February 2007 Archives

How to Fix Google

By David W. Boles on February 28, 2007 9:43 AM | 18 Comments
Well all love The Google. We all use The Google every day in some way. We want more Google. The GoogleThat said... nothing is perfect, not even Google.

What bothers you about The Google Empire?

If you could wave your magic wand over Mountain View and fix some stuff for Google, what would you fix and why?

I'll go first and these fixes focus mainly on Google Apps for Your Domain Premier Edition.

You should feel free to bring up anything Google you wish to fix. 
Continue reading How to Fix Google.

Scobleizer Found Dead in His Grave

By David W. Boles on February 27, 2007 1:42 PM | 35 Comments
Don't let anyone tell you Jesus isn't good for business! As you can see in the screenshot below my Jesus Found Dead in His Grave post is hot with a rising bullet on the WordPress.com front page much in the same way our Lindsay Lohan series of articles made us super-popular a couple of months ago.

Scobleizer Found Dead in His Grave

Continue reading Scobleizer Found Dead in His Grave.

Making Published Posts Private: The WordPress Dot Com SuperBug

By David W. Boles on February 27, 2007 9:43 AM | 26 Comments | 1 TrackBack
(UPDATE:  UrbanSemiotic.com is now hosted on Movable Type 4.1.  We are keeping this article in publication to keep the record preserved.)

I love WordPress.com and I moved my standalone blog from being self-hosted to the .COM version because I didn't want to deal with any of the backend technical stuff. 

That doesn't mean problems and bugs aren't an issue, though, and there is a current bug that I call a WordPress.com SuperBug -- a regular "bug" is bothersome, a "SuperBug" modifies published content -- and here's why. WordPress.com

There is a known problem on WordPress.com where Published posts can mysteriously become Private posts.


Continue reading Making Published Posts Private: The WordPress Dot Com SuperBug.

Jesus Found Dead in His Grave

By David W. Boles on February 25, 2007 10:36 AM | 176 Comments | 23 TrackBacks
Jesus is Dead!Big news was broken yesterday. Jesus and his family have been founded dead in their graves in Israel.

What does this discovery mean for the religious myths that bind us and for the sustenance of the Resurrection ideal to Christians across the world? How does one now translate God?

Without the Resurrection, doesn't Christianity become an empty vessel?

How can we begin to live if Jesus Christ has been found dead?

Does His death strengthen our faith?

Or does it weaken it with unanswerable questions that sting us like burrs in our socks?

The Time Magazine blog provides the details:
Continue reading Jesus Found Dead in His Grave.

Dog On Duty: Do Not Touch Me!

By David W. Boles on February 24, 2007 10:43 AM | 30 Comments
Today I will provide a warning in an admonition I hope you will accept my correction in the healing spirit in which it is offered. I have a lot of friends and associates that rely on dogs -- Service Animals, if you will -- in order to live a more average life. These special dogs are raised by families as puppies and only the most dedicated and pure-of-heart dogs make it into a lifetime of service.

Continue reading Dog On Duty: Do Not Touch Me!.

Office Husbands and Work Wives

By David W. Boles on February 23, 2007 9:01 AM | 33 Comments | 1 TrackBack
I learned a couple of new terms the other day and they were new to me because I am self-employed and I work alone all day and I answer to only myself because I often talk to myself. I am a tough boss and a hard worker. I would give myself a raise and a bonus if I weren't such a taskmaster. The new terms I learned were "Office Husband" and "Work Wife" and I want to know if you have one or not!

Continue reading Office Husbands and Work Wives.

Google Apps for Your Domain Premier Edition Review

By David W. Boles on February 22, 2007 10:21 AM | 29 Comments | 3 TrackBacks
Today Google announced the Premier Edition of their fine Google Apps bundle of programs aimed directly at the heart of Microsoft's Office suite of applications. 

