Economical Vehicles

My mom often sends my jokes and other amusing stories that float around the internet. The latest one really touched my funny bone.

• A recent study found the average American golfer walks about 900 miles a Year.

• Another study found American golfers drink, on average, 22 gallons of beer a Year.

• That means, on average, American golfers get about 41 miles to the gallon.

• Kind Of Makes You Proud

As a golfer, I would like to officially decree that I'm doing my job to save the environment.

Wow, another email...it must be my lucky year

From:   vitomas00@hotmail.fr
Subject: Please reply me as soon as possible.
Date: October 26, 2007 10:45:05 AM CDT
Reply-To:   vitomas1@yahoo.com

DEAREST ONE ,
AS I WAS ABOUT SEARCHING FOR A TRUST WORTHY PERSON  .I MUST NOT HESITATE TO CONFIDE IN YOU FOR THIS SIMPLE AND SINCERE BUSINESS IN WHICH MY WHOLE LIFE DEPENDS ON.
I AM  VINCENT THE ONLY CHILD AND OF LATE CHIEF AND MRS RUBEN JAKO WEMBER .MY FATHER WAS A VERY WEALTHY COCOA MERCHANT BASED IN ABIDJAN, THE ECONOMIC CAPITAL OF IVORY COAST BEFORE HE WAS POISONED TO DEATH BY HIS BUSINESS ASSOCIATES ON ONE OF THEIR OUTINGS TO DISCUSS ON A BUSINESS DEAL HE NEVER KNEW HE WAS THE PLAN TO BE KILLED ONLY BECAUSE HE REFUSSED JOINING THE  SPONSOR  OF THE WAR .
 
MY MOTHER DIED ON THE 21ST OCTOBER 1988, MY FATHER TOOK ME SO SPECIAL BECAUSE I AM MOTHERLESS AND THE ONLY CHILD.BEFORE THE DEATH OF MY FATHER ON 24TH JUNE 2006 IN A PRIVATE HOSPITAL HERE IN ABIDJAN. HE SECRETLY CALLED ME ON HIS BEDSIDE AND TOLD ME THAT HE HAD A SUM OF US$16,600,000 (SIXTEEN MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) HE STOCKED IT IN A CONSIGNMENT BOX AND DEPOSITED INTO A SECURITY COMPANY HERE IN ABIDJAN, THAT HE USED MY NAME AS THE ONLY SON IN DEPOSITING THE BOX WITH THE SECURITY COMPANY AND TOLD THEM THAT I WILL PRESENT TO THE SECURITY COMPANY THE FOREIGN PARTNER AND BENEFICARY WHO WILL CLAIM THE BOXES.
HE ALSO EXPLAINED TO ME THAT IT WAS BECAUSE OF THIS WEALTH THAT HE WAS POISONED BY HIS BUSINESS ASSOCIATES, THAT I SHOULD SEEK FOR A FOREIGNER IN ANY OF THE OVERSEA  COUNTRY OF MY CHOICE WHERE ,AND THAT I SHOULD MAKE SURE THAT I TRUST THE PERSON THAT HE / SHE WILL NOT CHEAT ME OR KILL ME LATERON BEFORE I CAN DISCLOSE TO HIM WHERE THE CONTACT OF THE SECURITY COMPANY .HE SAID THAT THE CONTENT OF THE BOX MUST BE A CONFIDENTIAL BETWEEN I AND THE PERSON BECAUSE THAT NOBODY EVEN NOON OF THE SECURITY COMPANY WORKERS KNOWS THAT THE CONTENT OF THE BOX ARE MONEY.HE SAID THAT HIM DECLEARED THE CONTENTS OF THE BOX AS FAMILY VALUEABLES SUCH AS  GOLD DUSTS. 
I AM HONOURABLY SEEKING YOUR ASSISTANCE IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS AND I AM ASSURING YOU THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS  LEGAL AND 100% RISK FREE HENCE YOU LISTEN TO MY WORDS AND BE SURE THAT YOU ARE WILLING TO HELP ME FROM THE BUTTOM OF YOUR HEART
 
2) TO SERVE AS MY GUARDIAN AND YOU WILL BE PRESENTED AS LATE FATHERS FOREIGN BUSINESS PARTNER.SINCE I AM A BOY OF 21 YEARS OLD   
 
3) TO MAKE ARRANGEMENT FOR ME TO COME OVER TO YOUR COUNTRY TO FURTHER MY EDUCATION AND TO SECURE A RESIDENTIAL PERMIT FOR ME IN YOUR COUNTRY.
MOREOVER, I AM WILLING TO OFFER YOU APPRICIATIVE SUM FROM THE TOTAL MONEY AS COMPENSATION FOR YOUR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE AFTER YOU HELP ME CLEAR OUT THE BOX FROM THE SECURITY COMPANY 
 
FURTHERMORE, YOU CAN INDICATE YOUR OPTION TOWARDS ASSISTING ME, AS I BELIEVE THAT THIS TRANSACTION WOULD BE CONCLUDED WITHIN SEVEN (7)  WORKING DAYS .IF YOU HAVE  INTEREST TO ASSIST ME PLEASE ENDEAVOUR TO FURNISH ME WITH YOUR TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBER SO THAT I WILL FORWARD THEM TO THE SECURITY COMPANY OFFICE AS MY LATE FATHERS FOREIGN BUSINESS PARTNER WHO HE DEPOSITED THE METALIC BOX ON HIS BEHALF.
THANKS AND GOD BLESS,HOPING TO HEAR FROM YOU I WILL BE HAPPY TO CHAT WITH YOU ON THE PHONE SOONEST.
IN GOD WE TRUST.
YOURS SINCERELY,
VINCENT JAKO WEMBER.
NB: PLEASE  REPLY ME THROUGH THIS MY PRIVATE E-MAIL  FOR SECURITY REASON. THANKS
vitomas1@yahoo.com

Test Post Using Flock

While surfing tonight, learned about a browser that's been around for a while.  It's called Flock.  It's built on the Mozilla engine and puts an emphasis on the social networking of the web.  That is, it provides tools for Blogging, Flickr, FaceBook and other services that are integrated into the browser.  I'm making this post using the integration of Blogger.  Like it so far.

