Make Your Own Web Site for the Older Generation

At work, when I moved over to the web side of operations full time, I inherited lots of bits and bobs from our departing web editor.

One of these was a book titled How to Make Your Own Web Site for the Older Generation.

Unfortunately, the "for the older generation" part of the title refers to the book itself, not to any websites that might be built using it. In other words, it doesn't tell me how to build a website that appeals to OAPs.

(The cover of my copy is identical to the one pictured, except that mine has "Web Site" in the title instead of "Website".)

'Food photography for visual purposes only'

My colleague Clutchslip has sent me this:



It's very difficult to make out, but the small text underneath the coffee mug reads: "Food photography for visual purposes only."

So there you go - you're not allowed to sniff or eat the photo.

Headlines: 'Bizarre cricket caught on camera'

The sixth headline in this BBC News 'Most Popular Stories Now' widget confused me briefly:


Bizarre cricket? Could the Beeb mean Twenty20?

(OK, here's the real story.)

Tools to tile images and create PDFs

Here are a couple of really handy web-based tools that I discovered recently and now use regularly at work:

• PrimoPDF Free Online PDF Creator

Upload a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document and this tool will convert it into a PDF and email it back to you. It's free - you don't even have to sign up. Much easier than firing up Acrobat.

• Block Posters

This tool is designed to help you "create any size wall posters from any size images", but I use it to print off screengrabs of websites when they won't fit on to one sheet of paper. Basically, Block Posters 'slices' your image up into page-sized tiles and then turns these into a PDF for you to download and print. My only criticism is that it doesn't accept .PNG files.

Icy playground shortages

From a BBC News article today:


I didn't know the UK was suffering from icy playground shortages!

'Indicative of fecal contamination'

Have a look at this (particularly unpleasant) headline and standfirst, and then have a look at the full story on WESH.com.



First, the headline: "Human waste found in soda fountains". Well, the body copy says the fountains "contained coliform bacteria, which is a group indicative of fecal contamination". But it doesn't say anything about actual human waste being found.

And then the standfirst: "Virginia researchers find 70 percent of drinks contaminated". The body copy says "nearly half of all beverages" contained the bacteria - so where does this figure of 70% fit in?

Incidentally, the story refers to "a study" carried out by "experts" and "researchers", and also indirectly quotes "microbiologists". Names and details, please!

AP headline unleashes emotions

I saw this Associated Press headline on the New York Times website today, and I'm not that keen:



"Civilian deaths unleash emotions in Afghanistan" - which emotions? Awe? Lust? Joy?

Of course not, but it wouldn't hurt to be a bit more specific.

Twitter + wine = Witter?

I saw this on Twitter and it confused me somewhat:


"A Twitter winemaking project for literacy around the world"? I couldn't see the connection between winemaking and literacy, or indeed winemaking and Twitter.

But according to the Fledgling Wine website:

The Fledgling Initiative aims to make awesome wine for the benefit of Room to Read, a non-profit organization extending literacy and educational opportunities to children worldwide. Every case sold will provide approximately 60 local language children’s books and promote education in the world’s poorest regions.

So that's the connection between literacy and winemaking. I'm not entirely sure where Twitter fits in, but the introduction on the Fledgling Wine website is written by Biz Stone and Evan Williams, two of the co-founders of Twitter, so I'm guessing there's a very close link.

Of course, a premisis

Yesterday my colleague Clutchslip sent me an email with the subject 'Today's new word':

Just reading about an aspiring brewer who decided that what he needed was “of course, a premisis to brew in.”

Of course!

Now Clutchslip didn't want to embarrass the brewer so I won't do any naming and shaming either (feel free to Google, though).

But I can say that 'premisis' isn't that new a word, at least judging by this GrammarBlog post.