Charles on… anything that comes along

Ah, John Dvorak (PR mag writer and author)has a blog. Perhaps he’ll find the time to re-explain how Apple is moving completely to Intel chips, as he forecast in March 2003 (”within the next 12-18 months” - leaves one month. Perhaps Phil Schiller will have One Last Thing that’ll really surprise us at MacExpo.)

He’s also using Google to provide AdSense ads to help fund the blog, but complains: Below is the fabled Google Adsense which is supposed to match these little blurbs (below) with the site content. 90-percent of the time I’ve noticed that the ads are for OCD or some other form of disorder. If not that, then blogging.

So, working perfectly, then.

Actually when I visited the ads were all political, befitting the big pic of JFK (the dead one) on one post.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Comets and dinosaurs: are PR people or hacks the dinosaurs? Or both? (15 March 2006; score: 34.95%)
• At the Guardian: another podcast, and how much will net access at the Beijing Olympics be limited? (27 February 2008; score: 25.61%)
• Spin Bunny: the biting edge of PR blogging (and about time too) (1 November 2004; score: 21.81%)

What a wonderful set of insights at Tricks of the Trade - I’ll look at the grease smeared on my car’s battery terminals after its services with new-found interest now.

What I’m wondering though is: what are the scams of the trade(s)?

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• My latest at the Guardian: gadgets (and the OSD), some Free Our Data'ing and DNA vs the ID cards (3 March 2008; score: 24.39%)
• Why newspapers aren't hiring Think Secret's editor, but are backing him (and others) (13 April 2005; score: 23.77%)
• And just while we're on the topic of pitching things.. (19 June 2007; score: 22.74%)

A reminder from Neil Mc over at Complete Tosh: Looking forward to Paris MacExpo of the amazing visit that Apple arranged for hacks and guests to the Musee d’Orsay last year.

Usually it’s thronged with people (I’m told). This time it was virtually empty, because it’s a huge gallery, and most people were drinking and talking. But the chance to look at these amazing pieces close up, to see how an artist’s style developed over the years (Pisarro’s work was especially fascinating..), was just mind-blowing.

I’ve never been an art nut. I’d rather climb a cliff than walk around an art gallery on holiday. (That’s ‘cos I like climbing cliffs.) But that was definitely the most fascinating time I’ve ever spent so close to fantastic art. I doubt I’ll ever get the same chance, unless Apple does the same this year.

Neil’s piece is also worth reading for the description of the press facilities at the Expo show (which wasn’t at the MdO). Personally, I just hung around the place elsewhere in the building where we were led to interview the big honchos (Jon Rubenstein in my case). That had reliable WiFi *and* coffee. And I could get a phone signal. Just a hint, Neil.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Quantum computing, and the continuing Trojan diallers scams (26 January 2005; score: 40.55%)
• Need help getting rid of a premium rate dialler? Call Blueyonder's £1-per-minute hotline! (2 December 2004; score: 33.97%)
• Lottery and laptop scams (15 September 2004; score: 24.59%)

Come on, surely by now everyone knows that Dave Winer single-handedly created the blog, RSS and for all I know the Easter Bunny. But now he’s famous in Illinois.

As in this exchange, where he was talking to an ISP support guy because they were blocking port 25 (outgoing mail).

He asked what mail server I was talking to. I said mail.userland.com. He said “That’s weird because that’s one of Dave Winer’s servers.” I said “I am Dave Winer.” He said they usually don’t get famous people coming through this small town in southern Illinois.

Actually, blocking of port 25 is one of those other pieces of spam “collateral damage”, and very significant. When I’m mobile I use the Postfix program on my laptop to send mail. Most organisations are happy to receive it, but some are protected by Sorbs, which blocks email from dynamic IPs - and as Im on dialup, I have a dynamic IP. Of course the aim is to block email from Trojan-infected spam drone PCs.

The trouble is that I can only see it getting worse: as email has to be more and more verified to reach people, how will those on the move verify themselves? Dave’s problem is just a microcosm of what’s going to keep happening, Except we won’t all be so famous as him. Not ever for 15 minutes.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Dave Winer buys an Apple; Stanford University podcasts lectures (7 November 2005; score: 74.36%)
• What newspapers need: an obligatory corrections column (17 January 2005; score: 63.49%)
• "That wasn't supposed to happen" (22 November 2004; score: 63.19%)