I discovered these desktops by co2metal, aka Andy, while cruising through ResExcellence last week. Now, I'm not nearly in to the whole GUI customization thing as I used to be. I don't really bother with custom icons any more, and more often than not, you'll find my desktop pictures to be photos from our vacations or of our little one. Yet I'm drawn to Andy's abstract and fractal creations. I'm thinking of making a custom Mac OS X screen saver with selections from his gallery. I hope Andy doesn't mind!

Hearty congratulations go out to Friend of the Phisch™ Jon Gales, who is featured in the November issue of Business 2.0! (The issue in question is for November 2004, just getting to subscribers, and hitting news stands soon.) My favorite n3rdling is all grown up. Kudos to Jon for putting his nose to the grindstone, making his mark on the 'Net, and living his dream job!

So after deliberating over whether or not to eliminate categories--and thank you so much for all those comments with feedback--I have decided to can the categories on this and all of my blogs. (Seriously, I do thank those few who did weigh in on the issue, either through comments, e-mail, or instant message.) I feel Raena summed it up best in an IM: "Seeing as how you have the uber blog empire, I wonder whether it's worth using categories either. If you were using one blog for all that stuff, then yeah." After replying that she flattered me--while I'm running five separate public blogs, I in no way feel I have a "blog empire" a la my favorite n3rdling--Raena then stated the obvious, which I suppose I hadn't really considered: "Seriously, though. You have separate blogs for separate interests, so I don't see that categories are as much of a concern." She's right. Initially, everything was posted under Retrophisch, and categories were a necessity. No longer, however. With the different blogs for different interests, categories within each blog seemed nitpickish and maybe even a wee bit obsessive-complusive. Yeah, I think we can do away with anything obsessive-compulsive... While I will no longer be posting within categories, the old category pages are still there, if you know how to find them, or you previously linked to or bookmarked them.

In the first 17 hours of October 2004, these are the Top 10 Search Phrases for retrophisch.com: 1. earthquakes in france 2. definition of a liberal 3. mac archives 4. www daddy yakee com 5. dilbert clone knickknack 6. zero intelligence 7. osan beanie babies store korea 8. citizen persona amex card 9. lrs2 blaser 10. directv jobs charlotte I was a bit thrown with the "osan beanie babies store korea" phrase, until I dropped it in to Google to see that I was the fourth link returned. Yeah, I blogged about a beanie baby, okay?

That is the question. I have wondered, of late, if I should continue to bother. If I shouldn't just stop categorizing, and kill all current categories. As a blogger, some times it is downright annoying trying to categorize a post. If a category doesn't yet exist, you have to create one. If you create one, then you may go months without a post assigned to that category again. I have found, as a blog reader, that I really don't pay attention to categories on others' sites. If I discover a new blog, and want to read more than just the post that brought me there, I usually go in reverse chronological order, rather than sorting through categories. I know some of my fellow bloggers out there utilize categories, and some do not. I'm looking for both bloggers and blog readers to weigh in on this issue. Leave your thoughts, pro or con (or both), in the comments.

Have you head the radio ad from Register.com with the two guys, "We lost the client because we didn't have a web site"? What utter tripe. Apparently, Register.com doesn't have a clue how an actual sales meeting would work. If I am a sales person, already in a client's office, meeting face to face, half the battle is already won. I am the face of my company, especially if the company is my own. I have full knowledge and pricing of my company's products, and can show examples to the client in question. Presumably, on my business card will be an e-mail address of some kind, so the client can get in touch with me in some manner other than by phone. If said client--who has met me, seen my examples, been given a catalog, brochure, or other marketing materials, as well as my prices--then decides to not buy my products or services simply because I do not have a web site, then said client is insane. If by not having a web site means one would not have an e-mail address, then Register.com should note that in their commercial. The whole thing is nonsense, and really annoys me each time I have to hear it. And for crying out loud, don't pay Register.com twenty bucks when you can go to GoDaddy and register a domain name for nine dollars.

