Entries Tagged as ''

Open Office evaluation

I switched to Open Office for a couple of weeks. My conclusion was that the next time I buy a personal computer, it will be an Intel Mac laptop with Open Office. Open Office has plenty of functionality and is better organized for the power user than Office 12.

Alas, if you already have Microsoft Office, it doesn’t really make sense to run Open Office in parallel, because converting old Office docs into OO and saving them back into Office inevitably introduces some small but annoying friction, and it doesn’t make sense to save all your existing Office .doc files into Open Office’s cleaner dedicated format, where you can’t open them with Office.

Alibris and the business of online bookselling

This is pretty impressive!

Coremetrics
Coremetricsâ„¢, the leading provider of hosted web analytics and precision marketing solutions, today announced that Alibris, the premiere destination for used, new, and out-of-print books, is using the Coremetrics A/B testing platform to improve visitor conversion and site usage. One of Internet Retailer’s “Top 100″ largest online retailers, Alibris is the choice of millions of book lovers looking to buy rare and used books.

“When you have over 50 million books, helping a customer find a signed copy of an out-of-print book can be a challenge. We are constantly looking for ways to improve our user experience and make Alibris the easiest place to buy used books,” said Brian Elliott, chief operating officer at Alibris. “A/B testing lets us manage risk by measuring customer demand earlier in our development process. Rather than rely on subjective evaluations, we can use Coremetrics to quantify the impact on visitor conversion before committing additional resources.”

Coremetrics offers the only hosted web analytics and precision marketing solution designed to meet the marketing, merchandising, and site-design needs of online retailers. Alibris used Coremetrics A/B testing and real estate reporting to see if changing the presentation of its Narrow your results search functionality would increase usage. Moving the option to a more prominent position had a dramatic impact—500 percent more clicks and a 400 percent increase in sales. Before the change, only a fraction of Alibris customers used the powerful search tool. Today, far more customers use the tool to refine their search results by book attributes such as signed, hardcover, or first edition. Coremetrics reports also uncovered the need to refine the search tool’s language to help customers find that special hard-to-find book.

Bush: Bring Back Osama, or Don’t Come Back

CNN.com - Bush, Pakistani PM hold ‘wide-ranging’ talks - Jan 24, 2006
“The relationship with Pakistan is a vital relationship for the United States,” Bush said. “I want to thank the prime minister and thank the president for working closely with us on a variety of issues. We’re working closely to defeat the terrorists that would like to harm America and harm Pakistan.”

Bush announced that he would visit Pakistan and India in March.

John Kerry keeps writing me whiny letters. I’d like to see him tell George Bush: “Bring Back Osama, or Don’t Come Back.”

The President of the United States is paying a state visit to the country where mass murderer Osama Bin Laden is living. How about hopping into a helicopter, George, and heading out to the Afghan border?

the ‘Magnum P.I.’ movie

CNN.com - ‘Magnum P.I.’ coming to big screen - Jan 24, 2006
Rawson Marshall Thurber (”Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story”) has signed on to write and direct the big-screen adaptation of “Magnum P.I.,” the 1980s series that made Tom Selleck a star.

Thurber is not making a spoof but rather something akin to the tone of the show, which mixed humor and danger. The story line for the Universal Pictures film sees Magnum, with the help of his former military pals, searching for a missing buddy.

Wow, this is really underwhelming.

  • “Dodgeball”?
  • No Tom Selleck?
  • “searching for a missing buddy”?

Snoozefest.

Bill Maher & Stephen King at Sundance

king

Nice weird expression from a visibly aging (but curiously well preserved) Stephen King.

Sydney Penny IS Bernadette

AMC fans take note:

Download Images
Sydney Penny, pictured, plays the role of St. Bernadette Soubirous in the soon to be released film, “The Passion of Bernadette,” about Bernadette’s life after the Blessed Mother appeared to her at Lourdes, France in 1858. Ignatius Press, one of the largest Catholic book publishers in the U.S. and the primary English language publisher of the works of Pope Benedict XVI, is sponsoring the national premiere of the film Feb. 11, 2006

sydney penny as bernadette

Kola Boof Was Bin Laden’s Mistress

Kola Boof Proves Herself
Sudan’s top novelist Kola Boof proves that she was Osama Bin Laden’s mistress in startling detail as her autobiography, “Diary of a Lost Girl” (0-9712019-8-6) finally hits America on February 1st.

Is this a put-on?

Borders CEO One Step Ahead of the Sheriff

PublishersWeekly.com

PW:


Borders Group announced earlier today that Greg Josefowicz will retire as chairman, president and CEO by the end of fiscal 2007, which ends Feb. 3, 2008. Josefowicz joined Borders in November 1999 as president and CEO and was promoted to chairman in 2002. Josefowicz, 53, gave no reason for his decision to step down.

Borders is in play.

Houston Woman Figures It Out: The Circle’s in Control of Everything

Houston Woman Figures It Out: The Circle’s in Control of Everything
Absolute Intelligence, written by Ilexa Yardley, shows the circle is the most important idea of all time. According to Yardley, the circle is the driving force behind everything, and, once we truly understand it, world peace is achievable here and now, not there and then. For this goal, then, Yardley is calling on every scientist to take the time to get to know her material. Because Yardley is not a scientist, to take a stand either for, or against, Yardley’s discovery of Conservation of the Circle, scientists will have to overcome their institutional, professional and personal biases against the lay person’s role in, and capability for, making ’science.’ Yardley predicts this will be a re-enactment of the Galileo-Catholic church controversy, only this time it will be the scientific establishment up for review. Yardley says the arguments that are likely to ensue are her yin-yang opposite ideas showing up even in protected academic circles. Yardley encourages the media, and laypeople everywhere, to referee.

Ok. Ms. Yardley: you lose.

Iranian nuclear test March 20?

DEBKAfile -
Tehran plans a nuclear weapons test before March 20, 2006 – the Iranian New Year, moves Shahab-3 missiles within striking range of Israel

BUCHAREST DAILY NEWS

BUCHAREST DAILY NEWS: “Ron Howard’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ based on the Dan Brown’s novel with the same title, will be presented at the opening of the 59th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which will take place in May. The film will be screened off-competition.

‘The Da Vinci Code’ will be presented for the first time in Cannes and will have its world premiere on May 19. The Cannes Festival, which is for the first time presided over by a Chinese director (’In the Mood for Love’’s Wong Kar Wai) will take place between May 17 and 28.”

Bin Laden likes my book?

Author ‘amazed’ by plug from bin Laden
WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden has a book recommendation for you.

In the audiotape released Thursday, the al Qaeda leader said: “If you (Americans) are sincere in your desire for peace and security, we have answered you. And if (President) Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful for you to read the book ‘Rogue State.’”

That would be “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower,” published in May 2000 with a new edition in November 2005. Its author is William Blum of Washington, D.C.

What’s sad is that the author is actually pleased to have this endorsement from a mass murderer.