shot of sea stars. Well worth checking out ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:50 AM | Comments (1)

July 9, 2006

Fine whines at 520

Dennis Perkins, who has been our wine guru for a few years now, has a blog that's worth checking out. With post titles like "Stick your nose in it" and "Let's do some acid," it's totally amusing -- and informative -- stuff. Just wish he'd post more often ...

And while you're at it, check out Knoxville520, which is hosting Dennis' blog. It's one of the latest online projects Scripps has launched, featuring assorted and sundry entertainment options in mighty KnoxVegas. Cool stuff.

Posted by Bob Benz at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

March 22, 2006

The Apocalypse of Pooh ...

Via BoingBoing, I found this link to a 1987 mashup of Winnie the Pooh and Apocalypse Now. The intro drags a bit, but once it hits stride, it's a scream, especially for Apocalypse Now fanatics like me. Winnie has come a long way since the Tao of Pooh ..

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:38 AM | Comments (2)

March 19, 2006

Leanne gets a new look ...

Leanne's site got a makeover, and it looks great. The site also has RSS feeds now. Very cool. I think this is a Chris in Bama production. Chris did my site design for me and I highly recommend him if you're looking for a little help with your web presence.

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:18 PM | Comments (0)

July 22, 2005

When divas go redneck ...

Leanne has written a neat piece for Salon.com that's worth checking out.

To quote Leanne:

"Redneck culture has been edging toward a major comeback for a while, and it has seeped way beyond the Southern states; there's a ranch-owning Texan in the White House, a much-ballyhooed "Dukes of Hazzard" feature film headed for theaters and a NASCAR track planned for New York. Crossover divas are out; the New South of Shania Twain and GOP-lite Democrats like Al Gore is over. The Old South of Bo Bice, the Lynyrd Skynyrd-esque runner-up on 'American Idol,' and conservative Republicans like Bill Frist is the new new thing."

Posted by Bob Benz at 12:39 PM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2005

And the living is easy ...

My buddy Ken went on his annual diving trip, this time in Grand Turk. The photos he took are stunning, and he provides details on each one in the slide show he created. Even if you're not a diver, this is worth checking out ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 6:38 PM | Comments (0)

April 29, 2005

Rethinking the Associated Press ...

A colleague and I published an article today in the Online Journalism Review arguing that the news industry needs a 21st century approach to sharing news and information.

An excerpt: "AP started as a cooperative. Today, it is a cooperative in name only. It’s time to take a lesson from music swappers and invent the new AP – a digital cooperative, a Napsterized news service."

I'd be interested in your thoughts on this ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2005

Shopping for the right search ...

I've been casting around for the ultimate search engine, especially when it comes to shopping.

Google is great, as far as it goes. But Froogle really doesn't do it for me as a shopping search. It's too "kill 'em all and sort 'em out" in its approach. This weekend, I stumbled across something with a lot of potential.

Become.com just launched and it's still in Beta, but it's showing a lot of potential. In addition to doing some interesting things with the basic algorithms that make searching more productive, they're doing something that strikes me as a little retro. They're using human editors to identify sites that are particularly useful. That's a throwback to Yahoo's early days, when much of its directory approach was hands-on and it tended to focus on stuff that was worth checking out, not just everything that happens to be out there. There's a big difference.

The results tend to be a lot more useful, at least as far as I'm concerned. When I search for "luggage," for instance, Become quickly took me to a several sites with great advice on buying luggage. Consumer advocacy needs to play a bigger role in shopping search. Don't just tell me everything that's available: Help me make the right choice. Help me cut through all the noise and find what matters.

The guys behind this developed -- and then sold -- MySimon, another shopping-focused search. I never really like Simon, though, because I always had the creeping feeling that I wasn't necessarily getting the best prices/products; I was being steered toward products by the site's sponsors. Become.com seems to avoid that. So far ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:08 PM | Comments (1)

October 3, 2004

Leanne goes live ...

Leanne's site is up and live, complete with blog, brief bio and selected writings. How can you not check out someone who likes "indie-rock, alt-country, naps, margaritas, macaroni and cheese, Mardi Gras, staring into space and letting the world know she still gives a rat's ass"?

Now Playing: I'm So Cute from the album Sheik Yerbouti by Frank Zappa

Posted by Bob Benz at 5:38 PM | Comments (1)

August 30, 2004

Diver down ...

My friend Ken sent me the following link featuring photos of a dive trip he took to Saba Island in the Caribbean. The photography is really spectacular and is worth checking out ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 4:49 PM | Comments (2)

August 25, 2004

Iron City goes aluminum

Current and recovering Pittsburghers will appreciate this one. Iron City, that swillish brew from the Steel City, has come out with an "aluminum beer bottle." Looks pretty strange and allegedly keeps beer cold longer.

