Does your bed bug you?
From my Blogspot blog: Remember that old child’s rhyme? “Night-night, don’t let the bed bugs bite”. You thought it was just a bit of harmless nonsense didn’t you? So did I until…
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Do you BlogSpeak? Use Wolfie’s new guide
I do a lot of reading of blogs, forums, etc and I often come across abbreviations that seem to be common knowledge to most people but which, for one reason or another, I take a while to work out. I figured that I couldn’t be the only one that felt that way so I decided to inaugurate Wolfie’s BlogSpeak Dictionary.
I’m going to start with the first few that spring to mind for me, but what I want is for you to tell me the ones that you’ve come across that baffled you to start with (or still do) and we’ll see if we can come up with the definitive reference guide. To those of you who are more geekspeak-savvy, these may seem simple but bear with us.
So, in no particular order:
FWIW – For What It’s Worth.
Usually meaning that actually I think it’s worth quite a bit, but I’m trying not to seem overly strident about it. Or else, indicating that there’s nothing anyone can do to fix it, but FWIW, everyone agrees that it needs fixing.
FYI – For Your Information.
You’ve been a complete dick and I think you need to know these facts so that you don’t continue to be a complete dick.
HTH – Hope That (This) Helps.
IMHO – In My Humble (Honest) Opinion.
This is what I really think.
IMO – In My Opinion.
This is what I really think, but I don’t feel particularly humble today.
LOL – Laugh Out Loud / Lots Of Laughs.
Great big belly-laughs were caused by what you just wrote – could be sarcastic!
YMMV – Your Mileage May Vary.
This is what happened when I tried this, but it may not work as well for you.
TPTB – The Powers That Be.
Forum moderators, company CEO’s, Mac in the post-room: whoever’s responsible for making the decisions around here.
OMG – Oh. My. God!
BTW – By The Way
And one more thing, while we’re still arguing…
FAQ – Frequently Asked Question.
As in, “What does FAQ mean?”
IIRC – If I Remember (Recall) Correctly
Please tell me I’m not going insane; it did use to be like that, didn’t it?
AFAICS – As Far As I Can See
But there’s probably something very obvious I’m missing .
b0rked
Something somewhere has gone terrible wrong.
That’s just a few (with some possible indications of how and when they might be used 
) but there must be lots more. Add your submissions in the comments and I’ll start including them in the entry.
I knew I wasn’t going to make it…
From my Blogspot blog: Every now and again, you come across these funny little web quizzes, and I’m usually a sucker for them. This one, as the badge declares, is to find out whether you’re likely to live to 100 years old.
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That’s not what I meant!
Is it just me that finds that in this super-switched on age in which we live – where blogs, email and other electronic written forms are the tools of choice – that text is not actually a very good communicator anymore?
Perhaps it’s the “must do it now”, throwaway sort of culture that we live in, where we no longer spend time over anything. Got a quick email to write? Thirty seconds, click “Send”, off it goes.
And back comes an angry reply from the person you sent it to, asking just what in the hell you’re talking about! Because you didn’t take the time to read what you’d written and think about how it might be received by the person at the other end.
We’ve become very adept at participating in electronic conversations, but a lot of the time what we fail to remember is that in a traditional, face-to-face conversation the words themselves are quite a way down the list when it comes to actually communicating; so much of what we say to each other when we have a conversation is conveyed without words – the way you wave your arms, the way you stand, your facial expression, your tone of voice. But with electronic conversation we’re left only with the words.
I write quite often on this blog and I also participate in various forums across the Net, I comment on other people’s blogs, I use Twitter and so on and time and again I’ve come across the same old thing; slanging matches that have erupted because one person reacted angrily to another person’s post or comment, who then reacted angrily back and so on. But it’s very easy to seem like you’re being dismissive or rude even when you’re not if all you’re using is words.
Even if it doesn’t descend into a flame war, there can still be a lot of misunderstanding on both sides. The first person doesn’t make their point clearly, or the second person doesn’t read the post properly and only picks up on certain things, and you end up with a conversation that just goes round in circles without any real resolution. In the real world, of course, a proper conversation would have sorted it out in about five seconds.
I’m as guilty as the next person on this score; I do tend to write and send, without always reading first. I’m getting better, though, and do try to put myself in the position of the person who’s about to receive my post, email, comment, whatever. For all I know, they might be in a really bad mood, so is my attempt at a humourous remark going to be received in the light that I sent it?
I’m also not necessarily the best at expressing my point of view; I write away and don’t always stick strictly to the point. This happened today, where a blogger had asked for an opinion on an issue so I gave what I thought was a relevant answer. He didn’t take it that way and thought that I was talking about a separate subject – all because I didn’t take enough time to re-read what I’d written before I’d submitted it.
What I’m really trying to say is that if society is moving towards a model that is based less and less on physical interaction – which it certainly seems to be – then we need to improve our written communication skills by about 1,000%. So the next time you send an email, write a comment on a blog, post to a forum or whatever – think about what you’ve written and how it might be received at the other end.
Calling all Wordpress Safari users
OK, we all hate the way that Safari 3.0.x strips out line / paragraph breaks when we use the Visual Editor. As we all know, this is a limitation of Wordpress / TinyMCE / Safari, which is (hopefully) under development for a fix.In the meantime, there is a way round it – for Mac users anyway – that means you don’t have to change browsers just to post to Wordpress.
I’ve done some limited testing on this process and it seems to work, but I’ve not had a chance to use it extensively so don’t know yet if it breaks anything else. As always, if you’re going to try this, take precautions!
1. If it’s open, close down Safari.
2. Open Terminal
3. At the prompt, type this: defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
4. Start Safari.
5. If you’ve done it right, you’ll see that you have a new “Debug” menu item. Click this.
6. Select “user agent”
7. Select a browser that isn’t Safari. I chose “Firefox 2.0.0.2″
That’s it.
I’ve only tested this fix on Safari 3.0.x – but then Safari 2 never had the same problem – but it has allowed me to write and edit posts using the Visual Editor and without losing line breaks.
If someone out there can hack the Windows version in a similar way, then this problem might finally be solved.
Wolfs Helpers
