Omar Minaya's reputation as a shrewd wheeler-dealer is diminishing faster than has George Bush's popularity.
The Nationals stole another youngster from the Mets, prying away Lastings Milledge for two players who'll never have the word "star" associated with their play.
He let the Diamondbacks obtain Dan Haren, a pitcher who would have significantly upgraded the Mets pitching staff.
He didn't bother to give Johnny Estrada a chance to show whether he could help the Mets.
And he signed three players, catchers Raul Casanova and Gustavo Molina and right-hander Nate Field, to minor league contracts.
His best move: Getting rid of Guillermo Mota.
Ho hum. How much more boring can the Mets get?
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Test
This entry contains an audio message that you can hear by clicking the Play button below.
Gabcast! metbaseball1 #1
Gabcast! metbaseball1 #1
Friday, June 1, 2007
A new book that's not so new
I just started skimming through a book I just bought from Barnes and Noble's Web site titled Search Engine Optimization for Dummies and noted a few copy errors. One is in the next paragraph, which is from page 163. Can you spot it?
I remembered that the Dummies books usually list before their Tables of Contents who edited the book. Search Engine's list included a technical editor, an editorial manager, three proofreaders (one of which was a firm), and an indexer. No copy editor was listed. A curious omission. If any Wiley Publishing insider knows why, I'd love to know.
In addition to being buggy despite the number of people who the publisher lists as being part of its development effort, the book I received from Barney's, as a little girl I know calls the company, wasn't new. In its lower right corner, every page and both covers contained three noticeable creases. This is a slightly damaged book that should never have been shipped. I'm pondering whether it's worth my time and effort to bring this fact to the company's attention. I'm hesitant to do so because I'll then be required to repackage it, bring it to the post office, and possibly pay for its return shipping, all after contacting Barney's and having to describe the problem — with no guarantee that the new copy I'll receive will be in any better condition.
All this could easily have been avoided if the Barney's employee who picked the book off the shelf checked its condition.
Do not rely on a word processor's grammar checker. This tool is worse than useless for most writers. Grammar checkers are of benefit only to those what already has a good grasp of grammar.Did you notice to whom grammar checkers are of value to: "those what already has a good grasp of grammar." Now that's lousy grammar.
I remembered that the Dummies books usually list before their Tables of Contents who edited the book. Search Engine's list included a technical editor, an editorial manager, three proofreaders (one of which was a firm), and an indexer. No copy editor was listed. A curious omission. If any Wiley Publishing insider knows why, I'd love to know.
In addition to being buggy despite the number of people who the publisher lists as being part of its development effort, the book I received from Barney's, as a little girl I know calls the company, wasn't new. In its lower right corner, every page and both covers contained three noticeable creases. This is a slightly damaged book that should never have been shipped. I'm pondering whether it's worth my time and effort to bring this fact to the company's attention. I'm hesitant to do so because I'll then be required to repackage it, bring it to the post office, and possibly pay for its return shipping, all after contacting Barney's and having to describe the problem — with no guarantee that the new copy I'll receive will be in any better condition.
All this could easily have been avoided if the Barney's employee who picked the book off the shelf checked its condition.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Comcast's security screw-up
On May 17 I received an e-mail from Comcast's Customer Security Assurance group titled "Customer Security Assurance Notice." Unfortunately, it was mainly HTML code. Here's a sample, which began the e-mail's content:
(Hopefully, someone at Comcast didn't send this intentionally.)
Further down the e-mail it stated that Comcast had blocked my ability to send outgoing e-mails because "Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have been used to send unsolicited email."
I called Comcast seeking an explanation as I've never sent anyone unsolicited e-mail. The customer service person with whom I spoke told me that I had to contact their security department and gave me its number. I called it. An answering machine responded. I left a message and my phone number.
The next day someone from Comcast's security department called. He told me that I hadn't sent anyone unsolicited e-mail and that Comcast had sent the notice to all its Internet customers. He told me that to restore my ability to send e-mail I either had to call 1-800-comcast or go to comcast.net/help/faq/tb25, which would explain what I would have to do. Why he couldn't explain it to me while I had him on the phone befuddled me.
I went to its Web site, which only offered explanations for Outlook Express 2002 and 2003: I had Outlook Express 6. Eventually, I figured out how to apply the fix to my Outlook.
