Categories
Web Weird

Straight outta Eagan Minnesota



According to Wikipedia, Northwest Airlines changed its logo in April of 2003… it took until now for me to notice the change… or the connection.

Categories
Reference Sites Useful Web

MSN Search as a dictionary

While at the 2nd annual MSN Butterfly Tour the topic came up of using search to look up the definition of words.  I mentioned to the testers that it can be done by using the “define” keyword. 


For example, say I want to look up the definition of the word “sibilance” to make sure I’m using it correctly.  Typing “define sibilance” into the MSN tool bar or the MSN search page will return your typical search results, but at the top of the page you’ll find a definition of the word from Encarta.


MSN search supports a variety of phrases to tell it you want specific information.  You can get the same results as “define” by using the phrases “what is [word]” or “what is the definition of [word]?” (but typing “define” is, of course, fastest).


Here are some other cool searches:



Why waste time going to the bookshelf for a dictionary or encyclopedia?

Categories
Idle Life Web Weird

Hey, those are sweet!






 


So, I was thinking…


If I were cheap enough to steal the swanky hotel hangers, I would probably consider it a reasonable investment to buy a thinner closet rod so I could use them.


 

Categories
Hotmail Microsoft Tech

Yes, we have no bananas,

I appreciate the enthusiasm folks have for becoming part of the mail beta, but I don’t, unfortunately, have any invites to give out at this time.  When I do have some invites to give out I’ll be sure to make an announcement here.


Thanks,
Reeves

Categories
Idle

It’s the little things in life…

On the way back in from taking the dog out I was bending over Nala trying to get her to sit and Paula looked up at our dove family and found them looking back at us.  The trio was looking down at the dog and me trying hard to figure what the heck was going on.

 

 

Their curious expressions made my night.

Categories
Hardware Tech

Times they are a-changin’

I’m getting close to finishing my hard drive upgrade for my desktop at home (ran out of space for ripping CDs) and the amount of storage I now have made me start thinking back to the computers I’ve had over my lifetime and how the storage specs have progressed



  • Apple IIe – No hard drive, just a 360 kB floppy drive (…720 kB thanks to a hole punch)
  • Mac LC – 40 MB (I have picture files large than that)
  • Power Mac 8100 – 250 MB (The drive was huge!  For a while, at least)
  • Mac PPC G3 – 4 GB (OS X has a system requirement of 3 GB, I think I can upgrade)
  • Home-built dual Celeron – 40 GB (Now that’s huge… right?)
  • Home-built P3 server – 120 GB (That is huge, I’m never going to run out of room now)
  • Home-built MCE – .8 TB (Actually it’s 1.6 TB of drives mirrored for data protection)

It’s kind of wild, just a couple of years ago that amount of storage seemed obscene… now it’s just necessary.


Care to take any bets on how long it takes me to be cramped for space?

Categories
Web Weird

Ah, a trip down memory lane

Last night I pulled up some of the Internet humor files I used to have on my site and moved them into a directory on this site.  In the process I came across the All your base are belong to us flash movie I saved.  I reminisced a bit with coworkers and Steve pointed out that there is an excellent article on wikipedia about the phenom.


Ah… good times.