I love Google Apps so much I'm writing a book about it for Thomson Publishing called Google Apps Administrator Guide. We have discussed Google's plans for World Domination in helping you collaborate on the Internet and the Premier Edition of Google Apps for Your Domain is the next step in working together in new and spectacular ways. Here's what the new Dashboard looks like:

Google Apps for your Domain Premier Edition!

Continue reading Google Apps for Your Domain Premier Edition Review.

The Lesson of the Singing Bowl

By David W. Boles on February 21, 2007 9:19 AM | 38 Comments | 1 TrackBack
As often happens here in your favorite Urban Semiotic, yesterday's article -- The Unnecessary Necessary: An Anonymous Stranger -- and its comments, creates the inspiration for a second article to expand the ideas we expressed together.

Today I will share with you a story I learned many years ago from my first Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga guruji: The Lesson of the Singing Bowl.

A Singing Bowl

Continue reading The Lesson of the Singing Bowl.

The Unnecessary Necessary: An Anonymous Stranger

By David W. Boles on February 20, 2007 8:19 AM | 24 Comments
Last Friday I was presented evidence -- through direct experience -- confirming what I argued in my The Last Selfless Act article. I discovered there are real people who are really willing to help with nothing in it in the end for them on their end. I was walking to the bank when my Blackberry rang with the following:

"Janna is calling!"

Continue reading The Unnecessary Necessary: An Anonymous Stranger.

Virtual Internship at Urban Semiotic

By David W. Boles on February 19, 2007 9:56 AM | 12 Comments
We are pleased to announce we are now accepting Virtual Interns here at David W. Boles' Urban Semiotic!

If you are in high school or in college and you want to earn some professional writing experience, we invite you to apply to our Internship program!

Urban Semiotic logo!We are offering Virtual Internships because of the grand success of a similar Intern program at our sister publication, GO INSIDE Magazine. You can even split your Internship between GO INSIDE and Urban Semiotic if that helps meet your writing needs and your publication desire. If you are interested in writing with us and in taking advantage of this opportunity to get your work known, get in touch now!

Thinking in Semesters and Not Seasons

By David W. Boles on February 18, 2007 10:42 AM | 24 Comments | 2 TrackBacks
Am I the only one who still regulates the schedule of living in school semesters? My life is still strangely and curiously divided into three distinct parts: Fall Semester, Spring Semester and Summer Sessions. Why, it's as if I never left Columbia University in the City of New York's Morningside Heights Campus!

Continue reading Thinking in Semesters and Not Seasons.

Zojirushi Brown Rice Cooker Review

By David W. Boles on February 17, 2007 10:39 AM | 20 Comments | 1 TrackBack
The official name of my new beloved is the "Zojirushi 5-1/2-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker and Warmer" -- but I call it my best friend forever! If you want to eat healthy, you know brown rice is the best rice. It fills you up and it cleans you out. Brown rice can be tedious to cook and really messy to boil if you don't have the right dedicated cooker on hand:

Rice Cooker

Continue reading Zojirushi Brown Rice Cooker Review.

The Dinosaur at the Door: You Own Your Body But Not Your Genes

By David W. Boles on February 16, 2007 10:04 AM | 16 Comments | 2 TrackBacks
We are all living under a misconception we decide our lives and own our bodies while the opposite is true.

The law decides our lives.

Our bodies may belong to us, but the law also governs the genetic code that creates us.

Patent Law and not the shared, necessary, Common Law of Universal Humanity rule our genes.

In a riveting Op-Ed piece in this week's New York Times, author and creative Genius Michael Crichton -- Jurassic Park, ER, etc. -- broke our hearts the day before Valentine's Day with the following news:


Continue reading The Dinosaur at the Door: You Own Your Body But Not Your Genes.

Does the World Require the Master and Slave Dyad?

By David W. Boles on February 15, 2007 7:58 AM | 24 Comments
We are taught to believe everyone is created equal -- but is that a hard reality or a soft myth? We are raised to confirm marriages and dedicated relationships are evenly split: 50/50 until the end of time; and the concept is pounded into us that 51/49 is discriminatory and never acceptable. We learn about the community notion how we all share in everything equally to create a proper society.

