I missed this one: how to win a cheese contest.

Done by Rick Schaut. He should know. He won the contest at my party.

My refrigerator is still filled with cheese. I think I'm gonna take it to work tomorrow and leave it in the kitchen in building 18 by my office.

I ended up with more cheese than I can possibly eat in a year. But, it was a great party. Lots of fun memories.

eWeek is reporting that Microsoft won't build desktop search into Windows. Why not?

The article details the reasons.

Vinit Bhansali just sent me an interesting new photosharing site: mycollages.

I was just reading Mick Splatt's site and he links to the nonofollow site.

For those who are following this, nofollow is an attribute I can use on my links so that the search engine's spiders won't follow the link.

Lots of people misunderstand nofollow and an "anti-nofollow" religion has sprung up.

The core tenent of the religion is: I'm entitled to your Google PageRank.

Since this is religion I'm probably gonna stay away. But I don't buy into the core belief.

Some things, though:

1) Nofollow wasn't going to prevent comment spam. It is going to remove much of the incentive to do it in the first place.

2) Semantics? Who says they are incorrect?

3) Harms the connections? Huh? It makes them STRONGER. Why? Because now I can link to things that don't deserve the search engine juice.

4) Not useful for humans? Oh, there someone goes again, calling Scoble a non-human. I already have used it and will use it again, when needed.

5) Could be used to shut Web sites out? Huh? How will this happen? I'd like to see that. Sites that use nofollow on all their links will be exposed for doing so and will be visited and linked to less often. Just like those sites that don't put full text into RSS feeds get visited and linked to less often.

6) Discriminates against legitimate users as spammers? Huh? Since when did writing a comment mean that you deserve the full search engine juice of getting linked to by someone else?

7) Heists commentators' earned attention? Huh?

8) Will not stop comment spam. Never said it would. Just removes the incentive.

9) Could be used to further discriminate weblogs. Um, weblogs are actually showing up too high for their real-world relevance. Here, why am I the #3 "Robert?"

10) Prevents the Web from being a web? Excuse me? That's a little reactionary. There's one thing that keeps us all from using nofollow all the time: self interest. This site assumes that there's more self interest in turning off links. That's absolutely false and bad thinking.

11) Eliminates the dissemination of free speech? Huh? Turning off search engine juice does that? Interesting belief structures you all have out there.

12) Developed in privacy. Um, not true. Webloggers have been asking for YEARS for a link that could tell the search engine spiders not to go there. Joi Ito and I have been asking for this repeatedly over the past four years. Certainly not in private.

There's an interesting theme on all the "anti-nofollow" posts I've seen (and I've read dozens). They all assume they are entitled to search engine juice. Well, I don't believe in that as an entitlement. I believe a link is earned, not given automatically.

Engadget: anyone else notice that the Tablet PC has become sort of invisible lately?

What's funny is that more of them are showing up in the real world. You know, that world that is outside of Redmond's borders?

Last week at the conference several people proudly showed me theirs.

And next week I'd expect to see a whole bunch about Tablet PCs.

But, Engadget is right. Microsoft is BLOWING it big time by not making the Tablet PC a bigger deal.

Most normal people haven't seen a Tablet PC yet. How do I know that? Because everytime I'm on a plane people want to play with it. Same thing at the conference. People wanted a look.

That tells me that we're leaving money on the table. Howso? Tell me, have you seen an advertisement on TV for the Tablet PC?

Let's go over this again. Why does Apple have a marketing budget to buy TV ad spots and billboard space and magazine space for the iPod but my company can't buy a Super Bowl commercial to show it off to normal people?

Yeah, yeah, I saw them on the TV show 24 and West Wing too. But that doesn't count. We need to explain our products in the mass market.

Why didn't Howard Dean get elected? Because he didn't have the right TV ads and other marketing. Same disease here.

Where's the TV ads? The marketing campaign?

Yes, I'm gonna ask the team that when I meet with them next week.