Top 10 search phrases for retrophisch.com for the first three days of September: 1. powerbook skin 2. definition of a liberal 3. sweet 4. conservative democrats 5. disassemble ipod 6. blaser r93 lrs2 7. barney cam 8. lsu tiger stadium 9. apple powerbook g4 12 10. powerbook benchmarks

The Web Standards Project has started a new campaign, called Browse Happy, as an attempt to get people to switch from the unsafe, non-pop-up ad blocking, inherently security unconscious, Internet Explorer. I recently installed Firefox on to my wife's PC, and showed her how it blocks the pop-up ads that annoy her with IE usage. It was a snap to install, and it brought over all of her bookmarks, preferences, etc. from IE. Not to mention that Safari, Camino, Firefox, and Mozilla all tend to be more standards-supporting than IE. Do yourself a favor and find an alternate browser. Do web developers everywhere a favor and find an alternate browser, so we don't have to keep coding for more than one type. (I'm looking at you, Internet Explorer.)

Apple's iTunes Music Store has broken the 100 million-song barrier.

I'm still shaking my head over this one. I suppose it's only a matter of time before someone comes up with Texas blogger schwag. (No, it won't be me.) (With a nod to David)

Comments are back, so Chris P., you can now comment on my GarageBand-created track. The solution? Turns out I had a blank line in my Movable Type banned IP list for retrophisch.com. This was blocking all IPs from posting. Deleted the blank, rebuilt the site just for good measure, and happy comment spamming days are here again. Thanks to the many posters in the Movable Type Support Forums for commenting on their own comment problems. One of those forum members pointed me to the solution.

For some reason, no one is able to post comments at the moment. Not even myself. "You do not have permission..." It is under investigation.

Why is it that Amazon.com's recommendation system isn't smart enough to figure out that it doesn't need to recommend something to me that's already in my wish list?

Declan McCullagh discusses his reservations about Google's in-private-beta Gmail system. His privacy concerns are well-founded, but I'm sure a lot of people are willing to give up a bit of privacy for something that would have as much perceived value as a free gig of e-mail space. Should Gmail open to the public as is, I can still see myself signing up for it, though my usage of it would be limited to a certain scope. In other words, I would be my own privacy protection, and that may be the best users can hope for.

So looking at Lee's setup had me thinking that my blog could use a little more color, so I jumped on the button bandwagon. You can see my own button-mania in the link section to the left. Huge kudos and thanks to my favorite code babe, Raena, for the buttons for my own web sites, as well as the buttons for Michael's SpamSieve, ATPM, John Gruber's Markdown, and Darwin. Feel free to steal and use on your own sites.

No taxes on Internet access (in the U.S.) is something I believe even the left-minded of my geek brethren would agree is a good thing. From the 04-10 Digest of The Federalist: bq. In the Senate, current legislation intended to extend the moratorium on Internet-access taxes remains stalled in the Senate. Apparently deciding that the free exchange of goods and services on the Internet has been doing a bit too well on its own, some in the government feel that nagging urge to tax. We would again remind our representatives in Washington of the effects of new taxes: lower GDP, higher unemployment, and lower disposable income. It seems to be lost on some Swampsters that money doesn't fall off trees. Wealth must be created. Increasing the cost of Internet access and thereby stifling a large sector of the economy is not the way to increase revenues. In many ways, the Internet is a symbol of the success of a free-market economy; its freedom ought to be jealously guarded. I encourage you to seek out your Senators and voice your opinion. (Which hopefully is one of no Internet taxation!)

The Mac Marginalization report at MacInTouch has seen a spurt of activity in recent days, notably about certain web sites not working with Safari or other non-IE browsers. In today's postings, MacInTouch reader "Steve" suggests:

Safari users often are subjected to annoying web page redirection to inform them that their browser is not supported. Microsoft's subversion of web standards deserves a similar tactic: "Your browser does not adhere to international web standards. Please contact Microsoft support to request standards compliance so that we can provide a better web experience for everyone. You will be redirected to our non-standard pages momentarily..."

