To paraphrase:

What search engine is spelled out in this “leet” language: 600673 (.com) ?

The answer after this…

Answer: GOOGLE

For more info, go to 600673.com.

This new Mac Book looks great, mix the Mac Book green with pro and make it small (13″ width, widescreen would be nice) and it could be my next computer.

It’s a good thing the economy is the way it is though, because there is no mention of this machine on Apple.com whatsoever. Or any sign of it being purchasable in the near future. No “Froogle” or news jumps out at me. (And I’m demanding and require that for it to count as marketed.)

The worst thing is that Apple.com’s search doesn’t make any sense, they promote random movies when I search for what should be Apple products. Is this some lame iTunes tie-in? That’s just what it is, lame.

Add a page for every product and/or ad you serve to TV Apple, god, I thought you were smarter than that!

At least(???) we can enjoy the above ad, but it’s kind of like the fairy tale that is the rest of our hopes for bettering our planet. It’s not like I don’t trust Barack Obama, it’s just that well, it’s lame duck season, and unfortunately that doesn’t mean hunting.

A foot note, kudos to YouTube for their new video embed. Not only does it work well with WordPress, but it matches almost any site, which is so tempting now that there are so many other embeddable video sites! I just wish the Google affiliation with it could fit into my layouts (sidebars) like these vids do my posts!! (However we can go straight to YouTube to get Google code for single videos or multiples, so although it won’t fit most sidebars, it’s a great step!) (Of course, getting revenue from embedding YouTube videos into posts is also huge incentive!)

*Update* Vote for this story on these social / “green” sites here:

• @Digg
• @ PlanetChange
• @ MindBodyGreen
• @ Care2

Stupidity wins another battle in our society, unfortunately. I just found the word, “crêpes” in a ReCaptcha box. Yes, it displayed the character “ê“. Sensing it wouldn’t even accept the correct visual – and correct spelling – nevermind only accept it and not “crepes” completely instead – I hit refresh.

Are you fabbing kidding me???!

Educational Tip: This accent is called “Circumflex” in English translation; “Circonflexe” in French. It is also used in other languages. In this case, it is placed above an “E” (or more precisely for “crêpes”, a lowercase “e”), although on PCs it is typed or “pasted” complete with the corresponding letter.

It seems one just can’t win! Either be incorrect doubly and pass, or put in extra effort (most wouldn’t) and be marked as a spammer??? I really don’t expect ReCaptcha to think people would know/type the alt code or copy from their character maps (Windows). I don’t want that type of security enforced. In fact, I depise most CAPTCHAs, because I usually cannot read them! ReCaptcha is better, for at least they use words that are often real (I did recently see what looked like a name though, ironically a name similar in spelling to a celebrity related to the article on the page, hmmm) and they have a decent refresh method (some others force a loss of comment).

*Update: I now realize this depends upon the scripting and not some lazy ethic. Sure, the site owners and ReCaptcha company may never want to force people to open up their Character Map or learn alt codes, and yet the code may force most to get this wrong – even those like I who would assume what they’re asking, yet didn’t refresh, like I.*

I also contacted the company, informing them of the “innapropriate word”. I do have hope that this is a company eager to fix such a troubling issue. I will post a follow-up to this entry if they respond in an interesting manner. *No response at all yet.*

Footer-Note: Firefox’s spell check informed me, “crêpes” is incorrect – granted, spell check is for a user’s currently-selected primary language, alone.

I think it’s doing it for me. It used to be I dropped a topic when I couldn’t think of more than a sentence to write, now I can Tweet it from an appropriate account that matches its comparable blog’s topic. Or perhaps I’d even ponder the subject for a while to flesh out something meaningful to write. Suddenly tweets such as, “bag-gasm!” + link suffice.

It’s become really, really hard for me to macro blog anymore. And it’s pretty evident by the fact that I’m not really doing it. Barely here, or on Kiss Me Stace, not at all at Bag Dream, etc.

One example is for this blog, I want to write about this really gorgeous laptop case. And all I can think of writing is “elegant”. God, sometimes I can’t even fill out the 140 chars, and it’s horrible.

Someone needs to do some research on whether (and if so, how much) regular blog posts have lessened since Twitter rose to such fame. But it can’t be I, because I’m not only now a Twit, but Twitterpated by a boy. Double whammy on me, and it’s really not productive!

Just watch out for when monetizing Twitter.com becomes easier and more direct. Yowch.

Anyway, I joined Chemistry.com a while back when I was fed up with Match.com. Now after an initial technical snafu, which need not be mentioned right now, I met a few people.

Basically my review is positive, because I met someone who seems to be great …. and I wouldn’t have met him otherwise. No, not on Match.com. He’s a bit far away from me, on the opposite side of Florida’s Everglades, and neither of us specifically look very far from our homes. But Chemistry still showed him my profile, and the rest is … the future? Tehe.

