Airlines often allow you to pick your seats when you're buying your ticket... but how do you know if you should pick 16a or 27f?  Will there be in-seat power for your laptop?  Does your window seat actually have a window?  Consult SeatGuru.com and you'll be able to pick seats with the best of them. 

Perhaps my shoes are too tight but this kind of thing really irks me:  Harrods, British department store extraordinaire, has started its Christmas shopping season.  GAH!  It still annoys me when I see Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving (but I'm wacky that way).  Bring out Christmas decorations before Halloween and I fume.  But seriously folks... Christmas shopping before Labor Day?!?!?!?

"And they're hanging their stockings!" he snarled with a sneer.
"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"
Then he growled, with his grinch fingers nervously drumming,
"I MUST find a way to keep Christmas from coming!"

If you want to watch the Olympics, you watch it on one of the NBC stations (which includes MSNBC).

Now, if you're on the web and you tune to MSN Video, guess who provides the Olympic sports clips?  Fox.

Here's a helpful tip that is quite simple but, surprisingly, quite under-used.

When you go to your Start -> All Programs menu to you find it's difficult to location a particular application?  Chances are it's because your programs menu isn't sorted alphabetically. To fix this:

1. Click Start -> All Programs
2. Right-click on any item
3. Choose “Sort by name” from the pop up menu

Voilà, your applications and their containing folders are now sorted by name making it much easier to find that calculator program buried 3 levels deep.

Update: obligitory slashdot link

Wow, who'd have thought this would happen? 

And before any conspiracies start... no, Microsoft didn't do it. :P

The problem is a new worm on the loose is causing a distributed attack on search engines in it's quest for new e-mail addresses to which it can send itself (my English teacher just rolled over in her grave).

Okay class... repeat after me: “I will update my anti-virus software once a week if not more often.”

News.com story...

Google, other engines hit by worm variant
By Richard Shim and Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

              
update Major Internet search engines were crippled Monday morning by a variant of the MyDoom worm, rendering Google inaccessible to many users and slowing results from Yahoo.

The attack also affected smaller engines, including Alta Vista, a Yahoo subsidiary, and Lycos.

A Lycos representative said the company is aware of the problem and is working to block the performance obstacles. A Google representative said the company was working to figure out what was happening.

FULL STORY

Last night I came to a realization...

... I'm impressed by impressions.

PCWorld has a good write up on PC myths... but read carefully as their ratings seem to contradict the text at times.  They rate the responding to Spam myth as a level 4 out of 5 on the bogus meter but then include this quote:

"Knowing who to opt out from is key," says Schwartz. "Opting out of legitimate companies drops you off their lists, but when you do that with 'real' spammers, the results are unclear."

So, what is it?  A myth?  If the results are unclear can you be sure?

A summary of the myths (go to the article for full details).

Busting the Biggest PC Myths
We expose the bad advice that wastes your time and money.

1. Magnets zap your data.
2. Using a cell phone on a plane interferes with the navigation and communications systems of the aircraft.
3. If you don't 'stop' a USB device before unplugging it from a PC, you'll screw things up.
4. Cookies track everything you do on the Internet.
5. Windows' Japanese edition uses haiku error messages.
6. Terrible things happen if you turn off your PC without shutting down Windows.
7. Opting out of spam gets you even more spam.
8. Hackers can destroy data on your computer's hard drive.
9. Turning off your PC daily to save power shortens its life.
10. The government reads everyone's e-mail.
11. Saddam Hussein bought PlayStation 2 consoles to use in Iraq's weapons program.
12. DOS is dead.
13. Only a pricey surge protector can keep your devices safe.
14. If you don't periodically run your laptop batteries down to zero, you'll lose battery life.
15. If you don't use an antistatic wrist strap while tinkering with a PC, you'll ruin hardware.
    

So, after being all annoyed and stuff by the overly-complicated error message given to me by the OneNote updater I decided to follow the directions.  Guess what?  It helped me fix my problem.

Could my Mom have done this?  No (i.e. I can maintain some small amount of righteous indignation).