Questions that need to be asked about Lousiana’s response to Katrina

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This is best statement I’ve seen yet on the ineptitude with which Hurricane Katrina evacuation and recovery were handled.

After things calm down, and the memory of all this begins to fade, I hope no one forgets to ask these questions:

Why were no means of evacuation other than the SuperDome provided for those too poor or infirm to leave? These were not people who were set on remaining in their homes no matter what. They all flocked to the SuperDome for lack of a better plan.

Even if we accept the lack of leadership in facilitating the evacuation, when it quickly became obvious that the SuperDome was no longer a viable facility for the thousands of people inside – why did it still take a WEEK to get them out? Even though people were actually dying inside.

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Issues with Shared Excel and Word files on Novell servers

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I’ve been using a shared Novell drive to collaborate with a team. We use Excel and Word files, and I’ve attempted to make them “shareable”. Quite often the file will work for a while, then “lose” its shareable attribute.

To make an excel file shareable on a Novell server, you have to do two things.

Open the file, select “Tools: Shared Workbook”. Check “Allow changes by more than one user at the same time.”

Removesharedusers

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Adding Narration to Powerpoint

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Preparation:

  1. You will need to purchase a microphone or a headset Microphone. I recommend the Plantronics USB headset mics, LISTED HERE. I use the Plantronics DSP 400, but the less expensive ones work well also.
  2. Find a quiet room, preferably one with no air-conditioning or heating blower hum, and no other ambient noises. If you work in an older building this can be a challenge, enough so you may want to consider doing the recording elsewhere.
  3. Prepare a script for your narration. Run through it once or twice, to eliminate “umms” and “errr’s” in your rendition.
  4. Plug in the microphone, and if you are using Windows, you will also need to install the software that comes with it, and restart. On a Mac, simply plug in the mic, then select System Preferences from the Apple menu or the Dock, select
  5. If you haven’t already, create your Powerpoint slides.
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CSS: table-layout:fixed keeps Netscape 7 in line

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Netscape 7 was squashing some table cells down, ignoring widths I had specified in the css.

The code for the table:

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Google vs. AskJeeves

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A 1-round search battle

I recently read that AskJeeves (now “ask.com”) would be making some changes to try to reclaim some market share from Google. I hadn’t used that site in a while, so I decided to test it against Google. I came up with one of those questions that rattle around in my head:

How do they train oil tanker captains?

Ask.com Results (click to enlarge)

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