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Friday, July 28, 2006

ForTheCommonFolk.com !

My new blog is now live... For The Common Folk at http://www.forthecommonfolk.com/ .

This will be the last official post on this blog. Please head over to the new blog and enjoy a nice dose of old and new content. Enjoy!


-Brian

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Entirely new blog.... coming soon!

The more I've been reading around about blogs, bouncing ideas off others, and ripping my hair out over Blogger's awful technology (is this really owned by Google???), I've decided to officially create a new blog, on a new platform, with a semi-renewed focus and more original content.

Sounds like a lot? Heck yeah. I've been very time constrained lately due to a new project I'm on at work but stayed tuned for more details... and hopefully within a week or so... a link to the new site!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

New look and feel (part deux)

I knew it was a matter of time before I got sick of the blog's new look and feel. I tried out the 'inverse' look using a black background. I have some good ideas for a new look so stay tuned... hopefully I'll have time to roll it out later this week.

The moon landing revealed

This an amazing behind the scenes story of what really happened during the first moon landing. Cool stuff.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin accidentally snapped off the switch of a circuit breaker - and they could not take off again without it.

But Aldrin improvised by jamming the end of a ballpoint pen into the hole where the switch had been and the astronauts' landing module was able to lift off the moon's surface.

Monday, July 24, 2006

New look and feel (for now)

I got tired of my last look and feel pretty quickly. The new look and feel is now live. I believe the image issue in Internet Explorer is fixed (images now display correctly and shouldn't get cut off). I particularly like this theme as it isolates each post fairly well and adds a more modern touch. Comments are welcome. Enjoy!

(Theme ideas courtesy of blogger templates)

The recent surge of spam

I've been an avid Gmail user since it first came out several years ago. I have never had an issue with spam until recently and could not for the life of me figure out why. I went from getting 2-3 Spam emails per month to around 10 per day! USA Today finally uncovers the mystery. I'm sure Google's arsenal of brainpower will figure this one out... it's just a matter of time.

The surge in new spam has largely eluded software filters and eaten up space on e-mail systems because each message is more than seven times larger than regular spam, Sprosts says.

Most image-based spam comes in the form of stock scams, which contain the same basic language within a shaded box.

Much of it comes from spam gangs in the USA and Russia, Sprosts says.

Stock scams make up about 20% of spam — about twice the share at the start of the year, IronPort says.

How to lose the 'ums' and 'ahs' in your speech

Umm.... here's uh the ah answer for um you.
The best possible scenario is to capture an example of your speaking or teaching 'in the wild.' This way you can listen to how you sound in a 'production environment,' as it were. Believe me, when you hear how many times you use filler words, it will rattle you to your core, and you'll develop a newfound self-awareness that will help stanch your subconscious desire to use these filler words during your next class or public speaking event.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Coming Zune

It's officially true... Microsoft plans to release and iPod-like device and music service later this year. As I reported a couple weeks ago, this could either flop miserably or shake up the industry with a nice dose of competition (hopefully benefiting the consumer in the process). Stay tuned... I'm sure more details of Zune will be released over the next couple weeks/months.
"Under the Zune brand, we will deliver a family of hardware and software products, the first of which will be available this year," said Chris Stephenson, general manager of market for entertainment and services at Microsoft, in an statement. "We see a great opportunity to bring together technology and community to allow consumers to explore and discover music together."