Not sure if I'm ready for the aluminum bottle. I'm still recovering from their disco phase. ("Hey, give me an IC Light ..."). and those 16-ounce returnable bottles from my youth. I think we affectionately referred to it as "Old Homicide."

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:58 AM | Comments (5)

August 6, 2004

Spam from Jesus

Now I've seen it all. I'm getting spam from Jesus. Maybe it is time to change my ways. Oddly, he's using a Yahoo e-mail account. You'd think he could come up with something more appropriate than aryeh41@yahoo.com. Perhaps jesus@heaven.org or something like that.

Here's what Jesus had to say, under the subject line: The Rapture of the Church

It's Time To Go.
Come to www.katha-donpublishing.com to find out now just why, but how.

When you go to the site, you'll realize Jesus is still pissed at Bill Clinton, and Our Savior is not much of a grammarian. I'm not surprised by the former, but I really thought Jesus would be a stickler for spelling and punctuation.

Posted by Bob Benz at 8:55 AM | Comments (12)

July 5, 2004

There's a Mingus among us ...

Snapped up a copy of Charles Mingus' "Mingus Ah Um" the other day. It's incredible. This is the remastered version with some new stuff added. I highly recommend it, even if you have only a passing interest in jazz.

Other cool, recent finds:

Trailer Park Boys: This Canadian show on BBC America is a scream. After three episodes, I'm officially hooked. It's shot like a reality TV thingy, and the characters are constantly talking directly to the audience and making reference to the sound and cameraman. Keep an eye out for Bubbles, the Trailer Park Buddha behind the Coke-bottle glasses.

During one of my regular surfs of Cruel.com, I came across IWorkWithFools.com. Some pretty amusing stuff in there, and I get the frightening feeling it's not fiction.

Now Playing: Ooh Bop Sh'Bam from the album Charlie Parker Carvin The Bird by Charlie Parker Carvin The Bird

Posted by Bob Benz at 1:56 PM | Comments (9)

June 24, 2004

Bamm-Bamm Rubble walks among us

I was a major Flintstones fan as a child, and I especially liked Bamm-Bamm, the Rubbles' muscle-bound kid. Imagine my surprise when NPR had a brief thing on a kid in England who has abnormally developed muscles. But that wasn't nearly as cool as finding a photo of Muscle Baby on Yahoo. And of course, there's a story, too.

Gotta love the Internet. Yahoo's photo page is the same place that's currently featuring Rasputin's penis. That's pretty damn cool, too, though I'm not convinced it's the real deal. Also, the ultra cool part of that photo is the woman who is examining the specimen. The look on her face is priceless.

And speaking of the Flintstones, I dug Bamm-Bamm, but I totally drew the line at the Great Gazoo. What a wanker. He was the cartoon equivalent of Oliver on the Brady Bunch. A sure sign of a show that's jumped the shark.

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:55 AM | Comments (11)

April 25, 2004

The epistolary novel goes 21st century

This is very interesting. Haven't had a chance to really look it over yet, but it mirrors something I was toying with attempting for the Homestead novel I'm kicking around.

I've signed up to be a beta tester. Hope the pick me ...

And speaking of things literary, heard an NPR interview with Pulitzer winner Franz Wright yesterday. His father is James Wright, one of my favorite poets. The selections they read from Franz's "Walking to Martha's Vineyard" were really powerful. So much so that I jumped over to Powell's and ordered a copy.

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:58 PM | Comments (1)

April 6, 2004

The Soviet Union's Pompeii

I stumbled across this site while looking for other things. It details a young woman's motorcycle travels through "the dead zone" around Chernobyl. Incredible. Simply incredible. The images are so stark and her commentary is so matter-of-fact that it borders on surreal. It gave me the chills.

To quote Elena: "Perhaps future archeologists will compare this Ghost Town to Pompeii. The Soviet era is forever preserved here - in the deadly radiation that will last for many centuries."

Posted by Bob Benz at 4:27 PM | Comments (2)

April 3, 2004

Haiku dojo ...

Long time no post. Too much life clouding my creativity, I guess.

This one is worth the wait. Glenbot has launched the Haiku Dojo. Very cool. My favorite so far:

my random thoughts knock
like pebbles on your windshield
tossed by a dump truck

Go Glenbot ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 7:44 PM | Comments (2)

February 26, 2004

Building an empire ...