Now this is very different from when Match.com “matches” you (or lets winks occur, etc.) with people you’re not looking for. Like say you’re a woman and you upload gorgeous photos of yourself … and then you get people over 20 years older than you are contacting you. Yeah, not the same kind of expanding your range.

So far, Chemistry = Win.

I’ll keep you posted, since it is related to this blog. (Yay.)

We’ve gone out a couple of times, but our nerdiness and awkwardness really slowed things down. Right now it’s like a snail in hibernation, but that’s alright.

I went on to practice my own Googling skills because I feel i should really fulfill my Internet Superpower potential, don’t you think?

So every time someone says something I want to learn more about, I now Google it. I don’t take things for granted anymore. No faulty argument can fool me!

This Googling-everything thing can get one into trouble, if one isn’t careful, like with the micro-trend of being a DIY Doctor via Google. One night I was crying and my lip swelled and I ended up thinking I was allergic to my own tears (they got on my lip). I thought this was such a romantic fantasy for being an uber nerd – so many allergies including to something from my own body. I’m such a loser – lol. But my friend and I determined it was just my allergy to dust (dust on my pillow, face in pillow). Oh that’s all. It’s ‘k, that’s nerdy, too, right?

I also searched for people via Google, and I realized the secret to actually finding people is to continue clicking on links on the results pages. Like a user has links to other pages, and also gives hints, like a username can be then put into Google, etc. So my big success is that I found a High School friend I’d been searching for for, literally, years! I found her blog, then her e-mail address, and confirmed her photo on Facebook. Even though I have her e-mail address, I’m nervous about writing, so I just friended her. I still haven’t heard back … but on the plus side I also transferred my college friend from just MySpace into being the newest Facebook user! (And I was her first friend.) Go me.

Then pondering how it seems no one does pay for online dating sites, when another computery guy winked at me on Match.com, I decided to try out this approach. I followed him on Twitter, etc. I now understand this can be a “mistake” with some people, but if they’re scared off, it’s due to their own issues, and I don’t need that! See even though this guy’s Twitter bio simply reads, “hacker”, he doesn’t seem to appreciate women who posess those skills. I did read on his Match profile his turn-off is aggression/assertiveness, but I thought I’d pass because I’m very shy in person – I forgot that my lack of shy online might matter, too! Oh well, moving on. You know he has about 500 (probably no exaggeration) FEMALE friends on Facebook, anyway – shady.

Anyway, as it’s obvious I’m able to blog (slash *work*) again, I’ve needed to slow way down on my Second Life usage. I barely sign in anymore except to pay my weekly land tier, which seems a bit ridiculous, but c’est la vie deux. Before I paused I managed to get as far as to mostly finish my first t-shirt! I’m a fast learner, no?

And now that I’ve pretty much told my downtime story, I need to get on to working, and stop this chatting. Except for on Twitter. (My Twitter link.) Can’t help that.

I was nearly blind, but only when it came to reading, for a few days before I was able to borrow a pair of those generic magnifying eyeglasses from a friend. I’ve decided these work really great for me, and plan to go shopping for fashionable pairs, but haven’t yet.

So what to do while I obviously couldn’t write (no proofreading) and couldn’t craft either (I look while I knit and sewing – forget it) – well……..

I decided to start up that web comic I’d been thinking about, but I wanted to use avatars (originally thought from meez.com) as characters to save me time. I don’t have time for more hobbies, especially ones with no wish for real money-making, so I didn’t want to spend a lot of time vectoring each scene myself….

So even though I’m virtually (no pun intended this time, I swear) banned from Second Life because I’d probably most definitely become addicted to it, I found myself trying it out again (first time I surprisingly didn’t like it – but to be fair I gave up on it quickly because after all, it was contraban, tehe).

And well. I ended up forgetting all about (for the time being) the web comic.

Because I’ve realized SL is actually an amazing outlet for me to produce fashion designs for. So I spent some time (I said some, ok? just some) learning how to get around, tweaking my avatar (because that’s absolutely necessary no matter what, doi) and um preparing for starting to learn, and eventually diving into, building in Second Life.

Um, yes, I have bought a home, and pay weekly “tier” but it’s all to help me learn to build and get by in the world. And it hasn’t been all that time consuming.

It’s not like I started having surreal dreams. Or seeing live humans and thinking they look like computer avatars, not vice versa. No no. No. No. No, ok? Well that’s the official story.

It’s all to help me in my career, you see. I’m not playing. Perish the thought!

Now I’m getting antsy with all this work and proofreading, so far, so I’m going to pause my tales for now. But I’ll be “working”, “not” “wasting time on the Internet”.

