The Pragmatic Programmer

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these # instructions.
• Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Done on the blogs of Justin Lilly, Brian Rosner, Barbara Shaurette, James Tauber, and Eric Florenzano as well.

[Update] I've bailed on MT4. I'll update in another post about why I've gone this route.

I think It's been about three years now since I was first introduced to Moleskine notebooks. If I remember correctly, it was about the same time I adopted GTD and was reading 43 Folders regularly. They are sexy little notebooks available in a number of styles for writers and artists alike. Personally, I use the Moleskine ruled notebook for client notes and the Moleskine sketchbook for the obvious - sketches.

Personally, I think the plain black cover is perfect the way it is. However, engraveyourbook.com is offering engraving services for Moleskines. You can have the cover and spine engraved to your liking with either Helvetica or use an uploaded image.

If you are endowed with artistic ability, you can submit up to three images for consideration to be used as stock designs for the covers. Currently they have four stock designs available. I'm sure that will expand rapidly. In my opinion this is a cool idea. I doubt I would order one with a cover engraving but the spine would come in handy. And Helvetica is just as sexy as the Moleskine notebooks.

The list of domains here were sent to me and have probably been circulating around the internet, but it's a good case in point. The funny thing, I've been on the second one a few times over many years, more by fault of Google, but it never even dawned on me.

1. "Who Represents" is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Their Web site is:

www.whorepresents.com

2. "Experts Exchange" is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at:

www.expertsexchange.com

3. Looking for a great pen? Look no further than "Pen Island". It can be found at:

www.penisland.net

4. Need a therapist? Try "Therapist Finder" at:

www.therapistfinder.com

5. Then there's the "Italian Power Generator" company. Check it out at:

www.powergenitalia.com

6."IP computer" software, there's always:

www.ip_anywhere.com

7. "The First Cumming Methodist Church" Web site is:

www.cummingfirst.com

8. And the designers at "Speed of Art" await you at their wacky Web site:

www.speedofart.com

I simply have no time for an unstable typo blog and have tired of updating multiple sites. If you find any issues outside of some formatting problems with some old posts (i'm working on those) let me know in the comments.

It's amazing to see so many people kicking a man when he's down. Not everyone gets insurance handed to them on a silver platter and for self-employed individuals (like me) it's hard to pay the high bills for medical insurance. I'm not sure what Joe's situation is, but I wouldn't wish that on the devil.

http://joekral.needshelp.org/

Send him your chump change or buy a font from him. Veer will get it to him. A little alot goes a long way. And if you disagree with the situation, keep it to yourself!

Surely, if you are a programmer or computer professional, then you get asked all the time to diagnose or fix a problematic computer for someone else. While this is fine and is more of a testament to your abilities, it might sometimes gets under your skin. If you're like me, you almost always abide and then promise yourself to consult Mr. Webster on the meaning of the word 'no' when you're done.

My wife went shopping the other day and came back with this shirt, which suits me perfectly. Before you ask me to sell you one, go filter through the shirts at Kohls.

It might not be your restaurants fault! It seems the credit card terminals and software being sold to restaurants has a feature enabled which automatically authorizes your bill + 20% tip. Most restaurants are not even aware that this happens so i would suggest notifying your restaurant if this does happen, since they do have the ability to have this feature turned off.

Here is a great article pertaining to this issue.

Read the suggestions at the bottom of the article, such as, if you left a cash tip i suggest drawing a line through the tip line to make your intentions clear. Since 20% is being authorized, if you didn't leave the waitress a tip do to horrific service and you left the tip line blank, there have been circumstance where they are giving themselves 15% and more tips by filling in your line for you.

Remember to the bank, Debit Cards used ans Visa/MC are not viewed any differently than a normal Credit Card so they will hold your money all the same.