December 2002

The budding webmaster could do worse than to study the New York Public Library Style Guide. It's packed with useful techniques for making web pages accessible to all types of browsers and devices.

Just gotta hear some more of the score to your favorite Star Trek movie or TV show? Visit Star Trek Sound Tracks and drool over their catalog.

The Prior-Art-O-Matic generates random product ideas. Some are silly, but there might be a market for a few of them ("It's a pair of underpants that lasts for up to a week!").

John Scalzi is serializing his science fiction novel Old Man's War on his site. It tells the story of John Perry, a septuagenarian who becomes a soldier in Earth's fight to colonize the galaxy. Read it one chapter a day for free, or pony up the princely sum of $1.50 to get the whole book at once.

Got a brand spankin' new website? Want to be seen by web searchers the world over? No problem – just Add your URL to Google!

What is "cold reading"? It's a very old technique for deceiving people into thinking that the practitioner can speak with the dead. Read The Art of "Cold Reading" and learn how popular psychics like James Van Praagh and John Edward really earn their keep.

I'm looking at some possible redesigns of the site, and Morten's Javascript Tree Menu looks like it could be useful. It provides a web site menu that looks and works just like Windows Explorer – and it's absolutely free. CoolJS is another menu of this type, and SiteNavigation.net seems to have a well-rounded collection of navigation tools.

The home page of Scantips bears the headline "A few scanning tips". The author is a master of understatement – this site is packed to overflowing with explanations of the art and science of scanning. The site covers basic scanning terminology, scanning for the web vs. print, tweaking and editing your scans to improve quality, and much more.

Need to print a file listing from Windows? The Microsoft Knowledge Base article "How to Add the Print Directory Feature to Windows Explorer" shows you how. The article says the technique works for Windows 98, 98SE, and Millenium, but I would not be surprised if it works for XP as well.

Think you've seen every possible kind of PC enclosure? Think again, sparky. Check out the LEGO case – yup, made entirely out of LEGO blocks. I especially like the teeny little LEGO guys working on their teeny little LEGO laptops.

Those of us who have worked tech support will recognize some of the folks in these Tech Calls recordings. The screamer, the dimwit, the crying lady… yup, they're all here. (WARNING: Some of these calls are LOUD. Probably not safe for work.)

What do you get when you combine equal parts V. I. Warshawsky and Star Wars? You get Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe, of course – an original science fiction radio drama first aired on NPR.

Oh, great… Burglars in the UK are now using the common "out of office" automated email reply to figure out whose house is likely to be empty. The article, entitled Burglars target 'out of office' emails, describes the tactic in detail and gives practical advice for avoiding being victimized in this way. You know it's just a matter of time before US burglars catch on to this…

Usenet is a vast, anarchic, fascinating, invaluable part of the Internet where discussions about every conceivable topic take place nonstop. The Green Eggs Report presents just the web links recently seen in each Usenet discussion group.

Now, everyone who knows me knows that I am a Star Trek fan of long-standing. Heck, I remember when the Klingons had smooth foreheads! I didn't think there would ever be a form of Star Trek that I wouldn't want to rush out and see – but Turkish Star Trek is definitely something I can live without, thank you very much.