TLAP Follow Up

joel s says:
Hoist the mizzen and swing the lead! tryin' out this new pirate talk thin'y fer MSN

joel s says:
http://messenger.zone.msn.com/en-us/nongame/upgrade.aspx?gameID=10331057

joel s says:
Swab the deck, matey or you'll kiss the gunner's daughter. it automatically translates into pirate fer yeAye, but aren't ye a fine lookin' lass.

joel s says:
lubber, this thin' is pretty sweet Aye, Aye, captain.

K3bert says:
Aye, but aren't ye a fine lookin' lass. I'm all about TLAM next year

K3bert says:
Gar. TLAM = Talk Like A Modem

joel s says:
If'n ye don't swab the deck, ye be swimmin' with the bilge rats! TLAM, what th' hell is that? some TLAP knockoff?Aye, but aren't ye a fine lookin' lass.

joel s says:
aye Measure ye for yer chains.

joel s says:
moden eh

joel s says:
medem

joel s says:
modem

K3bert says:
I BE a fine lookin' arse Aye, me bucko.

K3bert says:
who in th' fuck comes up with this shit? Avast ye scarvy scum.

joel s says:
You li'ly libbered land lubber. hows that work? beep-beep--b-e-e-p-beeee-p

K3bert says:
errrgggghhhh.....sreeeeeecccchhhhhh......ehhhhhohhhhhh.....errrrrrrr

joel s says:
You li'ly libbered land lubber. geeks, real geeks.

Twitter Blog: Tracking Twitter

Been messing around with Twitter a bit (notice the "My Whereabouts" section on the right). There is a whole host of features outside of just posting short messages in blog format. Well, looks like there is another new feature which caught my attention.

Tracking Twitter

I may try to give this a go over the next couple of weeks.

Humanized.com...putting the human back into customer support

From an earlier post, I raved about Enso, a product produced by Humanized.com. If you haven't tried out Enso and you work on a PC, you have to. It makes working on the PC easy by killing the need for your computer mouse! I love it.

I have installed it on all of my PC based computers, including my work laptop. The other day, I had just restarted my laptop for the first time after installing Enso and much to my dismay, the application crashed. Not only did it crash, it opened a window telling me it crashed and asked to send the information to Humanized.com. I nearly dismissed the window and had all but un-installed the software when I thought, what the heck, I'll go ahead and submit the information.

Then, within a few hours of my submission, I received an email! Yes, an email, with a real person on the end of it. After picking up my jaw from the floor, I read the email.

Hello Kevin,

Sorry Enso crashed for you. Thanks for reporting the bug. Enso needs to have access to your "My Documents" directory, because it stores its "learn as open" targets in a directory inside that one. It looks like your "My Documents" directory is on a network share (also known as a file server). Is that the case? If so, then if the network share is unavailable at the time that Enso tries to start up, this kind of crash will be the result. Some users have reported that restarting the server which hosts the network share fixes the problem. You might ask your network administrator to try doing this. In the long run, we need to fix Enso so that it won't crash in this situation, but will just quietly keep trying to read the directory until the network share becomes available. In the meantime, I'm afraid there's not much that you can do about the problem. Changing "My Documents" to point at a local directory on your hard drive would fix it, but I understand that this might not be an option for you.

Once again, I'm sorry for the inconvenience.
xxx xxx, Humanized, Inc.

I replaced the person's name with "xxx xxx" to respect the employees privacy. But yes, there is a real explanation to why the software crashed! I have now reconfigured the program to point to a local directory on my laptop and thanks to the outstanding humanized support I got, I am one happy customer. Oh, by-the-way, did I mention that Enso is free? Or at least the beta product is free. I didn't realize that there was a commercial product available, but now that I just found that out, I'm marching over right now to purchase their non-beta product Enso Launcher.

When was the last email you received from Microsoft offering an explanation to why a Windows crashed and subsequently reported to Microsoft?

Death to the computer mouse

Today, I was very fortunate to come across a company that is interested in making computers more use able. What? How? Enso.

The What:

Having to change programs to perform simple tasks—for example, making a quick calculation, or looking up a definition—breaks your concentration, takes you away from the task at hand, and wastes your valuable time. Enso lets you do common computing tasks easier and faster than ever before. You get a huge productivity boost and a simpler digital life.

The How:

Enso is dead simple to use. You just hold down the Caps Lock key and type an Enso command, which is displayed in a translucent overlay. Once the command is typed, you simply release the Caps Lock key to activate it, and the overlay disappears. If you type fast, it all happens in a flash.

What does this mean? It makes using the computer, well, more useful. If you watch the video, the Atul Varma, the Vice President of the company, gives a real world example of when you are typing a letter to your mom and want to tell her about something you purchased. If you bought 4 widgets at $2.99, unless you are a mathematical genius, would need to get a calculator and type in 4 * 2.99. If you are using Windows XP, getting a calculator may mean using the mouse to move the cursot to Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Calculator. Or, if you are really lazy, open the drawer of your desk, pull out your calculator that saw you through Algebra.

Ha! Finally, I found someone else that thinks there are better ways to use the computer. Download the software and find out how.