Every pundit, blogger, correspondent, presidential candidate, reporter, scam artist, and all of their mothers, have something to say about Saddam. Here's our roundup of what they're spouting: from capture to trial to conspiracy theories, it's all in Saddamania!!! (well, a lot of it anyway). 
#  30.12.2003

 Okay, it's officially the last minute and you forgot to get your sister's roommate a gift. You're going to their holiday party tonight and you can't show up empty handed. What do you do? Fear not gentle bloggers, you'll have a great gift. ->The gift of blog. (it is powered by blogger, but could be easely adapted to your favorite web content manager). 
#  24.12.2003

 If you do not have in mind yet some good resolutions for 2004, Useit.com's ->Jakob Nielsen (->the king of usability) is here for you:"Many of this year's top design mistakes actually indicate a happy phenomenon: we are making progress in Web usability. Now that sites are doing certain things correctly, we get hit by second-order phenomena that only cause problems because users have progressed past the first-order issues.". And here comes the ->Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003.

Between you and me, I still have to update Yabon design to conform to point 10 (Pages That Link to Themselves) because this page has a link to itself. I let you find it...  
#  23.12.2003

 The online journal ->First Monday offers a great study which helps to understand how software license fees are an insuperable barrier to the technological development of the poor countries.

The study compares the licence fees with a country's GDP per capita and notes that: "even after software price discounts, the price tag for proprietary software is enormous in purchasing power terms. The price of a typical, basic proprietary toolset required for any ICT infrastructure, Windows XP together with Office XP, is US$560 in the U.S. [2]. This is over 2.5 months of GDP/capita in South Africa and over 16 months of GDP/capita in Vietnam. This is the equivalent of charging a single-user licence fee in the U.S. of US$7,541 and US$48,011 respectively, which is clearly unaffordable."This simple calculation is presented within a table for 176 countries, together with 10 geographical and political aggregates. The table also includes the piracy figures published by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), read more about ->The case for open source in developing countries. 
#  23.12.2003

 Some days ago, I mentioned Belle de jour, a self-described diary of a london call girl. I want to congratulat belle for being elected as the guardian's best of British blogging, best written category.

"Archly transgressive, anonymous hooker is definitely manipulating the blog medium, word by word, sentence by sentence far more effectively than any of her competitors. It's not merely the titillating striptease aspects that are working for her, but her willingness to use this new form of vanity publishing to throw open a great big global window on activities previously considered unmentionable ... She is in a league by herself as a blogger."

I couldn't agree more with this. I found another sub-title for her blog: Belle-de-jour, a blogging phantasm... 
#  23.12.2003

 ->Linux gazette is an on-line WWW publication dedicated to making Linux just a little more fun and sharing ideas and discoveries. Linux Gazette is part of my monthly reading on Linux. Recently, they have updated the layout of the web site. You can still have a look at their ->past layout (it was there for years). Here is the copy of mail I sent to the publisher regarding the new layout:

Am I completely  wrong when I think that part of the 
new layout for linuxgazette.com is based on the
Blueroot's layout reservoir 
(http://www.bluerobot.com/web/layouts/).
If this is not wrong, then it seems to me that you
are violating bluerobot's recommendations about their
layouts, which are:


       Please feel free to borrow, steal, abduct, and/or
       torture the documents contained in the Layout
       Reservoir. Though you need not give credit to
       BlueRobot.com, a comment in your source code
       would help other developers to find this resource.
       Enjoy.


After a quick look around (in the source code, css
stylesheet and in the copyright section of the site),
I was just wondering if I was right or not snce I do
not see any reference to the layout reservoir.

Thank you for reading me and keep up the good job
(by the way, I enjoy the new layout... )

You can have a look at the BlueRobot.com ->layout reservoir and make your own opinion. The ->simple two column layout with the standard left-side menu. was used as the base layout for scs. I'm waiting for their reaction and I'll report here. 
#  11.12.2003

 Here are, for your viewing pleasure only, the 10 ->Worst Album Covers Ever. If you really enjoyed it, have a look at ->Worster Album Covers Ever II. Zip zap rap, it was just a quick monday link...) 
#  08.12.2003

 In the list of my daily readings, I've just added a very interesting one. This is a quite surprising blog, very well written and a bit surrounded by mistery: ->Belle de Jour, diary of a london call girl [no offending material]. Give it a try... 
#  05.12.2003

 There is something great with all the scams I've recieved. I start to be a Guru in almost every military mutiny which happend in Africa these last years (and God knows there are a lot of them in Africa). This time, I'm pleased to introduce Mister Dominique Boga Doudou, beloved son of Emile Boga Doudou (RIP), former Interior minister of Ivory coast killed during the september 2002 rebellion. I'm just a bit disappointed that the fund of mister doudou is decreasing very quickly. Indeed, in ->september 2002, the fund was estimated to THIRTY TWO MILLION DOLLARS ($32.000,000.00) and is now only estimated FIFTEEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS (this being the very last of his family fund in his possession and control). Since scams is driving most of the trafic to this page, here is another one:

