Here’s a list of tips, tricks for the Amazon Kindle. These have been checked on a Global Kindle (software version 2.5) They may work on the original Kindle and Kindle DX and the new version 3 UK Kindles.
Keyboard Shortcuts: For a quick game, press Alt+Shift+M – Start a game of Minesweeper. While in the Kindle Minesweeper game you can press G for a version of “Reversi”

To take a screenshot: Alt-Shift-G – Take a screenshot of the currently displayed screen. A .GIF file will be created in the \documents folder (plug the Kindel into your computer to see them).

Hope this adds even more to the entertainment value of your Kindle.

I’ve recently got involved in assisting a couple of people with their web sites.

However pretty they are, some basic problems seem to be repeating themselves in simple technical aspects of web site construction.

So, here are a few top tips:

1. Make sure that the site can be reached with both www. and non-www urls. e.g. you can get to this site as http://www.dragonthoughts.com/blog or http://dragonthoughts.com/blog. I’ve seen a lot of sites, including some IT contract agencies, who don’t do this and show an error page instead for one form of the URL.

   Why is it important for your web site to work with www and non-www?
   Some people think they need to type in the www, others omit it, but if a customer reaches an error page, saying that the site isn’t there, then they may move onto another web site that does work.

2. When you register alternative domain names, to protect them for the future, they should all take you to the relevant web site, e.g. http://iwoty.com leads to the same site as http://ImWorseOffThanYou.com as well as http://ImWorseOffThanYou.co.uk etc. Many registrars leave them pointing to default page that their host uses for advertising their hosting services, instead.

World Business guide appears to be a new version of the European City Guide Scam. This particular one arrives as a spam email, asking a company “To update your company profile … complete and return this form (UPDATING IS FREE OF CHARGE). Only sign if you want to place an insertion.”

“World Business Guide” place a lot of emphasis on the fre update, but not on the fact that signing and faxing their document will bind the

The signing of this document represents the acceptance of the following conditions and the conditions stated in “the terms and Conditions for insertion” on webpage: www.world-businessguide.com. The signing is legally binding and gives you the right of an insertion In the online data base of the world business guide, which can be accessed via the internet. A cd rom with worldwide businesses is Granted, all in accordance with the contract conditions stated in “the terms and conditions for insertion” on webpage: www.worldbusinessguide.Com. The validation time of the contract is three years and starts on the eighth day after signing the contract. The insertion Is granted after signing and receiving this document by the service provider. I hereby order a subscription with service provider International directories ltd “world business guide”. I will have an insertion into its data base for three years. The price per year is euro 995. The subscription will be automatically extended every year for another year, unless specific written notice is received by the service Provider or the subscriber two months before the expiration of the subscription. Your data will be recorded. The place of jurisdiction In any dispute arising is the service provider’s address. The agreement between the service provider and the subscriber is governed by the Conditions stated in “the terms and conditions for insertion” on webpage: www.world-businessguide. com

The spam was sent from nfo@bestorganization4you.com

World Business Guide’s apparent contact details are is

For some reason the business uses a PO Box, rather than their own business address.

But it is worth noting that “The World Business Guide is a product of International Directories Group Ltd., C/ Azcona, 58, local · BOX 252 · 28028 · MADRID · SPAIN” which again are reluctant to provide a real address. Also they apparently were once EU Business Services Ltd Trading As World Business Directory but have changed their name.

They registered the domain name wbgtoday. com in April 2009, under the following address

It has been identified by other businesses as being a scam.

I recently had a go at a simplified Myers Briggs Test
The results were:

Your Type is ENFJ
Extraverted Intuitive Feeling Judging
Strength of the preferences %
11 88 25 33

Qualitative analysis of your type formula

You are:

* slightly expressed extravert
* very expressed intuitive personality
* moderately expressed feeling personality
* moderately expressed judging personality

In my capacity as an invited expert to the world wide web consortium (with specialisation in internationalisation, I had some involvement in the creation of the specifications of, “Requirements for Japanese Text Layout” a technical document amounting to around 174 pages in the English edition and almost 200 pages in Japanese. This is now a definitive guide for Japanese text layout, both on the web and in paper form. It was formally published on 4th June 2009. Unfortunately, I didn’t contribute enough to get editorial credit

As Richard Ishida said,

This document describes requirements for Japanese layout realized with technologies like CSS, SVG and XSL-FO. For non-Japanese speakers it provides access for the first time to a wealth of detailed and authoritative information about Japanese typesetting. The document is mainly based on a standard for Japanese layout, JIS X 4051 and was written by key contributors to that standard. However, it also addresses areas which are not covered by JIS X 4051.

Microsoft’s latest incarnation of its web browser, Internet Explorer Version 8, is being rolled out and taaking a stranglehold on innocent windows Computers everywhere.

