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Here's a screenshot of the pop-up blocker that will be built into Internet Exploder in Windows XP SP2.

Bobafred: How Not To Meet Women: Part I.

Jeez, it's no wonder people are leaving AT&T Wireless in droves now that number portability is in play.(Assuming they can actually get out with all the problems AT & T has had releasing numbers.) The customer service aspect of their company is so fundamentally flawed it is ridiculous.

A couple of months ago, I switched from their old school TDMA service to GPRS, complete with shiny new smartphone. I have had an account with them for six years. In the switchover, they lost all of the billing settings that I had set up with them, but never mentioned that this would be the case. A month ago, I got a call from them saying that my account was overdue. I immediately paid the balance, but was confused as to why they didn't automatically bill me, like they had been doing for six years. I was informed that I had to log into their customer service Web site to set this up, and that they could not do the set up(re-setup from my perspective) over the phone. So I went to the site, and attempted to log into the system with the username and password I had been using all along. No dice. I was informed that I had to re-register for the customer service Web site. What? I have had an account for six years, you have all of my information. So I attempted to re-register. I was then informed that an account for my phone number already existed. Well, duh, I've had an account for six years. I was then informed that I should call a customer service number if I received this message. Ok, I'll call customer service and clear this up. I called and navigated through their voice activated menu system to the correct option. "We're sorry, we cannot answer your call right now. Please call us back at a later time."

What? Oh, I wonder why the number could possibly be so busy? I am currently printing a number portability checklist. Goodbye AT & T, and thanks for nothing.

Big up to Nick Bradbury for getting FeedDemon to Gold Master status. Should be for sale next week. I still wish NetNewswire was available on my WinXP machines, there is nothing that compares to it, but FeedDemon comes the closest in my opinion.

What is Match Mobile? How does it work? Hmmmm. Interesting idea, but I am not sure that the US market is ready for it.

Atom in Depth is a slide show going into some detail about Atom. I only had time for the first 17 slides right now, but I understand the formats, elements and thinking behind Atom better already.

I Ching Online

The Seven Deadly Sins

Why Andy, Why?

There is an important Security Patch for ColdFusion MX and JRun available today. It patches the Web services framework, and you need it if you have Web Services that are publicly accessible.

Location-aware Devices, Privacy, and UI Design by Howard Rheingold is a solid treatment of the tough trade-off between this possibly very useful technology set and the privacy issues that it raises. I'm also interested in the set of issues as it maps to online social networks. I've thought, several times, that a granular approach to profiles on sites like Friendster and Tribe.net would be a better approach than the all or nothing/almost nothing approach that these sites currently employ. After all, I would, for instance, want a potential mate to see a different set of things about me than a distant buddy that I hit the pubs with once in a while. Not, mind you, in the sense that there would be a lack of integrity between the two.

In the interest of fair and equal time: Bush Re-Election Campaign Creates Thousands Of New Jobs.

New York Times: The Dean Connection Whether you are interested in Dean and his campaign or not, this article is a very interesting piece about the community dynamics and social network ties that the Dean is playing on virtually, and in a way, the lack of these same ties offline in some of American culture right now. In a way, it seems that Dean is creating a prototypical online community that is based on offline values. Very compelling stuff.

Kris Kristofferson Endorses Clark.

Top Ten things you didn't know about Kris Kristofferson in semi-chronological order:

1. His father was an Army general.
2. He was a Gold Gloves boxer.
3. He was a Rhodes Scholar.
4. He was a helicopter pilot in the Army.
5. He resigned his commision in 1965, after being assigned to teach at West Point.
6. He got Johnny Cash's attention by landing his helicopter on Cash's lawn and handing him some demo tapes.
7. He was known for his heavy boozing.
8. He lost his helicopter pilot job after passing out at the controls.
9. Kris gave up alcohol in 1976.
10. He was in Convoy.

Bio info via IMDB.

Wow, I am really really enjoying the newest Damien Rice(o). (MP3's there for your checking out pleasure.)

For you iTunes Music Store users, it's also available there.

While I'm at it, let me, for a moment, lament the lack of an affiliate program for the iTunes Music Store. Affiliate programs have been a staple of Internet commerce for years now. People love to recommend music they enjoy. So where is the affiliate program Apple? Where is it? Are the margins so thin that you couldn't do that? I mean, really, duh.

Nate wrote up his experiences with using Contribute. Seems it was adding stuff to his markup, and based on my experiences, I can't say that I am shocked. This seems to be a running theme with any type of Content Management System these days, and one that we have struggled with on PGA.com as well.(Todd mentioned this in the interview linked below.) It's a difficult balance to strike between making sites easy to update, and preserving the perfect integrity of the code you posted in the first place. This is further complicated by the fact that the bulk of these tools were, for the most part, coded when crappy markup wasn't considered such a big deal. My perception, especially from talking to the tool vendors that I have worked with, is that their attitude is the dreaded "it works on ie win32." I'd like to see more effort put into standardizing the markup created by the browser based WYSIWYG editors, because that is where a good chunk of the problem lies. It's tough to draw any conclusion to this musing, but the other place where the problem exists is one that a good content management system should let you have control, in it's templating and element control system. Most, if not all, full blown content management systems do not give you this level of control.

This trailer for a Hobbit movie that doesn't currently even exist as a plan is pretty good.

WebReference.com has posted the Web Services chapter of Programming ColdFusion MX. I firmly believe that this is the best ColdFusion book on the market. I keep it on my desk and refer to it often.

The Web Standards Project interviews Todd Dominey about his work on PGA.com. I can't say enough good things about Todd. I'll leave it at that.

It's been sort of a crazy week since I arrived back in Atlanta last Monday. Lots of work in the four remaining workdays, primarily because of this event going on. We did a bit of work with Flash Remoting, my first foray on a production site into the use of that particular technology. Over the weekend, I just attempted to recover, from the previous two week stretch of travel. Yesterday, I played my first day of paintball in this "season." This morning finds me with that soreness one has after dusting off little used muscles. In every part of my body except my knees, it is a welcome feeling. My knees however, don't seem to like stairs much today.

Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: The Daily Report: "I urge you to add extra characters and situations to your movie so every inch of my screen bursts with action at all times."

I got back last night, but was a bit too under the weather to get anything up on the site. My 12" Powerbook took a major turn for the worse on the Friday after Thanksgiving, forgetting somehow that letters before "r" in the alphabet existed. This lead to a jumbled, alphabet soup computing experience. Running Diskwarrior revealed that the Toshiba drive in the machine was about to fail. Shortly thereafter, just after I got most of the data off of the machine, it did. My experience may not be typical, but this is the second Apple laptop to have a major failure on me in less than a year. It's under warranty, and no doubt it will get repaired, but the hassle these two failures have caused me is substantial. This week's cost me several days worth of work, and I now find myself behind on a very important work project that has to launch this week. I backup on a regular basis. On the other hand, there is only so much you can do, especially when you are on the road. I wish I felt like computer equipment had gotten more reliable over the years, but I definitely do not feel that this is the case.