Why is it that any time I look at the recommendations Amazon puts forth for my viewing pleasure, half of them are already on my wish list? You would think that with all of the web services, back-end stuff Amazon is in to these days, they would have devised a system where the recommendations I'm shown contain nothing that is on my wish list. Update, 11:00 PM CST: So I put my money where my mouth is and sent an e-mail with my suggestion to Amazon's General Questions box. I did get a response, but it seems to be of the form letter type. One thing it mentions is tweaking the recommendations, and I looked in to that. The problem here is that I can see the items on my wish list that are included in the recommendations. There is a box next to each item that is checked, and the caption reads "Use to make recommendations". My issue here is, I want Amazon to use this type of item to make future recommendations, but I don't want this specifc item to show up in my recommendations. So do I uncheck the box or not?

Stephen O’Grady has assembled a good introductory article for those who may not have gotten in to the blog-reading thing. For those of you reading this right now, this site is a blog, so you're already reading at least one. [Via Michael Hyatt.]

John Manzione is trying to locate his son Andrew, with whom he has had no contact in 18 years. If you know Andrew, or if for some reason Andrew is reading this, here is John's e-mail address.

In case you've ever wondered why you keep getting pop-up or pop-under ads, even though you have pop-up blocking enabled in Safari or Firefox, MDJ has the answer in today's issue:

Several people have noticed more pop-up and pop-under Web ads recently, even if Safari's pop-up blocker is turned on. Safari can't block them because they're not coming from JavaScript - they're coming from Macromedia Flash content. Macromedia has spent the past few years bragging about Flash's browser ubiquity, convincing developers to create everything from simple animations to full-fledged video in Flash because every browser can run it.

Now we're seeing the dark side of that - Flash content can also open windows, and advertisers are using it to subvert standard pop-up blocking, which typically prevents JavaScript code from opening new windows unless you clicked on a link to do so. So there you have it. Yet another reason to hate Flash.

Am I the only one who doesn't get the whole del.icio.us craze?

Thanks to inspiration from Lee, and code from Chris, I have the master archive index page I've been wanting. You will note there is no longer a monthly archive list in the sidebar. You can always get to the site archives by clicking on that "Archives" button in the navigation menu at the top right of each page.

Enormously, incredibly stupid. Michael was right. I was insane. I am man enough to admit such. No more blogging at Godblog or digitalpembroke. (I do not link to the former because that domain will eventually go bye-bye, but do to the latter because I will keep it; it was my first domain, my first blog, my online baby.) So while Retrophisch will maintain its focus on Macs and technology, items that were previously reserved for the above blogs, plus the already-retired Ludichris and Forty Caliber, may find their way here as well. Fear not, dear reader. Those other blogs were woefully underposted to begin with, which was what led to their retirement. You will not see a sudden influx of firearms or political-based postings. There are other bloggers doing a far better job than I on those topics. Yeah, there are bloggers doing a far better job on pretty much any topic I choose to cover. So I'm an egomaniacal narcissist at heart. All bloggers are. ;-)

Tom notes logging in to his Gmail account this morning, and finding 50 invitations to offer to others. This prompted me to do the same, wondering if I would also have 50 invites, seeing as how the last time I looked at my Gmail account, I still had 4 from the previous 6 given to me still available. Sure enough, there's the little box, just like Tom has in his post, with 50 invites ready to go. How am I supposed to get rid of this many invites? Has Gmail already reached a saturation level, and it's not even out of its invitation-only beta program? Maybe it's just me; I have a fairly close-knit group of online friends, with a slightly larger group of acquaintances. Everyone in these two groups who wants a Gmail account already has one. Heck, the reason I have a Gmail account is because one of my friends pointed me to a post by Tom offering Gmail invites back when they were hard to come by, and this is how he and I began chatting. (FYI: my winning funny is #2 in the comments.) I've had a hard enough time unloading the last six invites Google gave me. I've joined Gmail for the Troops, but have yet to unload any invites that way. My own attempt to have fun while giving out invites met with one whole reader taking me up on the offer. So now I've got 50 invites. Want one?

Everyone seems to be linking to The Register's interview with a link spammer. This is what caught my attention:

"The hardest form to spam is that which requires manual authentication such as captchas. Or those where you have to reply to an email, click on a link in it; though that can be automated too. Those where you have to register and click on links, they're hard as well. And if you change the folder names where things usually reside, that's a challenge, because you just gather lists of installations' folder names." So now you see why I'm using TypeKey.

His Gruberness has written, on behalf and with the input of, Six Apart, a comprehensive guide on weblog comment spam. This has given me some ideas for moving forward, though since I have instituted comment registration via TypeKey, I haven't had a comment spam problem. Registration through TypeKey is free, easy, and fast, and it allows you to comment on any site which supports the protocol.