BONWAG

I’m interested to find out where people visiting BONWAG are coming from: there’s a new ‘Guestmap’ up, so please sign on and say hi!

Given the significance of events a year ago, I got thinking about an exercise which would make an interesting conversation stirrer, or just a personal pep-up.
On any day of the year, not just September 11, try to recall what you were doing exactly a year ago to the day. If that’s too easy, try *five* years ago to the day. Then 10. Then 20. If you’re adventurous, try 30.
Who’d have thought you’d be where you are today 5 years ago?

This on has been in the Australian media a little lately; FIDO is a site put together by the Securities commission so you can see if there’s any unclaimed money owing to you from old bank accounts or insurance policies or the like. If you find any, can I have some too? Go on.

Everyday, its name seems more apt. Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE/junk email/SPAM) continues to flood through my email box at a ludicrious rate. I’ve taken measures to head it off, including tightening my Hotmail account to only receive messages from my close, personal friends, and only then when they are arranging to send me presents and gifts and/or money. It worked. I checked my Hotmail account today and there wasn’t a skerrick of junk to be seen. Lovely.
Feeling optimistic, I eased the junk mail policy off a little, to filter out email likely to be junk. It took – literally – minutes for the flood to start again. Garrisons of the ‘Spamilitary’ poured through my weakened defenses and within 15 minutes, there were 10 mails from people I wouldn’t know from a bar of soap. Most of these people needed their mouths washed out with same.
I don’t like Spam. I will not eat it; Sam I Am.

You know the old truism that pens and biros have as short a life as paperclips and matching socks? I’ve got an exception to the rule right here. I have a biro on my desk which has stayed with me 12 years. And counting.
There’s nothing special about it; it’s not ornate or unique. It’s a cheap blue ‘staedtler’ with no modifications or attachments, save for one thing which sets it apart from the multitude of pens and biros (and paperclips and socks) which pass in and out of my life: wrapped around it is a tattered piece of paper, under a layer of stickytape, which says ‘Cookie!’. I remember adding this when pens were in short supply in my work at Sonshine fm, waay back before computers did the job. We used typewriters, whiteout and pens to mark up the copy. That was late 1990.
Now, in 2002, it’s still here. It’s come with me through commercial media, computer studies, through tech support, through consulting, into marketing; lasted 5 employers, 8 different offices, several dozen desks, and it’s still here. And it *still works*. (I don’t actually *use* it that often. It’s just nice having it around). No-one has nicked it; and if they have, it’s found its way back. i’ve labelled other pens, but I suspect it’s the ‘!’ which has made all the difference.
Maybe I should start naming my bank accounts the same way.

A year has passed already. It honestly doesn’t seem like that long ago since I wrote this about my experiences in New York.

The TechXplore website has been updated at a new URL. Much more sass and hip :-)

weebl and bob is an interesting little online cartoon which makes absolutely no social commentary whatsoever.

It’s probably worthwhile to post a community service announcement here, following some internet searches and the dawning revelation on how seriously invasive this whole internet thing can become. It used to be that if your details were up on the net somewhere, unless someone – like a spammer – had jotted down your details, they were fleeting, and you could change it if you needed. Nowadays, sites like google (the search engine) and The Internet Archive keep copies of as much as they can get their hands on, so the implications of getting your details on the net are far-reaching. Tip: don’t put anything up on the net you don’t want future generations to see: it’s the digital equivalent of carving it on stone.

PC Magazine has a great series on some of the not-so-far-fetched goodies we can expect to be seeing not-so-far-away. This is a great set of articles which will either light up your eyes or scare you silly.