However, because of this experience, my first award for lousy customer service goes to Comcast, first for sending me an e-mail in HTML code that did such a poor job of explaining the problem and then for its security person's failure to help me to correct the problem while he was on the phone with me.
(Hopefully, someone at Comcast didn't send this intentionally.)
Further down the e-mail it stated that Comcast had blocked my ability to send outgoing e-mails because "Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have been used to send unsolicited email."
I called Comcast seeking an explanation as I've never sent anyone unsolicited e-mail. The customer service person with whom I spoke told me that I had to contact their security department and gave me its number. I called it. An answering machine responded. I left a message and my phone number.
The next day someone from Comcast's security department called. He told me that I hadn't sent anyone unsolicited e-mail and that Comcast had sent the notice to all its Internet customers. He told me that to restore my ability to send e-mail I either had to call 1-800-comcast or go to comcast.net/help/faq/tb25, which would explain what I would have to do. Why he couldn't explain it to me while I had him on the phone befuddled me.
I went to its Web site, which only offered explanations for Outlook Express 2002 and 2003: I had Outlook Express 6. Eventually, I figured out how to apply the fix to my Outlook.
However, because of this experience, my first award for lousy customer service goes to Comcast, first for sending me an e-mail in HTML code that did such a poor job of explaining the problem and then for its security person's failure to help me to correct the problem while he was on the phone with me.
Friday, May 18, 2007
A Web page whose designer emphasized style over substance
Today I encountered a Web page that was difficult to read. It's at http://www.xs4all.nl/~peterned/csshover.html. It's difficult to read because it contains white text in a smallish font size on a medium blue background that also contains a distracting graphic. After reading only a few lines I stopped. The lack of contrast combined with the distracting background made it impossible for me to easily read it. And though the content seemed interesting, it wasn't worth further effort.
- When designing a Web page, think readability.
- For the best contrast, place black text on a white background.
- Don't lessen your text's readability by placing a distracting background behind it.
- Use a sans-serif font, such as Verdana.
- Don't skimp on point size. Unlike magazines whose printing costs increase with the number of pages, you (usually) don't incur that cost on the Web.
- And don't place style over substance. Content is king! (Or queen if you're a lady.)
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Welcome to my Blogger blog
It was fairly easy to integrate this blog into my Website. I just had to change some settings in Blogger and copy the template it generated into the right place on my HTML page. I found the basic directions that pointed me in the right direction in Ian Lloyd's book, Build You Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS. It has an entire chapter devoted to the topic called "Adding a Blog to Your Web Site."
Once I got the blog to appear on my site, I encountered a sticky problem that took me several days to solve. Each post contains a title, its content, and a comment line. Unexpectedly, my content was too far to the left. I checked Blogger's Knowledge Base, but couldn't find any information on how to correct the problem. Nor did a post I placed in Blogger's community provide me with a solution. But, despite increasing frustration, I persisted.
It turned out to be easier to solve than I expected once I pointed myself in the right direction. I was able to do that after viewing the source code for the Web page containing my blog. I noticed that my content appeared with a CSS class called "post-body." Once I discovered that, the solution was within reach without much stretching. All I had to do was to increase post-body's left margin. Of course, if I didn't know anything about CSS I'd have been unable to solve my problem. It seems that CSS is something that everyone who's responsible for either designing or maintaining all or part of a Web site would benefit from knowing.
Once I got the blog to appear on my site, I encountered a sticky problem that took me several days to solve. Each post contains a title, its content, and a comment line. Unexpectedly, my content was too far to the left. I checked Blogger's Knowledge Base, but couldn't find any information on how to correct the problem. Nor did a post I placed in Blogger's community provide me with a solution. But, despite increasing frustration, I persisted.
It turned out to be easier to solve than I expected once I pointed myself in the right direction. I was able to do that after viewing the source code for the Web page containing my blog. I noticed that my content appeared with a CSS class called "post-body." Once I discovered that, the solution was within reach without much stretching. All I had to do was to increase post-body's left margin. Of course, if I didn't know anything about CSS I'd have been unable to solve my problem. It seems that CSS is something that everyone who's responsible for either designing or maintaining all or part of a Web site would benefit from knowing.
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