So last week I was on American Airlines flight 227 from JFK-SJC.

About midway to California, I turned on my wireless card to see if there was anything interesting going on.

This is what I saw:

Ok, I don’t get it. Why do so many people/computers have ad hoc networks enabled? Is there some bizarre software that automatically creates ad hoc networks if it can’t find a real one? How peculiar!

As for the rest of the flight, here are some comments:

-Shrimp and scallop risotto wasn’t awful.

-On that particular 757, all the seat power outlets in First on the port side were busted. Boo.

-After the Sunset is a crappy movie - though with lots of mildly interesting shots of Salma Hayek.

Entourage is superb in keeping out spam

I’d been using Apple’s built-in OS X e-mail software ever since I switched from Windows to a Macintosh a few years ago. But Mail, as good as it is - and it’s good in a lot of ways - turned out to be no match for the rising tide of spam, scams and regular e-mail coming my way. I was spending too much time trying to get Apple Mail to recognize more spam and not enough time replying to the dozens upon dozens of legitimate letters I get every day.

So I decided to forgo my inbred suspicion of all things Microsoft and installed the latest version of Entourage, the heavy-duty e-mail-and-calendaring software that Microsoft includes in Office 2004. It proved to be a smart move.

Entourage is much better than Apple Mail at filtering spam. That’s obvious the first day you run it. The amount of spam e-mails that slipped through to my inbox dropped from about 80 a day to less than 10 when I switched to Entourage. That number should be even more impressive when I point out that I had been training Apple Mail to spot spam for a long time, yet had done no similar training for Entourage.

That’s excellent!

Dear Mr. Cheung,

AA.com Web Services has received your Lowest Fare Guarantee request.

The AA.com Lowest Fare Guarantee is available to any customer who makes
a qualifying American Airlines, American Eagle, and/or
AmericanConnection airfare purchase through the AA.com web site.

Because your reservation includes a codeshare carrier we regret to
inform you that your request does not qualify for the AA.com Lowest
Fare Guarantee. A codeshare is an interline partnership with another
carrier. Codeshares carry an American Airlines flight number but are
not operated by American Airlines.

To review our Terms and Conditions you may access the following direct
URL address:

http://www.aa.com/guarantee

We appreciate your visit to AA.com.

Sincerely,
AA Employee
AA.com Web Services
American Airlines, Inc.

This was a $28 lesson in reading the fine print.

Recently I got these two pieces of spam:

This one pre-approves me for a loan…

Wow! Great!

And this one will help me out when that loan goes bad…

Wow! Great!

This reminds me of this nugget that I found on Jim Kunstler’s blog once:

I see several major trends / events / stories that are apt to severely affect “normal” American life in the years ahead. One is the financial mess that lies under the immense and rickety credit structure that two decades of relative world stability has allowed us to erect. I saw the whole gruesome picture in microcosm illustrated in four commercials that played during a half-hour segment of CNN when I was visiting Atlanta to write a chapter for my next book. First commercial was for the DiTech “125 percent Dream Loan.” People could finance a new house plus get a premium amounting to 25 percent of the mortgage, and use the extra money to buy furniture, or a bass boat, or go to Vegas and play the slots, if that’s what they liked. The second commercial was for a debt consolidation service. The third was for bankruptcy lawyers. And the fourth was for a local bail bondsman “because bad things even happen to good people.”

You could see the whole Sunbelt mentality in this sequence of advertisements, and, in a way, you could infer the whole story of the surreal, reckless 1990s boom in it: all the traditional notions of lending and banking suspended to fuel an orgy of spending.

Maybe it’s just me, but it is somewhat perturbing to read articles like this: Real Estate Reliance May Hurt California

Half of the private-sector jobs created in California in the last two years are connected in some way to real estate. Meanwhile, property values in the last four years have swelled $1.7 trillion, the equivalent of about 35% of the total personal income in the state since 2001.

This sharp increase in home equity has spurred consumer spending that, in turn, has fueled more economic growth.

“We have an economy that’s rolling along on the basis of a false sense of wealth,” said Christopher Thornberg, a senior economist with the Anderson Forecast team.

Time to stock up on natural resources!

So at first, this weekend I was supposed to just go to NY Fri-Mon, because I got a $137 r/t ticket and wanted the miles.

Then I was supposed to go to Miami Thu-Mon.

Then I was supposed to go to just NY Thu-Mon.

Well AA called this morning to tell me my flight this afternoon was cancelled (how thoughtful!) And now I’m going to be in NY Fri-Mon.

Good thing I didn’t make any plans!

Apple - Downloads - Email & Chat - PST Import Tool for Entourage 2004 for Mac 1.0

About PST Import Tool for Entourage 2004 for Mac

Microsoft Entourage 2004 users who want to import PST files from Microsoft Outlook 2001 for Mac can use the instructions in this document to install the PST Import Tool. Administrators who are deploying the PST Import Tool in their companies will want to review the error messages and troubleshooting information in the PST Import Tool Help in order to assist users. The PST Import Tool Help is available after the PST Import Tool is downloaded.

Wow! I never knew you could download things like this from the Apple website!

So far response to this tool has been awesome!

As part of Microsoft’s continued to the commitment to the Mac platform, I am thrilled to announce that as of 10am this morning, the Mac Business Unit has made available a new tool to help enterprise users move from Microsoft Outlook 2001 for Mac to Microsoft Entourage 2004.

The PST Import Tool for Entourage 2004 for Mac is now available on Mactopia.com, and enables our enterprise customers to import .PST files created by Outlook 2001 for Mac, into Entourage 2004 11.1 or higher. This tool will import mail messages, contacts, calendar events, notes and tasks.

In particular, I encourage you to read the Read Me and the supporting help files - we didn’t just include them all willy-nilly! There’s some great documentation there.

This free tool is further evidence that we’re serious about delivering to our customers, and in adding more value to Entourage.

I’m quite proud of this effort and what my team accomplished in shipping this utility. While it is a mere 1,434 KB to download, let’s just say that the work of understanding PST files was a bit more than that.

And the fun isn’t over just yet! Right now the team and I are exceptionally hard at work on getting ready Office 2004 SP2 for later this year. What will be in it? Well, let’s just say that more details to come…

I was introduced to something pretty neat the other day: Num Sum

NumSum is a web-based spreadsheet that doesn’t involve Java, ActiveX, or Flash - just plain old DHTML.

Here is a screenshot of it:

The first line of numbers is actually a computation in the C column.

However, the key to Num Sum is this: Just like how we at the MacBU discovered a while back that most people use spreadsheets to track lists, so has the folks at Metaha. That’s why Excel for Mac debuted the list manager feature. Here is an example (this might not show up in RSS…):

This blog post talks about the inspiration behind Num Sum. It’s a very neat idea - especially in that by having it on the web, they have made collaborating on a spreadsheet super easy: Today, to collaborate, you have to share a file and use Track Changes. With Num Sum, you all simply modify the spreadsheet on the web.

They’ve got a few user interaction problems to solve for now: arrow keys don’t work all that great, hitting return results in behaviors that aren’t always desired. But the community aspect is flat out neat.