 FROM:MR DOMINIQUE BOGA DOUDOU
IVORY COAST (ABIDJAN)
DEAR SIR/MADAM,
I WILL LIKE TO BEGIN BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION.MY NAME IS
MR.DOMINIQUE BOGA DOUDOU, SON OF THE EXINTERIOR MINISTER
OF COTE D' IVOIRE, POPULARLY KNOW AS IVORY COAST IN THE
WEST AFRICA SUB REGION, WHO WAS SHOT DEAD ON 19TH
SEPTEMBER, 2002 BY MULTINEER GROUP, FOLLOWING THE
MILLITARY MUTINY IN THE SOVEIRGN STATE.(PLEASE VISIT
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/africa/09/21/ivory/index.html
FOR COMPLETE REPORT ON THIS INCIDENT.).
I CONTACTED YOU, HENCES, OF MY NEED TO DEAL WITH 
PERSONS WHOM MY FAMILY RELATIVES AND I HAVE HAD NO
PREVIOUS PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH. SINCE THE DEATH
OF MY FATHER, I HAVE BEING SUBJECTED TO ALL KINDOF
HARRASMENT AND INTIMIDATIONS WITH LOT OF NEGATIVES
REPORTS EMANATING FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PRESS
ABOUT MY FAMILY.THE EVIL ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT 
LAURENT GBAGBO HAS ALSO ENSURED THAT ALL OUR BANK
ACCOUNTS FROZEN AND ASSETS BEING SEIZED.
IT IS IN VIEW OF THIS, THAT I AM PLEADING FOR YOUR
FULL CO-OPERATION AND ASSISTANCE AS A BENEFICIARY IN
SECUREING THE SUM OF(US$15.5 M) FIFTEEN MILLION, FIVE
HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS, BEING THE VERY LAST OF MY
FAMILY FUND.
MY ONLY HOPE NOW, IS THIS CASH, MY FATHER CAREFULLY
PACKAGED AND DEPOSITED AS ARTIFACTS WITH A
SECURITY /FINANCE COMPANY OUTSIDE IVORY COAST.AS IF HE
FORESAW THE LOOMING CRISIS IN MY COUNTRY.CAN EASILY BE
WITHDRAWN OR PAID TO A RECOMMENDED BENEFICIARY.YOU ARE
TO BE PRESENTED AS MY FATHER BUSINESS PARTNER WHO WILL
BE FRONTING FOR US IN SUBSEQUENT VENTURES. AND IN TRUTH
YOU WILL BE FRONTING FOR ME, IN THE AREAS OF BUSINESS
YOU DEEM PROFITABLE.
TO SHOW MY APPRECIATION IN TRANSACTING THIS BUSINESS
WITH YOU, 20% OF THE TOTAL SUM HAVE BEING GENEROUSLY SET
ASIDE FOR YOU, 5% SET ASIDE FOR ANY EVENTUAL COST THAT
MIGHT ARISE IN THE CAUSE OF THIS TRANSACTION, WHILE THE
BANLANCE 75% IS TO BE INVESTED ON VIABLE BUSINESS, BY
YOU IN FAVOUR OF ME AND FAMILY.
I NEED YOUR FULL SUPPORT AND CO-OPERATION FOR THE SUCCESS
OF THIS VENTURE. I PLEAD WITH YOU TO TREAT AS URGENT AND
CONFIDENTIAL. THIS IS A DELICATE ISSUE, WHICH DEMANDS A
GREAT DEGREE OF SECRECY. HAVE MY CURRENT POLITICAL STATUS
IN MIND.
FORWARD YOUR REPLY TO MY PRIVATE MAIL ADRESS
(dominiboga@netscape.net) SO THAT I CAN PROVIDE YOU WITH
MORE CLERIFICATION ABOUT IT ALL. THANK YOU FOR YOUR 
CO OPERATION WHILE I AWAIT YOUR URGENT RESPONSE WITH YOUR
FULL CONTACT DETAILS.

YOURS SINCERELY,
MR DOMINIQUE
F/FAMILY. 

 
#  04.12.2003

 Imagine a Web site which offers nearly 80 sites to start an individual blog, and includes links and brief descriptions of each source. A site which also includes blogging tools, news sources, text ad sites, and syndicated news. A web site where Bloggers can also keep themselves current on new developments by reading... a blog. Stop dreaming, this site is ->Peter Scott's Weblog Compendium and his related ->Compendium's blog. Hey, ->Carl, ->Icogs is not yet listed in the blog tool category! 
#  02.12.2003

 Say hello to the ->lemmings [low geek culture required]. Now remember what you did this morning... 
#  01.12.2003