Category: Internet

Just a note to let folks know that I have a lot going on this week and may not be able to reply to e-mails in as timely a manner as I’d like. (Not that I’m able to get to them all to begin with, but just wanted to let folks know.)

This is a limited-time only post that I’ll take down soon since I don’t want to give malefactors ideas, but . . .

Several folks have e-mailed stories noting that the gentleman responsible for the recent sacrilege on eBay had a change of heart and the matter has been resolved more satisfactorily than was previously the case.

Unfortunately, eBay itself has not yet had a change of heart regarding allowing such matters.

GET THE STORY (W/CONTACT INFO FOR EBAY).

Last April, a year ago this month, I moved the blog to TypePad.

As of today, we’ve had half a million hits in the new TypePad location.

YEE-HAW!

These hits are page calls and include people going into the comboxes, but they do not include image or other file calls.

Our rate of hits has really picked up since those early days, and if things stay on track we should be at the million hit mark long before another year is up.

Thanks, everybody, for all your participation, which made this possible!

Continue reading “Half A Mil”

Get it cleaned–FOR FREE!

NOW!

(Courtesy of www.clean-your-screen-for-free-now.com)

Occasionally I’ll get e-mail  that is almost a blog post. From time to time, I’ve posted some of these.

Well, I’d like to try an experiment in group-blogging.

For a limited time only (to see if this works), I’d like to open the doors on this an invite folks to send in e-mail specifically intended to serve as blog posts.

A few stipulations:

1. This is a temporary experiment. I don’t know how many such e-mails may be usable, and I don’t want folks to write a bunch of stuff that doesn’t get end up getting used (thus frustrating them), so let’s try a quick test and see how it goes.
2. I’d encourage folks to submit posts that aren’t heavy into theology, canon law, or biblical studies. There’s a stronger chance I might disagree on those and find them not-usable. For now, I’m more looking for posts on the other kind of material we have on the blog (which is today, on everything else of interest).
3. Please let me know if you’d like me to credit you by name or not.
4. Please include the words "BLOG POST" in the title of the e-mail so I’m clear that’s what it’s for (I can be dense sometimes).

Thanks much, folks! I look forward to seeing what y’all have on your minds!

BTW, I want to apologize for the spotty blogging the last few days. It may last a few days more. Same goes for tardiness in answering e-mail that I’m getting.

The pope’s death has shredded my usual routine, and those late night appearances on Fox, particularly the first (which basically resulted in a five-plus hour period of wakefulness after midnight) has left me feeling quite zombified. I’m trying to get as much rest as I can and conserve my concentration for upcoming media appearances.

St. Blog’s Parish has many fine priestly blogs, and I am now happy to give equal time to a nun’s blog — appropriately titled Nunblog.  Sr. Anne is a Daughter of St. Paul from Chicago.  Appropriately enough, Sr. Anne’s order’s charism is evangelization through the various forms of media.  I’ve only had time to scan through her site, but it looks interesting and has some lovely photos of a recent trip to Rome.

(Nod to Karen Hall of Some Have Hats, a Catholic writer who also has a fine blog you should check out.)

Is Bill Gates an Evil Overlord?

Before you say, "No way! He’s history’s greatest benefactor of mankind!" consider the following.

The Evil Overlord List contains one of the following resolutions:

9. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely
necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button
labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push"
will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to
disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled
as such.

Now, in keeping with this, most Microsoft and related computer products do not appear to have a self-destruct mechanism (not an intentional one anyway), but how clearly are their on/off switches labelled?

Consider the two images below. Does EITHER clearly convey the idea that you press it to turn the machine off? Either of them????

Bill Gates: Evil Overlord.

Think about it.

A reader writes:

Hi, I would like to know; what does it mean when you don’t answer a question?  I am not very familiar with blogs and maybe I don’t know how to find the answer and maybe it is just not something that you want to comment on but I just want to know how it works.  I had asked [a question you haven’t answered yet].  Thank you so much for your time.

No prob!

It can mean one of several things when I haven’t answered a question:\

1. Actually, I have answered it but it hasn’t appeared on the blog yet (I write my answers in advance of when they show up on the blog),
2. Actually, I have answered it but it has appeared but has falled down or off the top page (in which case use the Search feature),
3. I haven’t answered it yet because the question requires me to do research that I haven’t had a chance to do yet (this was the case with your question),
4. I’m thinking about the question so that I can give a better answer,
5. I haven’t answered it because I forgot (i.e., it got lost among all the queries in my inbox),
6. I have been intending to answer it, but then other things took priority,
7. I haven’t answered it because I don’t feel able to answer it,
8. I haven’t answered it because I don’t have time, or
9. I haven’t answered it for some other reason (e.g., it isn’t appropriate for a mostly-family-oriented blog).

So there isn’t any one reason why I may not answer. It’s a hodge-podge of things.

In your case, the reason is #3, and the fact you wrote a nice, polite query about the matter and I have answered in this public way means that it probably will get answered soon.

I should note that I can’t answer every query folks send me (e.g., for reasons #4-9), and I can’t promise to send a note saying that I will or won’t answer. The volume of e-mail I get is too big for that, though I do try to notify folks when I am answering so they’ll know when to expect the answer to go up.

Even with queries I am able to answer, it may be a few days to a week (or more).

That being said, folks are welcome, after a while, to send a polite one sentence query asking about their former query (e.g., "I asked about _______________ and was wondering if you’ll be able to address it on the blog?") and I’ll try to let you know. (On the other hand, if I get "#*(S^!((**! Where’s the answer to my question about _____________, you $*#@&*@#!" then that’s a one-way ticked to no-answerville.)

Gotta question for y’all: I’m unhappy with the ID3 tags that are being stuck onto my MP3 files when I make homemade audiobooks. I wanna change them, but my iTunes doesn’t seem to want to do it for me (although it says it should be able to).

I also would like to avoid having to change each tag in each field manually. I’d like (ideally) to be able to batch change them (since I now have a large number of these files), though that’s not a requirement.

I’ve done some checking but haven’t found what I’m looking for.

Can any of y’all recommend programs that would be (a) free or cheap, (b) if cheap, purchaseable with PayPal maybe, (c) easy to use to do this, and most importantly (d) contains no spyware–oh yeah, and (e) runs on Windows XP?

Much obliged!