Continue reading Does the World Require the Master and Slave Dyad?.

Be My Semiotic Valentine

By David W. Boles on February 14, 2007 7:24 AM | 22 Comments

Be My Semiotic Valentine!

There are few things in life that delight as much as Valentine's Day.

We can freely express our love for beloveds, animals and all people of the earth.

Today is ours to ponder why hatred and avarice are more common during the year than flowers and hearts.

Today, however, isn't for wondering where we went wrong.

Today is for celebrating where we are together.

Hug someone.

Kiss everyone.

Celebrate the love inside.

Here are some Semiotic Hearts from me to you and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do in presenting them to you.

Continue reading Be My Semiotic Valentine.

Gender Gymnastics: How to Join the Boys Club

By David W. Boles on February 13, 2007 8:08 AM | 18 Comments
A straight-laced female friend of mine has been working at her job as a manager for three years. She has been trying to get along with the all male upper management and be included in the informal "Boys Club" where the real work of the day gets done in brief men's room discussions and during a liquored up lunch hour. My friend is the only female manager -- but she doesn't feel the "ins"... "included" or "involved" -- she feels isolated in one corner while her male bosses seem so far away.

The Boys Club

Continue reading Gender Gymnastics: How to Join the Boys Club.

How to Provide Online Tech Support

By David W. Boles on February 12, 2007 9:56 AM | 27 Comments | 4 TrackBacks
I have been living online full time since 1992 orTech Support Online! so and on and off many years before that using the old interactive text menu version of CompuServe.

I have provided online end user support for Toshiba and ClubIE and ClubWin.

I have done a lot of Tech Tutoring.

I provide volunteer support for my students, family, friends, and strangers and here are the truths I have learned when it comes to providing Technical Support in an Online setting.

These truths were learned in many places over many years.


Continue reading How to Provide Online Tech Support.

Courting the Ripple Crowd: Wal-Mart Wins the Wino

By David W. Boles on February 11, 2007 10:45 AM | 40 Comments | 2 TrackBacks
Wal-Mart recently announced they were going to start selling wine under their own branded name.

Now that may not seem like big news, but when you consider Wal-Mart plans to sell their wine for $2.00 USD a bottle, you quickly begin to see Wal-Mart senses a fault in human nature and a hole in core community values ripe for exploitation: Let's Make it Affordable to Become a Wino!

Now those of us who know wine well know full-well Wal-Mart isn't going after the upscale connoisseur wine market with the $2 bottle -- and they aren't going after the Trader Joe's college crowd that buy the private label Trader Joe's rotgut wine at $4.00 USD a bottle -- no, Wal-Mart has its keen business eye set lower... lower down into the gutter... where Wal-Mart wants to win the Ripple crowd who buy wine in jugs.
Continue reading Courting the Ripple Crowd: Wal-Mart Wins the Wino.

Bury Bad News on Friday: Saturday is Dead

By David W. Boles on February 10, 2007 10:19 AM | 26 Comments | 1 TrackBack
We all know if you want to release bad national news you do it on the weekend when no one is reading blogs or newspapers or watching: Bad News Runs into Weekends!

Run It On Friday!

Continue reading Bury Bad News on Friday: Saturday is Dead.

Victimization Nation

By David W. Boles on February 9, 2007 9:03 AM | 41 Comments | 2 TrackBacks
Are we becoming a nation of self-inflicted victims where everything acts against us and we are all innocent bystanders bound up in the bad intentions of the world?

Victim Mosaic

Continue reading Victimization Nation.

Brewing a Better Stew: Black Chicks Want White Dicks

By David W. Boles on February 8, 2007 10:18 AM | 82 Comments
The other day I was engulfed in a fascinating conversation about the differences in sexuality and beauty between cultures when my young Nigerian female friend blurted out during our talk, "You know Black chicks want White dicks, right?"

