ContentWatch (the company I work for) just hired a new business manager who has decided to whip the place into shape in terms of productivity. My manager sent out the following email a few days ago:

bq.. Team,

Some of you may be aware that people and responsibilities have been changing lately. Prior to the formal announcement, I just wanted you to know that <Name Removed> has taken over the day to day management of ContentWatch and is building a new team with many existing people and some new people. The goal is to be the best in the Internet Protection Market which includes productivity of employees.

<Name Removed> has asked everyone to practice what we preach. To that end please make sure you are using our products on your machines, refrain from playing games on your computer, do not use instant messenger and use the Internet wisely. Non-company related searches and sites on the Internet should just be during your breaks.

Thanks….

<Name Removed>
ContentWatch Inc.
Customer Support Manager
1-800-485-4008

p. I’m not excited about losing Instant Messaging, but I’m willing to sacrifice that in the name of productivity. If I’m completely honest with myself I have to admit that IM has been a distraction at times and kept me from answering as many emails as I could have.

Anyway, the major reason I’ve posted this is so that my friends will know why I’m not online during the day anymore. I’m not trying to ignore anybody, but orders are orders.

In related news, I just found out today that the company offices are being relocated. The new location is closer to the University (of course, just about anywhere is closer than Bluffdale :)), so it should save me quite a bit of gas. The move will take place the first week in December.

The University has started a pilot program where they’re giving away copies of the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News, and USA Today. If they feel students will use the papers, they’ll add five bucks to student fees next year and make the free (well, sortof free) papers permanent.

Anyway, I grabbed a copy of the Trib today and read a very interesting article while I was riding Trax home.

Here it is: “Iraqis trade in money for Saddam-free bills“.

Apparently their new bills are roughly the same size as monopoly money. That’s weird, but I guess the people are just happy Saddam’s face has been taken off the currency for good. The article didn’t mention it, but I wonder if the money has anyone else’s faces on it, and if so, who?

I’ve been toying around with this cool little thing called GeoURL. I added a few meta tags to my site that tell the rest of the world my latitude and longitude (check my source if you’re curious). I then pinged GeoURL to have them index my site in their database. I’ve added a little link to the bottom of my menu that you can use to check all of the sites listed on GeoURL that are within 100 miles of me.

Consequently, I’ve added a few new links to my Sites I Frequent list, one of which is all-encompassingly. Travis posted an entry today about hypocrisy among the Democratic party. He included a link to the 2000 Democratic Party Platform, where you can read the following quotes:

bq.. In Iraq, we are committed to working with our international partners to keep Saddam Hussein boxed in, and we will work to see him out of power. Bill Clinton and Al Gore have stood up to Saddam Hussein time and time again. As President, Al Gore will not hesitate to use America’s military might against Iraq when and where it is necessary.

As President, Al Gore will tolerate no attack against American interests at home or abroad: terrorists must know that if they attack America, we will never forget. We will scour the world to hunt them down and bring them to justice.

p. Remember, these quotes were part of the Democratic Party Platform back in 2000! Why do most Democrats hate Bush for doing exactly the things they were planning to do? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

Bad news: Microsoft has released the details of future changes to Internet Explorer. They’re being forced to change it because of a recent lawsuit involving a small company called Eolas. Eolas is owned and operated by one man, Michael Doyle, who patented the concept of plug-ins back in 1994. Microsoft will probably put this change out as a Windows Update in early 2004.

Good news: In a recent interview, Doyle explained that free browsers like Mozilla are exempt from any royalties. What this means, of course, as that they won’t have to stop using plug-ins.

bq.. eWEEK.com: What would you say to Web developers [or those few competing browser makers out there] who are concerned they’ll have to purchase some sort of an expensive license to be able to do this?

Doyle: I think the key word there is “expensive.” . . . We have from the beginning had a general policy of providing non-commercial users royalty-free licenses. We expect to be paid for the commercial use of our technologies.

p. One more reason to switch to Firebird, folks. 🙂

You may have noticed over the past week that I added the trackback ping URI to some of the newest entries. It wouldn’t have really done you much good to ping those though, because I didn’t have anything working yet. Now I’ve actually taken the time to implement trackback pings. They should be fully operational (I hope).

I won’t know for sure until I ping this entry from my test blog. If it’s working, you should see a trackback ping below.