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Links Of The Week: The Archive, Microsoft Ads, Multitasking Myth

The Archive

Paul Mawhinney was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. Over the years he has amassed what has become the world’s largest record collection. Due to health issues and a struggling record industry Paul is being forced to sell his collection. [Link]

Microsoft to trot out Bill Gates and enlist Mac user Jerry Seinfeld to shill Windows Vista in ads

“Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.’s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld,” Suzanne Vranica and Robert A. Guth report for The Wall Street Journal. [Link]

The Myth of Multitasking – How doing it all gets nothing done

Multitasking has killed my productivity. [Link]

Print vs. Cursive

I believe that for day-to-day getting things done, print is a better form of handwriting then cursive. Print is easier to read and I think when you see notes or directions in a format that is easier to read your less intimidated by them. It is so frustrating to be given hand written cursive notes and spending the next half hour trying to interpret them. People write down notes in cursive so fast that the end result is illegible.

If people slow down just a little bit to make sure their writing is legible to anyone who reads it, there is less of a chance of miss understanding notes and directions. The same could be said of cursive hand writing. Slow down and anyone can read it. But my argument is more related to the fact that Print is easier to read then cursive.

This also lead me to think about fonts used on a computer. By default there are very few (if any) cursive style fonts on computers. Can you imagine how strained your eyes would be if the Macintosh Finder or the Windows start menu used cursive fonts instead of print fonts?

Cursive has it’s place in society. I just think it’s home is in typography art.

Porcupine

One of the things I was shocked to find out when I moved to Juneau Alaska was just how common porcupines are. They are in the trees and crossing the street. They are just about as common as stray cats are. You just don’t want to pet them of course. That would be a new kind of pain for me that I am not ready to experience.

Like BigFoot and the Loch Ness Monster, my pictures of local porcupines have not been the best. They always seem to jump out of frame just as I get ready to snap a picture of them. But last Friday that all changed. Hannah was out walking her dog when she found a porcupine hiding in a near by ditch. She snapped some pictures of it and here they are.

Links Of The Week: Isaac Hayes, Alaska Pays, Apple Exceeds Google, Mac OS Usability, Server-Side 3D Rendering, BigFoot.

Got another set of ‘Links of the Week” for you.

Isaac Hayes Dead at 65

Isaac Hayes, the unmistakable musician and actor who won an Oscar in 1971 for his “Theme From Shaft” and starred as Chef on South Park, has died at age 65. He was found unresponsive by a family member, having apparently collapsed during a workout. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hame of Fame in 2002. [Link]

Alaska pays residents $1,200 for high energy costs

Alaska’s legislature late Thursday approved a one-time $1,200 payment to nearly every state resident as a way for them to handle the highest energy prices in the United States. [Link]

Apple market value exceeds Google’s

Digital Daily, part of the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital site, is reporting that Apple’s market value is now greater than that of Google. [Link]

Top 10 Usability Highs Of Mac OS

Although I’ve been a Windows power user for years, the transition to Mac couldn’t have been easier and more pleasant. I don’t want to turn this article into some endless rambling about how great Mac is, but as the user of both systems I can speak from my own experience quite objectively. [Link]

OTOY Developing Server-Side 3D Rendering Technology

Imagine you could play video games – and immerse yourself in virtual worlds – with 3D graphics comparable to those found in blockbuster films like Transformers or WALL•E. And then imagine you could experience and control those graphics in real-time from any internet-enabled device, whether it be a desktop computer, set-top box or even iPhone. [Link]

Body proves Bigfoot no myth, hunters say

A policeman and a former corrections officer say that on Friday they will unveil evidence of what they claim is their biggest find ever: the body of Bigfoot. [Link]

You Can RSS Google News

You can save Google news, as well as any Google news search as an RSS feed. This is hands down a very useful feature for people who visit their local newspaper website everyday because they don’t offer an RSS feed.

Living in Alaska, I have found myself wanting to read more about the local happenings and goings on. I am not a fan of visiting the Juneau Empire news papers’ website. The website has a horrible design that is hindered by the fact that I actually have to go visit the site and not just subscribe to an RSS feed like so many other websites these days allow.

I was just playing around with Google news the other day and saw the RSS icon show up in the URL bar of my Firefox browser. So I thought “Wouldn’t be cool if you can rss your searches?”. So I searched for Alaska in the google news search bar and sure enough, after the page loaded I saw the RSS icon. I click on the Icon, selected the RSS feed, and added to my Google Reader. It worked!