Welcome to BenWoods.com

You made it! Thanks for visiting.

Upcoming book fair and student writing contest in Evansville

The newly created Midwest Writers Guild in Evansville, Ind., is hosting a book fair and sponsoring a student writing contest.

The Spring Book Fair will take place 9 a.m.-4 p.m. March 17 at the Washington Square Mall in Evansville. High school students (grades 8-12) must submit their work during this time. Here is the contest registration form.

Authors who are interested in participating in the event must complete this registration form. The cost is $20 for a partial table. Barnes & Noble will handle the transactions.

'The Developers' coming to the BookExpo America

I will be participating in the 2007 BookExpo America, which will be held May 31-June 3 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. This will be my first book expo, which is billed as "the premier event serving the U.S. book publishing industry."

Zzzzzz ... uh? Yes, I'm at work!

Sitting in front of a computer all day (not to be confused with Otis Redding's "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay") isn't that glamorous. In fact, it's pretty easy to relax, lose focus on what you are typing slightly, hIT teh wrogn keys, and ... er, what was I saying?

Oh yes, the issue of people falling asleep at their cubes. Wouldn't it be nice to have nap time? At least in New Jersey, bosses aren't enamored with the notion of providing beds for employees.

Missing: the talking paper clip

Microsoft Office 2007 is missing one minor annoyance, er, ingredient that everyone commonly refers to as "Clippy." Yes folks, I'm talking about the talking paper clip, which ranks up there with file folders and the cubicle as the greatest workplace inventions in the history of ... um ... the workplace.

Public broadcasting in danger of losing its funding

George W. Bush is trying - yet again - to slash funding for NPR and PBS. This week, Bush proposed a new budget with devastating cuts to public broadcasting. "Sesame Street" and other ad-free kids' shows are under the knife. So is the independent journalism our country needs.

Enough is enough. We've fought this fight before and won - but we can't afford the risk anymore. With the new Congress, we can make sure this never happens again. We need Congress to insulate NPR and PBS from the political winds.

From the Archive

Writing this column has taught me many things

I have learned a lot from writing this tech column. I have learned enough to write a column about what I've learned from writing a column.

Many times, I'll start to make something up, and then realize I could find the right answer. Of course, I hope you want to be entertained, but I'm sure you would also like to learn. So here are the top 15 things I've learned so far:

ILOVEYOU -- here are eight million e-mails

Maybe I'm in a small minority, but I'm still confused how so many people are duped every so often by an e-mail virus. Let's take this step by step:

A guy walks into his workspace at 7:30 a.m., preparing for another exciting day of whatever. He opens his inbox to find 50 e-mails -- 45 promising him to lose weight, financial freedom or cheap Viagra four from actual friends, probably chain letters and one other with a subject header of "Open repeatedly, this is not a virus," which of course is from virusdemon@viruscentral.com.

Target sued because of bad website

In case you missed it, the National Federation of the Blind recently won a reasonably large lawsuit against Target, claiming that Target.com did not meet minimal standards for people using screen access technology. While I normally side with the little guy over big corporations, there are a number of ridiculous things involved with this ruling, so I'll try to point out each one individually.

New website for Baltimore charter school

If you're a frequent visitor to this site, you've probably noticed that the last few months have been a little short on news. One of the reasons for this is because I just changed jobs, but the bigger reason is that I've been finishing a website for a charter school here in Baltimore. Well, it's finally live at sbcschool.org. It's nothing flashy, but there are a bunch of pictures and info about the school, which has been opened for only four years.

Sometimes predictions are wrong

It's mildly amusing to me how people -- the media, your next-door neighbor, the waving chicken mascot on the corner of your street -- will make it a point to remind you how right they were about something they predicted. Maybe they picked Florida to win the men's NCAA basketball championship, or maybe they picked Taylor to win "American Idol." But it's interesting to note how hardly anyone reminds you about a wrong prediction.

Powered by Drupal