When I first heard about the Gloucester, Massachusetts high school girls who made a pact to become pregnant and to raise their children together, I wasn’t surprised by the media reaction to this Time story. Some reporters pulled a knee-jerk response that called for more birth control and sex education. The reaction from other writers is to criticize the previous reactions and to call for more discipline, a stronger sense of responsibility, and no public funds used to support any of the girls. As one article stated bluntly, “They made their ‘choice,’ and they can live with the consequences.”

My initial reaction to the Time story was, “It takes a village.” While a few friends thought my reaction was funny, I didn’t intend it as a joke. In fact, this pact reminded me of my time spent in a little town in Colorado, where I belonged to a group of families that took this philosophy seriously. Kids were dropped off at one family’s house, sometimes for days at a time while their parents went to Denver or off to some remote mountain top. In exchange, the host parents felt free to leave their children with other families to go off for a few days. The kids felt at home in over a dozen residences in that town. And, they knew that love - as well as discipline - was the same across the board. No manipulation allowed!

So, when I read the Time article and the subsequent media fallout, I wondered what prompted these seventeen teens to initiate this pact. Where they trying to build community? Or, was this decision a result of delusional and immature thinking? The teens and their parents decline to be interviewed. Instead, psychologists, school officials and other authority figures feel obligated to express their reasons for the pact. The high school clinic nurse, Kim Daly, stated that, “This is a community that is very much struggling…Some probably see this as something to do…Having a baby gives them an identity.” And, from the same story, Superintendent Christopher Farmer told the Gloucester School Committee that, “This is a community problem.”

But, what is this community like, and what, exactly, is the problem?

Read on, mon cher! »

Posted by Linda at 3:47 AM PDT

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A few months ago, the company I work for released a Google Gadget for iGoogle for creating a simple CD label. But is this cool, Worldlabel.com released a Widget for the Apple Mac on Friday and is now a Dashboard Widgets featured download.

A special thanks to Brad Anderson of goglobalgadget.com/ for developing the widget.

Posted by Russell at 6:37 PM PDT

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Yes, my company’s Adwords account was kidnapped. Its one of those things, you know. I was “laid back,” got this email, and although I thought is was a bit weird, it looked very official. I thought it had something to do with the Yahoo Search Marketing and Google advertising deal. The email address had YSM in it, so - like an idiot - I clicked through. The whole story can be read on blogoscoped.com The story had to come out so others don’t fall for the same trap.

The GREAT thing here is that this “phishing” and hacking of my account caused some kind of “filter” to stop all my ads running immediately, so no ads were delivered to the spammer. This is an excellent tool and should be highlighted, and Google should be given full credit.

If you happen to get one of these emails send the info to Adwords support.

UPDATE

 1. Don’t reply to, or click links within, emails that ask for personal, financial, or account information.
 2. Check the message headers. The ‘From:’ address and the ‘Return-path’ should reference the same source.
 3. Instead of clicking the links in emails, go to the websites directly by typing the web address into your browser, cut and paste, or use
bookmarks.
 4. If on a secure page, look for “https” at the beginning of the URL and the padlock icon in the browser.
 5. Use a browser that has a phishing filter (Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Opera).
 6. Use strong passwords. A strong password should be unique; include letters, numbers, and symbols; and be changed regularly.
 7. To protect your computer from malware, keep your computer’s antivirus, spyware, browser, and security patches up to date and regularly run system scans. If you need more information about software that can help detect and remove malware from your computer, please visit http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=8091&topic=13929.

Posted by Russell at 4:42 PM PDT

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by Dmitri Popov

Let’s say you wrote a tutorial on using a software application, and you would like to use a proper arrow symbol to separate menu items, for example: Tool Option OpenOffice.org. A quick solution to the problem is to create a replacement rule that replaces, for example, the “” string with a proper arrow symbol. To do this, you have to find the arrow symbol first, and Wikipedia can help you with this. The following Wikipedia pages contain not only arrows, but also other symbols you might find useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_%28symbol%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_symbols

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscellaneous_Technical_%28Unicode%29

Locate the right arrow symbol, select and copy it into the clipboard. In OpenOffice.org, choose Tools ? AutoCorrect, and click on the Replace tab. Enter “” (sans quotes) in the Replace field, and paste the arrow symbol into the With field. Press the New button to create the specified replacement rule. Switch to the Options tab, and make sure that the Use replacement table option is enabled. Press OK, type ““, press Enter, and the string will be replaced with the arrow symbol.click on the Replace tab. Enter “” (sans quotes) in the Replace field, and paste the arrow symbol into the With field. Press the New button to create the specified replacement rule. Switch to the Options tab, and make sure that the Use replacement table option is enabled. Press OK, type ““, press Enter, and the string will be replaced with the arrow symbol.

Creating a replacement rule is one way to go. Another solution is to write a simple OpenOffice.org Basic macro, which inserts a specified symbol into the current document. To do this, you have to find the ASCII code for the desired symbol first. To take care of this, you can use the following simple macro:

SubConvertToASCII
Symbol=InputBox("Enter symbol or character:", "Convert to ASCII")
ASCIICode=Asc(Symbol)
MsgBox "The ASCII code for the entered symbol is: " & ASCIICode
End Sub

Copy the desired symbol (e.g., right arrow) from the Wikipedia page, run the macro, and paste the symbol into the input field. Press OK, and the macro displays the ASCII code of the pasted symbol. For example, the ASCII code for the right arrow is 8594, and you can use it in the macro that inserts the specified special character or symbol into the currently opened document:

Sub InsertUnicodeCharacter

ThisDoc = ThisComponent
Controller = ThisDoc.getCurrentController()
TextCursor = Controller.getViewCursor()

Character = Chr("8594")

TextCursor.setString(Character)
TextCursor.goRight(1, false)

End Sub

If you want the macro to insert any other symbol or character, you can do so by replacing the 8594 part with the appropriate ASCII code.

by Dmitri Popov of Nothickmanuals.info

PS: WordPress (or this particular template) isn’t allowing us to type the actual code for the arrow, even with the ‘code’ attribute. Therefore, we used images to replace the arrow code to relay Dmitri’s message.

Posted by FA Editors at 9:57 AM PDT

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