I recently picked up a copy of Civilization III, a computer game that allows you to build an empire. It didn't take long for me to get addicted. My fledging Roman empire already has wiped out the hated Egyptian and I'm now battling Greece. Those bastards. They sacked and pillaged one of my southern cities, took my catapults and used them against me and have cavalry units that are causing me no end of pain. I become so obsessed that I'll sit down and start playing and realize several hours have passed.

It's really a mix of chess, Risk and Dungeons and Dragons without all the tedious dice throwing. Some of the subtleties they've built into the game really are impressive. Attacking armies gain advantage based on the terrain they hold, and units gain power with each victory they score. It also allows for building monuments and other features that add a neat dimension.

I learned quickly that it's important to build features that help ensure domestic order or your cities will dissolve into revolt and disorder. After a few failed attempts, I built my next city near vineyards and immediately built roads to them, giving my Roman citizens an ample supply of wine. That's keeping those suckers happy while I wage war against Greeze.

Apparently, you can take a civilization all the way up to the modern day. I've never been much into computer games. Until now.

Today, Greece. Tomorrow, the world.

Posted by Bob Benz at 9:01 PM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2004

Death of a monkey ...

Breaks my heart to see Web Monkey die. That was a site I relied on heavily back in the day. It taught me to swing from the Internet's trees on tenuous threads of HTML. It was an inspiriation. I quit following it when I started writing less code and Web Monkey evolved into something more complex than an HTML geek's heaven.

Rest in peace, noble monkey.

Posted by Bob Benz at 1:57 PM | Comments (1)

January 18, 2004

Next of kin spam ...

I've seen a hundred variations on the "we're in some third world country and have a lot of money that we can't get out and if you'll help us we'll cut you in for a slice of the pie" spam. I've often wondered what kind of drooling moron falls for these things. But I received one the other day that's an interesting twist on this scheme. It definitely made me do a double take before I lunged for the delete key. Seems legal eagle James Link is trying to find th next of kin for a Michael Benz who died in an auto accident in Nigeria (why is it always Nigeria?) Dude was worth $10 million. And they can't find any trace of his next of kin. Go figure. Maybe I'm in for some cash? I'm sure Mr. Link can give me the details on how to get mine.

Here's Mr. Link's half-literate attempt to scam money out of unsuspecting Benzes ...

Dear : Benz,

I am Barrister James Obi,a solicitor at law. I am the personalattorney to Mr.Michael Benz,a national of your country, who usedto work with Shell DevelopmentCompany in Nigeria.On the 21st of April 2001, my client, his wife and their only daughter were involved in a car accident along sagbama express road. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost there lives. Since then I have made several enquiries to your embassy here to locate any of my clientsextended relatives, this has also proved unsuccessful.After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locate any member of his family hence I contacted you. I have contacted you to assist in recovering the fund valued at US$10 million left behind by my client before it gets confisicated or declared unserviceable by the Security Finance Firm where this huge amount were deposited. The said Security Finance Company has issued me a notice to providethe next of kin or have the accountconfisicated within the next twenty one official working days.Since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the relatives for over 2 years now, I seek the consent to present you as the next of kin to the deceased since you have the same last names, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you.Therefore, on receipt of your positive response, we shall then discuss the sharing ratio and modalities for transfer. I have all necessary information and legal documents needed to back you up for claim. All I require from you is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through.I guarantee that this will be executed under legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. Please get in touch with me
Best regard,
Barrister James Obi

Posted by Bob Benz at 9:10 AM | Comments (3)

January 11, 2004

Now Playing ...

Just stumbled on another cool feature in ecto. In addition to making it easy to use Movable Type shortcuts on the Mac, it also makes it easy to insert the name of the song that's currently playing on my copy of iTunes (I'm busy moving my entire CD collection onto my iPod today ... )

Now Playing: Cluck Old Hen from the album Hogs On The Highway by The Bad Livers.

Posted by Bob Benz at 12:56 PM | TrackBack

Movable Type and the Mac

My one disappointment so far with Movable Type on the Mac is losing the keyboard shortcuts that the PC provides. I haven't been able to find Mac equivalents, so to date, I've been inserting URLs by handcoding the HTML. Today, I found an app called ecto that handles that and more. Still experimenting, but it has promise. Basically, it acts as a control panel for Movable Type on your Mac and extends the content management functionality. This is my first test post using it ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 8, 2004

Fashion police ...

God knows I'm no fashionista. But I thought this critique of fashion photography was pretty cool. Nice approach. I ended up clicking through the whole thing ...

Posted by Bob Benz at 10:01 PM | Comments (0)