Couple of interesting book reviews on the New Statesman web site. The first, Where The Truth Lies, looks at the relationship between journalists and PRs, while the second, How Language Works, looks at the nature of language.
Exxon releases pro-Carbon Dioxide ad
You just don’t hear the pro-pollution argument very often, do you?
Blogs best way for freelances to showcase talent
Guardian Unlimited’s assistant editor Neil McIntosh says freelances should blog if they want to be noticed. I get the feeling he means freelances should blog well, because I’m not going much attention as a result of this blog… 😉
Rubbish British dentistry
The New York Times indulges in a popular American pastime – pointing out how rubbish British dentistry is. Personally, I think asking a bunch of English pensioners about dental hygiene is going to give you an unrepresentative impression of British teeth, but many of the points hit home.
Congratulations to Martin
A friend of mine, Martin, has managed to escape from journalism after nearly a decade at the grindstone. So a quick shout of congratulations to him as he makes his way over to the writing team of Emmerdale. Good luck, Martin!
New iMac’s arrived
My new iMac Dual Core arrived yesterday. My old iMac was about three and a half years old and lacking modern features that were actually forcing me to turn down work, so it was about time for an upgrade: I’ll be handing my old one over to my sister, so at least it’s going to a good home.
There has, of course, been a lot of fuss about being able to install Windows XP on the new iMacs, with many asking the not entirely invalid question, “Who would want to do that?” Well, I would. In fact, I’m going to try to get Linux running on it as well. Why? Because I have to write about Macs, Windows and Linux. Take two computers into my front room? No, I just want to triple boot and go…
Not very useful list
I’m sure there’s a reason why icWales has posted a list of celebrities who are afraid of flying. It just escapes me for now.
How valuable are immigrants to the US?
A US government report shows what we should all know: immigrants are a good thing, whether they’re illegal or legal.
UPDATE: Greatreporter.com also has a piece about an official report explaining why migrants are a good thing for countries.
SCHWIF2004 beta available
I’ve finally released the beta of the next version of SCHWIF2004, my handy utility for creating complex HTML messages in Entourage. There’s a few improvements:
- Added support for background images referenced using attributes in the body tag or in stylesheets
- Fixed a problem with Exchange server address books following previous Entourage update
- Improved the documentation slightly
- Added a warning for pre OS X 10.3 users
Grab it over at the SCHWIF2004 page.
Week one of the Italian flash cards are now available
I finally got my lazy arse into gear and uploaded week one of the 
Teach Yourself Instant Italian flashcards to the site. Grab them when you’re ready.