Raise your hand if you’re guilty of this: You write a document using MS Word or another word processing program, and you leave it up to the spell check feature to catch misspellings and typos. I think we are all guilty of this at one point or another.

Relying only on spell check is a recipe for disaster, and I think most readers out there would agree. But sometimes laziness overtakes us, so it’s good to remember that there is no substitute for good old-fashioned proofreading.

Spell check is still a useful tool…

I view spell check as a double-edged sword. On one hand, it does pick out and highlight misspelled words. This can be particularly useful for drafts of long documents when you want to be able to make quick corrections for easy errors (i.e. typos, etc).

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Today we celebrated Earth Hour – where people around the world turned off the lights for one hour in a worldwide symbolic vote for Earth! At 8:30pm the lights in my house went on, and a few candles were lit so I wouldn’t trip over the cat. The entire city of Chicago also took part in Earth Hour.

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I am currently reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aff link) by Philip K. Dick. While I’m finding it to be a very interesting and entertaining read, I chuckle at the use of a mixture of futuristic technology with old-school "technology" from the 1960s.

The future technology Dick uses is quite interesting; especially the very human-like androids that can be almost impossible to distinguish from real humans. And, the fact that android animals also play a prominent role in the character’s lives is interesting. The main character, Rick Deckard, has a fake sheep he keeps as a pet. The sheep looks and acts like a real thing, but is a total fake.

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What an exciting week this has been! The biggest news, on a personal note, is that I became an uncle for the first time this week. My brother and his wife welcomed a beautiful new baby boy into the world. I can’t wait to see my nephew later on this summer!

That big news pretty much overshadowed everything else. The rest of the week has been the same old stuff; work, write, sleep, work, write… You get the idea.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this week’s installment of Friday Link Love. There’s a lot of good reading here, so try to click on all these links! And as always, have a happy and safe weekend!

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Today, the Federal Trade Commission began a conference in Seattle, WA to discuss digital rights management – aka DRM. While no policy shift changes were announced, I was pleased to read via this post on Ars Technica what one FTC official had to say as a warning to companies that use DRM:

Mary Engle, an FTC Acting Deputy Director, began her remarks by warning that those who use DRM had better get serious about disclosing it and the limits that it places on products. She referenced the Sony BMG rootkit debacle, saying that "sellers who use DRM technology to enforce the terms of bargains with consumers need to be particularly careful to disclose in advance" what those bargains are.

Isn’t that what the fine print is for, to disclose shady terms to consumers without actually expecting the consumer to read about the shady terms and conditions associated with DRM. According to Ms. Engle, that is not acceptable:

And just stuffing the disclosure into the fine print of an End User License Agreement (EULA) isn’t good enough. "If your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away," she said, "don’t be surprised if the FTC comes calling."

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I decided it’s about time to post another installment of my Link Love Leftovers, as I can’t remember the last time I did this. For those of you who are new, Link Love Leftovers is all the links that didn’t make it into my regular Friday Link Love.

The links are still awesome and provide great reading, but for one reason or another, just don’t make it into the post on Fridays (usually because I already have a link from the same blog or too many links about one subject or another). I also bookmark a lot more stuff than I could ever post for Friday Link Love.

Since it has been a while, some of these links go way back, but I think you’ll enjoy them nevertheless. Happy reading!

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Here in the United States, poetry doesn’t get much attention. Books of poetry hardly every make the bestseller list (I can’t think the last time one did, if ever). And most poets can only survive by teaching or holding some other job. But in the Arab world, poetry is very popular and even big business.

I guess you can say poetry is to the Arab world that music is to the US. So today, when I was listening to my daily mix of podcasts I subscribe to, I was very interested in this NPR Books podcast that talks about Arab poetry and its relation to culture and religion (the Quran, Islam’s holy book, is seen as the height of Arab poetry).

Even if you don’t normally listen to podcasts or subscribe to them, this episode is well worth your time, and it’s only about 6 minutes long. Enjoy!

This story is making the rounds pretty quickly on the intertubes this morning: Sylvia Plaths son has reportedly committed suicide by hanging himself, according to this CNN article. As most of you probably know, Sylvia Plath was the very tragic poet who gassed herself to death (in the oven) in 1963.

Nicholas Hughes was a marine biologist working in Alaska and has been suffering from depression:

Frieda Hughes, a poet, author and artist, said in a statement to the newspaper: "It is with profound sorrow that I must announce the death of my brother, Nicholas Hughes, who died by his own hand on Monday March 16, 2009 at his home in Alaska.

"He had been battling depression for some time."

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Today I was browsing my local bookstore and happened to overhear something that made me shake my head in disbelief. A young girl (probably a teen) was with her mom, and the girl said:

"I didn’t know Fitzgerald wrote Benjamin Button"

I almost ripped my hair out right then and there out of sheer frustration. The girl was, of course, referring to the special-edition book The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (aff link) that was released to coincide with the movie (which I have not seen yet). The story was originally written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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Today is not only Friday, but it’s also the first day of spring! Even though winter is officially over, however, I’m still going to assume the Chicago area could possibly get another snow storm or two before the weather really starts to warm up. Never underestimate Chicago weather!

That said, I am really enjoying the warmer temperatures. During my college days I’d sit outside between classes and read during this time of year. Ah, memories!

Anyway, at least it’s Friday and there’s two days of unbridled freedom ahead of us. As always, have a happy and safe weekend!

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