Not all stats are available on all blogs, but for Kiss Me, Stace, Yahoo! brings in nearly 20% of all traffic, about equal to any one force (the fashion blog community is one and it is pretty strong). It also brings in 4 times the traffic of MSN and over 10 times that of Google (yes, MSN does just a little better than Google, but that’s not the matter at the moment). Of course, Lipped Media‘s SEO might be disliked by Google, but I know the whole family puts in a lot of effort to do things “right” (there is only grey in evil SEO) and more importantly, well. Kiss Me, Stace has a top 10 ranking in preferred keywords (and many others) on Yahoo! Could that be bad? So what does Yahoo! like differently from Google? I then ask, is Yahoo! better? (For the user, nicer, who knows, anything..)

So, I decided to test out Yahoo! a bit. (Yahoo-oo-Me!) Why stay sucked into the Google (virtual) monopoly? I thus installed the Yahoo! Toolbar …

Pros of Toolbar:

1. Has lots of available buttons, like Babelfish, del.icio.us, Flickr, even Yahoo!’s own notepad, calendar and alerts (that can go to ANY e-mail, cell phone or your Yahoo! Messenger)
2. It has necessary things, like search current site, images, and news.
3. It has an anti-spyware button.
4. It has everything also off of a menu bar (optional).
5. It already has a built-in version for Firefox.
6. The version for IE inserts tabbed browsing! (But only if the toolbar’s visible.)
7. It allows for image searching right off a drop down menu, and Firefox’s version of the Google Toolbar only has the option to visit the main Google Images search page.
8. The upgrade for Firefox’s Google Toolbar doesn’t allow for finding search words on the page! That’s very disappointing, as now that’s not possible.
9. Yahoo!’s image search has a very strong, default safe-search.

Cons of Toolbar:

1. It’s too difficult to search things like “current site,” because of the drop down menu. Also, it’s difficult to make new searches in the site. A) if one tries to search again on the Yahoo! page, it searches all the web. If one tries to search again with the toolbar and “current site,” it searches inside Yahoo!! (That last “!” was my own.) Big bad no-no.
2. It does have its own dictionary, but it’s not as easy or good as Google’s Answers.com, or its use of displaying it on the search results.
3. Google’s new version of their toolbar for Firefox is pretty official, with buttons that are addable for Google Image search, Froogle, etc.

Pros and Cons of Search Results:

• They’re different, sometimes more to my liking, sometimes less. That’s all I notice. It’s all valid.

The search result quality is equal, but if you’re addicted to having a toolbar and searching everything, maybe you should stick to the old standbys: Google it, IMDb it, Wikipedia it (not a phrase that I’ve heard yet), etc. The other option is to have them both, but with a button to hide and show each, as things get cluttered.

During my research for the post, Ask.com’s new ad campaign poses a similar question about themselves, but for different reasons. Now, I’ll have to study that search engine!

*This is rapidly changing, as we rise on Google through the end of my research.

I’m a big designer. Ella and I became friends designing online. Oh, I mean graphic/web designing, not L’s beloved fashion illustrating.

Anyway, I helped design this layout. I design various things online and Ella was stuck at how to create this vision. I loved that vision and realized it would actually be quite easy. (From that, she lured me into this blog, actually into being very, very excited about this blog.)

But I was stepping into something bigger than I realized. We use templates because of the blog being on a script with its own “classes.” Well, this causes problems when the designer doesn’t understand every nook inside the code. And I’m now here to help.

This brings me back to my laptop, which I wasn’t going to mention, even though I’ve been wanting to, until my big reveal with a big review (and apparently, we need to reapply to Dell (yeah, no Mac) affiliates (no monay, no link) …

I spent the last few days since receiving it setting up all my settings And I spent most of today [yesterday, now] setting up the wireless Internet (note that for later). Throughout the process of setting things up, I kept playing with resolutions, because it is a widescreen (benefits and downsides, but I’ll work it out so that it’s the best choice, trust me, I know) it’s different, and because it’s so tiny at 12″.

Once I got online this afternoon, I further played with the resolutions. Then I logged on to Lipped Media sites. And I noticed …

They do not work in 800 x 600 resolution. I know they were supposed to be optimized for it.

So Ella worked on it, got really stressed, hurt her eyes from switching back and forth and decided she needed help. Well, I’m here! (Darn it.)

And I jumped back and forth between two machines, ’cause I ain’t using 800 x 600 on a large monitor! (And I didn’t have enough design tools on the laptop, yet.)

So we pulled all-nighters. Now you see that most of the sites (I lost all energy with only Pet-Pet left. I’m so bad, they get few hits, I’ll “hit” ‘em, tomorrow) are working fine.

So, all afternoon it was annoying computer stuff, then all night it was frustrating CSS. What. a. day.

And that’s probably why I’m writing this rambley post. No good. Should I even publish it? I’ll ask Ella to work her editing skills on it. ;-D!

*Snooooozzzz*

[* Ella: Cute story---not sure what more to do with it. I'm afraid of cutting too much. I'm not sure how publishable it is, but I know we both worked so hard, we kind of want the story out! ]