Anyone else out there find the 2004 Year-End Google Zeitgeist to be a total yawner?

I have come to the conclusion--and many of you may be wondering what took me so long--that Amazon's search engine could be vastly improved. Viz: I enter "Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" in the search field, with the pull-down menu set to Books. In the first page of results, nada. By inserting "The" at the beginning of the search phrase, the book pops up as the number one item returned. One would think that the search phrase I originally entered would have been enough. Likewise, I entered "Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World" in the search field, again with Books selected in the pull-down menu, and again, got nothing returned in the first page of results. I entered the author's name, "Wesley J. Smith," and his tome appears as the first search result. Only it has a capital "A" in the title. Again, the original search phrase should have been enough for Amazon's search engine to figure out what I wanted.

So some of you may have noticed the site was down earlier this evening for about an hour. My sysadmin pulled the plug, so to speak, because those scum of the 'net were hammering our server so badly, Apache may as well have been under a true DoS attack. I am referring, of course, to comment spammers. So, henceforth, we're going to try comment registration. It's free, doesn't cost you anything but a few moments of time over at TypeKey. With your TypeKey login, you can comment on any site that supports the protocol. (Nearly all of these will be those that use Movable Type or TypePad.) I'm sorry it's come to this, but as with most things, a few bad apples ruin the whole barrel.

The previous entry marked number 800 for this now two-year-old blog. Despite it being noted on my calendar, I completely missed the two-year anniversary of retrophisch.com on the tenth of this month. So, two milestones this month, and here's to many more to come.

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!

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?

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!)