Posts from September 08, 2006

Judy Rose has an interesting article on the importance of writing style and Paul Stamatiou also has some excellent tips on structuring blog articles.

My writing style has many flaws. At work, I have a irritating tendency to use 'padding' words that are completely worthless, superfluous and unnecessary. For example, 'It was noted that...'.

This trait was first brought to my attention by the ruthless peer QA review process which helped to reduce my deliverable documents from 78 pages to a more reasonable 12.

In my blog, I have also noticed that I tend to overuse the word 'So'.

So, I am working hard with my English teacher to eradicate these flaws but please remember that old habits die hard.

Last night the book club met again after the summer recess. Rosemary Barnstormworth suggested an interesting tome titled 'Margrave of the Marshes'.

This is John Peel's partly completed autobiography which was completed by his family after his untimely death. I really think I am going to enjoy this one. For example, in the foreword, his children describe a list of potential titles

• How's Your Flow ?
• Wet Echo
• Flying Cream Shoes
• Goatman Codds
• If He Ever Hits Puberty
• Buckskins and Buggery
• The Wotters Won The Race
• A History of the Iodine Trade 1847-1902
• An ABC of High-Jumping
• The Questing of Stempel Garamond: How He Overcame The Gelks and Punished The Dwellers with the Well
• Jesus Wasn't Made of Fish

I have already laughed out loud more then once although I find some of the sentences long and rambling. Then it struck me. This was exactly how John Peel was. You can almost hear him saying the words.

Sadly, though, this is one talking book that will never be made.

I just changed my Thunderbird setup to move all messages from the IMAP server to local folders and then apply the various filters locally as opposed to applying filters on the server. This means that all messages are visible even when disconnected so I will be able to do email housekeeping in airport lounges.

I tested each new message filter in turn and everything worked fine. Unfortunately I discovered that, contrary to the documentation, Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 does not appear to automatically apply all filters to new messages in 'Local Folders-Inbox'. Sigh.

Then I was cheered up to discover this humble blog is the 'Featured Blog' for Siebel on WordPress.com.

Well when I say 'Featured', maybe the only blog mentioning 'Siebel' on WordPress would be closer to the truth.

My life is complete. Almost.