John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Album covers, all over the map

The Word magazine has launched an interesting mashup: readers are invited to tag the location where an album cover has been shot, and add it to a (growing) list on Google Maps. The collection is diverse: from where U2 posed for the cover of The Joshua Tree to the Greenwich Village streets where Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul & Mary, and others posed, to even the airfield where Abba were photographed in a helicopter. You can browse through the alphabetical listings, or zoom around the world and see what was taken where. Zoom in for greater detail. If you have something to add, you're welcome to submit it.

Alt.codes

Here's a handy thing to bookmark, should you do a fair bit of typing and wonder how to get more out of your keyboard: alt-controlled marks, so you can create special characters (à, å, ç, etc.) and symbols (♪, ♀, ♂, etc).

How PowerPoint can help you catch up on your reading (at work)

Above is a screen capture from one of the short stories posted to a New Zealand-based website called Read at Work, which, basically, sets up reading materials that you can read at your desk. The above is from the Virginia Woolf story The Mark on the Wall, with each section of text set up like a different style of PowerPoint presentation; in other words, the kind of thing that wouldn't look too much out of place in a work environment. Read at Work has an old-school "boss mode" function - just hit the Escape key to return to normal.

Stumbling upon a tan line

I like StumbleUpon, the social networking tool that puts a great emphasis on random fun (and can, at times, lead to a lot of wasted time). Hence, this pic:

Bot on the other hand ...

A cartoon for those who have had squinted at verification boxes:

As seen here.

Hey, e-mail forwarders!

I get a LOT of e-mail, at work and at home. I appreciate a lot of it ... and while I like getting some jokes in my mailbox, others leave me cold. A lot of others. To be honest, the amount of messages titled something like this ...

Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: TOOOOOO FUNNY!!!!!!!!

... dropped off since, oh, about 13 years ago. In any event, I got a kick out of this:

Webby winners

This year's list of Webby winners is out. Click away.

A thought for that moment at night when you know you have to turn off the computer

"Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done."
- Andy Rooney

Pick up valuable office skills in World of Warfare, etc

From Eric Eggertson's blog Common Sense PR, I saw a post called Everything I Know about Business I Learned Fragging N00bs, which connected dots that some might not see close together: online gaming, and building a successful business career. The World of Warfare and the World of, um, Work may not be that far apart (and definitely aren't, on the account of a friend of mine who actively and covertly combines both from his desk).

BBC, customized

The BBC web redesign is rolling out, and includes a promised customizable feature that is easy to use and pretty darn cool.