Smart Software

FeedBurner Feed

My RSS feed is now going through FeedBurner.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/smartsoftware

This is the preferred URL, but my old feeds will still work.

The main non-feedburner link is:

http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/index.rdf

 

You Like Me

My Calvin and Hobbes RSS Feed went blank yesterday after I provided a link on my last post, Comics. I couldn’t help thinking that it may be due to a mysterious new Wes Effect. Then I noticed my blog being listed #53 in the top 300 Feeds That Matter For Programming. Hmm, I did get an MVP award earlier this month.

Suddenly, a feeling began to sink in. I became reminded of a quote by two-time Oscar winner Sally Field. Here’s an excerpt from her Wikipedia entry with the quote in question.

She won another Oscar in 1985 for her starring role in Places in the Heart; her gushing acceptance speech is well remembered for its earnestness. In it, Field stated "I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" [1]. The line ending in "...I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!" is often misremembered as simply "You like me, you really like me!" which has subsequently been the subject of many parodies. (Field parodied the line herself in a commercial.)

Another related quote is from Saturday Night Live’s Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley (played by Al Franken) in which a self-help expert urges viewers to look in the mirror each morning and reaffirm their worth to themselves by saying…

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.

Email Do's

I focused my last post on email Don'ts, so it was somewhat negative.

I am not antisocial. Just don't use me as a computer support person, corporate spy, philanthropist, programmer for hire, or search engine. I am also not currently looking for employees, especially in a foreign country.

However, I do enjoy reading and responding to mail that is interesting and relevant in some way, maybe blog-related feedback or in special topics on AI, mathematics, and programming. The key here is mutually beneficial information.

I like chatting with other bloggers, experts, entrepreneurs, and academics. I also respond to business requests, invitations, appreciation letters, and so on. I don't typically respond quickly though, unless the email appears urgent. The longer the response expected from me, the longer it takes for me to respond.

Driving While Talking

Whenever I am talking to a passenger while driving on the freeway, I often miss signs and forget to take the proper exits long after I realize what I have done.

I don't usually edit while I write, except for the usual spell-checking. I don't want to create more work than necessary. The main purpose of posting is to just get some thoughts of mine down in written form. I think the process improves the clarity of one's thinking.

Anyhow, the last few posts contained more than the usual number of errors, so I will be redoing them in the next couple days, possibly adding more information. I have mentioned mistakes in blog posts before.

There are a few differences in my blogging procedure. I have been experimenting with the new Windows Live Writer blogging program from Microsoft, and I have been cutting and pasting links that I have collected and categorized for future posts. These two events introduced combined to form a major distractions. I was also possibly more tired than usual.

Feed Problems

Recently, my ATOM feed has been coming up as raw html in some people’s browsers for the past few weeks. If you have these problems, please subscribe to one of following two alternative feeds.

RSS 1.0 (RDF): http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/index.rdf
RSS 2.0: http://wesnerm.blogs.com/net_undocumented/rss.xml