Black Chicks White Dicks

Continue reading Brewing a Better Stew: Black Chicks Want White Dicks.

Scholarly Journals Die a Proper Electronic Death

By David W. Boles on February 7, 2007 8:43 AM | 39 Comments | 3 TrackBacks
Electronic Research!The Christian Science Monitor recently reported the timely and appropriate death of elitist hardcopy scholarly journals -- a welcome and deserved demise and here's why:

For years, traditional "peer review" has come under fire. A jury of three experts, the peer reviewers, assess each article and recommend only those that they feel represent the most significant new work.

At many elite scientific journals, fewer than 10 percent of the articles submitted are accepted. Many of the rejected articles eventually travel down the "food chain" to be published in a plethora of less prestigious (and less noticed) specialty journals.

A year ago, the respected US journal Science was forced to retract two papers it had published about stem cells. The articles had been submitted by a South Korean team led by Hwang Woo-Suk.

Peer reviewers, as well as the editors, had failed to detect the fraud. In general, peer reviewers, themselves researchers pressed for time, don't try to re-create experiments and rarely ask to see the raw data that supports a paper's conclusions.

While peer review is expected to separate the wheat from the chaff, it's "slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, prone to bias, easily abused, poor at detecting gross defects, and almost useless for detecting fraud," summed up one critic in BMJ, the British medical journal, in 1997.
Continue reading Scholarly Journals Die a Proper Electronic Death.

Microsoft Rips Page from Google Playbook

By David W. Boles on February 6, 2007 7:54 AM | 20 Comments | 1 TrackBack
Ripping a page from the Google playbook, Microsoft have stepped up to compete with Google Apps for Your Domain by offering you a free Office Live Basics website and communications portal.
Continue reading Microsoft Rips Page from Google Playbook.

The Definition of a Prostitot

By David W. Boles on February 5, 2007 8:16 AM | 42 Comments | 4 TrackBacks
I heard the definition of a new and insidious word today: Prostitot.

Prostitot

Continue reading The Definition of a Prostitot.

Football, Soccer and One-Day Cricket

By Kathakali Chatterjee on February 4, 2007 3:43 PM | 26 Comments
Kathakali Chatterjee wrote this article.

I was recently watching a football game on television. A player was running freely with the ball towards the opponent's court, without being stopped violently.
Continue reading Football, Soccer and One-Day Cricket.

Go Colts!

By David W. Boles on February 4, 2007 11:09 AM | 30 Comments | 1 TrackBack

GO COLTS!

Go Colts!

Go Colts!

Will you watch the Super Bowl?

If yes, why?

If not, why not?

Who do you want to win?

Who do you think will win?

To You Our Weekend Reader

By David W. Boles on February 3, 2007 11:08 AM | 14 Comments | 1 TrackBack
Hello Urban Semiotic Weekend Reader! We are thrilled to have you with us as we try to discover your wants and needs beyond the workweek. We have some questions for you and we'd really appreciate it if you took a moment to give us some feedback in the form of a comment on this post.

Urban Semiotic logo!

Continue reading To You Our Weekend Reader.

A Cursed Life

By David W. Boles on February 2, 2007 11:07 AM | 29 Comments | 1 TrackBack
Do you believe there are some people who are born cursed and who are doomed to a life of misery for reasons beyond their direct control?

Cursed

Continue reading A Cursed Life.

Herpes Kisses

By David W. Boles on February 1, 2007 9:45 AM | 18 Comments | 1 TrackBack
Do you have Herpes?Deadly Kiss

If so, how did you get it and what do you do to prevent breakouts?

If you don't have Herpes, are you sure you don't have Herpes?

Herpes can live inside you in antibody form without ever showing a outbreak.

You might be a carrier and not even know it.

Are you concerned about infecting someone with Herpes?

Are you proactively cautious in avoiding any exposure to Herpes if you are Herpes free? 
Continue reading Herpes Kisses.
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