If every web page handled MSIE this way, the stream of customer support inquiries might eventually annoy Microsoft enough that they would clean up their act. While I highly doubt the latter would ever happen, it is amusing to consider the former nonetheless. Windoze users reading this, and other web standards-composing web sites, would do well to look to Firefox/Mozilla.

I wholeheartedly agree with Lee. And the n3rdling tells us in the comments that Firefox has a pref to prevent this occurrence from happening. I hope this is something Dave & Co. can cook in to a future rev of Safari.

I don't think anyone's not going to cop to the fact that as great as Movable Type is, its RSS 2.0 templates fairly suck. I took up Steven Frank's challenge to improve my RSS feeds, and used a template provided by Horst Prillinger. I'm now using the RSS 2.0 feeds for all of my sites in my preferred RSS aggregator, and would appreciate feedback from any non-NetNewsWire-using readers out there.

Next month, my wife will be leading her firm at the annual March of Dimes WalkAmerica in Dallas. She has registered to raise money for the event, and we're asking for donations, which you can contribute by going to the web site set up just for her: http://www.walkamerica.org/KLTTX. Our son, now a healthy 7-month old, was born 9 weeks premature and spent 6 weeks in the Neonatal ICU. During that time, we witnessed the good things done by the March of Dimes first hand. We'd appreciate any support you can give to this great event. Thanks!

Lee has suspended blogging at dtpbylee.com, and has opened Second Initial. He has a kick-butt layout thanks to our favorite code babe, Raena, and guessing is now open on the significance of the domain name. Congrats, my friend!

So in the course of waiting on a myriad of things to happen at work today, I decided to get off my duff and fix up the main archives page the way I had been wanting to. Mucho gracias to my amigos, Michael, Raena, and Michael, for the coding assistance.

Last month, Aaron Swartz noted some new features of Google, a few I was not aware of. Is it any wonder that Apple has a Google search field built right in to Safari?

In an endeavor to fully separate the personal from the tech talk, per the rejection of my Google AdSense application, consider this the formal announcement of the re-opening of my original weblog, digitalpembroke. The process for moving over all photo albums, reading lists, etc. is in progress. Yes, Michael, I am quite insane.

If you've actually been hitting the site over the past couple of days rather than reading posts via RSS feeds, you will have noticed the new look. To go along with the new look is something of a new mandate I gave myself. Retrophisch refocuses its coverage on the Mac world and technology in general, with a few bits of personal fun, like my observations on college football (Geaux Tigers!) and hockey, thrown in. From this point forward, I'm shifting the following topics to respective blogs:

• God and faith (what some would term "religion"): Godblog
• Politics: Ludichris
• Firearms: Forty Caliber

All sites carry a common layout that identifies them as the Retrophisch Family of Blogs™, and all of the above sites link to the others. There may be some crossover posting, going on, as religious liberties might well be discussed on both Godblog and Ludichris, just as firearms freedoms could be discussed on both Ludichris and Forty Caliber. But for the most part, each will remain distinct from the others. I wanted to do this both for myself and those of you kind enough to frequent my site. I have felt that perhaps I was trying to cover too much in one site, and, heck, I've had the domains just sitting around waiting to be used. I must send out major thanks to Raena for her invaluable assistance in getting the backend code tweaked and the CSS working right. Thanks also to Jon, Lee, Michael, and anyone else I may have bugged over the past few months about taking a look and helping me with items that were wrong. Errors in the content are purely my own. I'm still working on code for some of the auxiliary pages, so, yes, I know the Photos and Read pages don't share the same layout. I likely won't touch the Photo albums until the Trotts & Co. release Movable Type Pro, which will feature photo album creation. (Yes, I know about Gallery and myriad other such products, but I've issues with trying to get them to work, and I can only guess how well the whole album thing will work in MT Pro, so I'm content to wait.) Comments on the new look are welcome and appreciated, as are any bug reports readers may feel necessary.