The FuzzyBlog!
Marketing 101. Consulting 101. PHP Consulting. Random geeky stuff. I Blog Therefore I Am.

Wednesday, August 21, 2002

Scotts Searching :: Good Search Tricks :: Over Searching A really good search technique which many people often ignore is "Over Searching".  When you over search, you take a query and expand it to be not just what the user asked for but what the user is likely to want.  Here's a step by step example. ==> Read Story <== Note: This is pretty simple and short but it nicely illustrates this technique which all too few sites actually implement. 9:04:29 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

My Silly Idea for the Day: The FontSafe Button! With blog readers like Dave, Jakob, Jeffrey and others, including me, all taking the position that absolute PX sized fonts basically stink, I made a "FontSafe" button which indicates that your blog can be resized.  The reason that I did it is I noticed that one of the above people knocked a blog last night when it was actually resizable -- only that the default font size was teeny tiny.  Well I don't have a problem with anyone setting their initial font size to anything they want.  That's their creative license.  It may be dumb as rock but, hey, everyone has the right to be stupid.  It's a classic individual liberty.  Anyway ... The FontSafe button: Now I'll be the first one to admit that this looks like death on a stick.  If anyone wants to redo it, I'll gladly post a new button and give credit as I always try to do.  Here are some other possible buttons: FontSafe FontYou! Don't Font Me In! NOTE: If you're wondering why my favorite graphics person, Gretchen, didn't do this and do a much better job than little old graphically challenged Scott, it's because she's offline today. 8:31:59 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Check out the WinAmp About Screen Ok.  I may be the last person in the universe to see the WinAmp about screen but if you haven't seen it, it's worth a peek (at least in the version I have).  I have a dedicated computer to play MP3 files since my main desktop periodically loses the ability to play audio files.  Don't ask me why.  It just does.  And it's too painful to figure out so I live in a silent world except for this 2nd computer (and old laptop).  Anyway... My cat Virgil loves to walk over that computer's keyboard.  While Virgil normally triggers skip or stop in Winamp, Virgil just triggered the About screen.  Since it's highly animated, I couldn't figure out what was going on and then I realized....  Thanks Virgil! 5:14:28 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Interesting.  A Non Profit Website Rusty over at Kuro5hin.org is doing his normal, excellent job.  He's converted Kuro5hin into a non profit, the Collaborative Media Foundation.  That's very nice.  He may have abandoned previous goals of dot com riches but he's instead keeping a wonderful web resource alive.  For people who don't visit kuro5hin, you might want to stop by.  It's one of the few discussion sites that works in a large scale distributed fashion.  It reminds me of Slashdot in the old days -- their collaborative moderation features actually work and the normal problems with idiot posters just don't seem to occur.  Also the topics aren't just geekazoid in nature.  Here's a sampling of recent articles and discussions around them: Houston Police Arrest 278 People Outside Kmart An Overview of the Tarot Science and the Five-Star Hangover Whither Tech Future? 5:08:48 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Thou Shalt Commit Adultery Not all that surprising.  Errors in the bible. 5:02:02 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This

Let Me Clarify Scotts Radio Russell just gave me a nice link to my new Scott's Radio documentation but I wanted to make something clear: This is NOT my O'Reilly writings.  Those writings were commercial and "paid for" by O'Reilly.  So I can't publish them here.  Here's what Scott's Radio consists of: Documentation that I wrote long before the O'Reilly Essential Blogging book was contracted for and NOT included in the book. Sections that I wrote for the book that were cut during the editing process for a variety of reasons.  I didn't agree with the cuts but that's the nature of having an editor and a limited page count.  So I gathered up those sections and published them here. Just wanted to make this clear.  What I published here isn't in the O'Reilly book so you still do want to buy it, right? Oh and I forgot to credit Russell for the absolutely wonderful Penguin Death graphic.  This came from him and he should get all the credit since it's just plain wonderful.  I wish there was an official PHP animal so I could do a "Everything you use .ASP you kill ...". 4:52:16 AM  Google It!  comment []   IM Me About This