Will this marriage last?

I'm not sure, but I think I may know the couple planning this wedding.

Fear not the Google.

A few Google and Gmail related items: first, "Read My Mail, Please. The silly privacy fears about Google's e-mail service." from Slate. This author echoes my feelings about the hoopla over Google scanning my email to give me better ads (not to mention 1GB mail storage). Next, a blog post discussing what 1GB of mail storage per user might actually cost Google and a high-level view of how Google is positioning Gmail and its other services.

Lastly, as an "active Blogger user", I now have a gmail account! My account is my first initial followed by my last name @gmail.com -- send me something, give me something to search, let's see what ads I get. I've just now signed up, so it'll be a bit before I have anything to report.

Bye-bye xmms

I recently upgraded to KDE 3.2 (by way of Mandrake 10) and have started using the Juk audio player. Its playlist UI is much better than xmms (I've read rumors that it's similar to iTunes, but I have no experience with that). Just tell it where your music is and it builds a big list of all of your tracks.

It is, necessarily, dependent on reliable ID3 tags. It has a built in tag editor that works pretty well for individual files, but lacks some features for bulk editing. For example, a bunch of my albums had no track numbers in the tags (although the file names included the track number). Juk had no easy way to set the track number for all. After a little searching on alternate tag editors, I've been very happy with EasyTAG -- fortunately also available as Mandrake 10 package.

Interesting branding decisions

Another great contest (registration req'd?) from the Washington Post's Style Invitational, "in which we asked for things that an existing brand name would be bad for". Such as:

• Wachovia is a good name for a bank but a bad name for a cemetery.
• BP is a good name for a gas company but a bad name for a honey company.
• Nordic Track is a good name for exercise equipment but a bad name for an affirmative action program.
• Snickers is a good name for a candy bar but a bad name for a support group.