As has become the custom for Microsoft browsers, the upgrade(?) makes its presence felt. Even if users have removed previous Internet Explorer startup icons from their quick start bar on Windows Vista or Windows XP, the upgrade enforces its resurrection.

To make things even worse for people who have chosen to use Firefox, Chrome, Opera or other high quality browsers that they have actively chosen to use, IE 8 tries to hijack windows PCs. Upon starting up IE8, it imports user settings from Firefox and comes to a choice of “Express” or “Custom” settings. Unfortunately, embedded in the “Custom settings” is a clause to Hijack user preferences for another browser. When choose “Express”, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 always becomes the “Default browser”.

The implication of this hi-jack is that many users’ choices to use non-Microsoft products are actively ignored, by an automated upgrade. Many users may have difficulty switching back to their chosen product. And why should they have to actively remake a choice that they have already made.

Internet Explorer may be an improvement on it’s predecessors, but the forced switch over to it being the default browser shows Microsoft’s continued arrogance, that nobody should be allowed to choose to use non-Microsoft products, and those who do will continually have to make additional efforts to keep to their choice.

I’ve finally put together my own application for The Best Job in the World.

I appreciate that the video is not a slick as some and that I’m not a bikini clad young lady, but I do possess the actual skill set that is required for the post. I’m also a stills photographer, rather than a video editor.

I have been very please to see that Dr Thomas McAuley,  Academic Tutor for Sheffield University’s Japanese Distance Learning,   has started a blog tying together threads from his Japanese experiences. The blog is for eltnews.com, a Japanese web site for English Teachers in Japan, but is publicly available.

Dr Thomas McAuley no longer lives in Japan but has been teaching Japanese language and studies for more than fifteen years.

I wish his blog well and will follow it closely.

A flaw in the stylesheet at www.islandreefjob.com seems to prevent Firefox from loading the job application videos cleanly.

Although the promoters of “The best job in the world” in Queensland Australia seem to have fixed most of their problems, it appears that the designers of www.islandreefjob.com have failed to get their site fully working with Mozilla Firefox 3, although it does work well with Google’s Chrome browser and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Some of the CSS is broken. The w3C CSS checker shows the following errors:

URI : http://www.islandreefjob.com/stylesheets/container.css
17 html Property overflow-y doesn't exist in CSS level 2.1 but exists in [css3] : scroll
180 #animated_title Value Error : margin only 0 can be a length. You must put an unit after your number : 0 auto 27

These errors may be the cause of the embedded youtube videos failing to fully load or play, although of course it may be some other flaw. I hope that the webmasters for www.islandreefjob.com get this technical fault completely resolved very soon, so that they don’t continue to exclude Firefox users from applying to go to be an Island caretaker in Queensland.

Following yesterday’s post about problems accessing islandreefjob.com it seem that Tourism Queensland’s web hosts have improved the availability of the site for the “Best Job in the World”. It now runs smoothly and efficiently, in both English and Japanese. Well done.

Looking at the video applications, for the $150,000 6 month caretaker and publicity job, most applications so far are unfortunately inarticulate or justifying their desire to get the job by saying they don’t like their current one. Many emphasise the their enthusiasm for the benefits of the post as if it is a holiday, not a job, without apparently noticing that paradise island caretaker will be required to communicate well and and regularly.

So far, there has been, to my mind, one outstanding application for the island caretaker job. She is Christine from Canada who shows personality and an ability to communicate well. Since I’m considering applying, she’s the current person to beat.

Apparently Japanese telecoms companies are trying to convince the world that written Japanese does not already have enough characters.

These additional characters are used to depict emotions and other symbols in a similar manner to SMS emoticons.

Rather than being combinations of characters, such a , which is entered as a : followed by a ) ,  to represent a smiley in the Latin character sets, there is a movement to create a whole range of  new symbols, into Unicode, which include colour and animation.

At present, they are exchanged in SMS messages by using privately agreed character codes, but there is pressure to add these new emoji ideographs into the Unicode specification.

Some of the key problems that adding Emoji to the Unicode standards would present include:

1. Adding shapes to Unicode, which has carefully remianed indepentant of how glyphs are drawn
2. Adding colour requirements to Unicode, which again has had no logical need to specify colours for characters
3. Adding the concept of animation definitions to characters, which is well outside the range of a character set definition

In Australia, Queensland’s Tourist Authority is pulling off a phenomenal publicity stunt. Which may be a victim of its own success, as the web site for a single job seems to be barely accessible because of the quantity of hits on their web site.

Queensland are advertising a well paid real job, under the slogan “The best job in the world“, for six month on the the Great Barrier Reef paradise island called Hamilton Island.

The aim of using this job to attract international interest in Hamilton and the other reef islands seems to be being met too well. In the few days since the Queensland Tourist authority started advertising the island reef job, it has attracted the attention of British, American and Japanese news media.

For the last three days, http://www.islandreefjob.com/ has rarely been accesible because of the overwelming web traffic.