My cat is fascinated when people brush their teeth. She will come right up and stick her head into your personal space. I thought she was curious about the strange brushing activity, but then I acquired some Body Shop Peppermint Food Lotion. As soon as I started applying it, she came sniffing around into my general vicinity, trying to track down the scent. Then she started puzzling over my feet. “Ah ha!” thought I. “It is the peppermint she likes!” A few web clicks later, I verified that catnip is indeed in the mint family.

ZDNetAsia points out that although American online booksellers are not performing up to expectations, similar sites in Asia are expecting their variations on the online business model will bring in profits. Myepb.com started out online and then opened a supporting physical store. MPH Online is counting on their strong brand name and domain knowledge to give them a big head start in cyberspace. Acmabooks.com is sticking to online only, but differs from Amazon in not investing in any warehousing infrastructure. I suppose the ol’ survival of the fittest model will determine which scenarios will succeed. (And my HCI training is nagging “doesn’t it matter which sites are the easiest and friendliest to use?”)

Living.com closed shop. There were way too many furniture/home decor sites popping up and I figured there would be consolidation and demise. Furniture sales logistics can be hellacious. Still alive in my home decorating bookmarks: Furniture Find, Furniture.com, Goodhome.com, HomePortfolio.com, MyHome.com, and a few more appliance oriented places. Let the mergers commence!

OK translucent electronics buffs (that would be me), here’s the ultimate PC case for you. Detailed do-it-yourself commentary is included.

David Bowie and Iman‘s baby has arrived: Alexandria Zahra Jones, 7 pounds, 4.6 ounces.

There are nice little Buffy tidbits from the new season, covering who’s leaving and who may come back (purists may call ’em spoilers, so be warned) on the E! Online Watch With Wanda.

I’ve had this bookmarked for a long time (translation: I have no idea who I swiped this from, so thank you to whomever it was) but never had time to read it: The Story Behind the Lisa (and Macintosh) Interface. It lists the original Goals and Guiding Principles, which are now common UI design principles, a few of which are often just taken for granted. The email introduction to the paper notes that screen shots which pre-date the legendary visits to Xerox Parc by Steve Jobs show that the user interface was not entirely lifted from the Star design. Included also is The Pictorial History of the “Apple Desktop Interface”.

Bad spelling proliferates in the media thanks to easy electronic access to already faulty news items. Jerry Lanson’s July column in the Online Journalism Review describes how easy it is for misspelled names to spread from news databases into new stories, which in turn go into the archives and compound the perception that these mistakes are accurate. These little mistakes may not seem as dire as reporting Internet urban legends as fact, but, as Lanson writes: “If for no other reasons than that readers care and that writers turn to news’ archives to find facts, not falsehood, correcting even the littlest things should become a priority for all.” I was that annoying person in class who pointed out everyone’s spelling errors in their overhead slide presentations, so I can’t say I disagree with him.

Welcome to “Library Day” at GirlHacker. I used to be a faithful library user, but then my local library dropped their lending period from four weeks to three weeks and I just couldn’t make that three week limit. When I was younger I used to think four weeks was a huge amount of time to finish a book. But nowadays I have less time to read plus I read more pithy stuff and actually pay attention to it. I mentioned the lending period change to my parents when I was in Connecticut and it turns out that my old library, the one I grew up with, also dropped to three weeks. It must be a library trend. But my dad’s pet theory is that libraries are buying the same new software which arrives defaulted to a three week lending period which no one changes. He might be right.

North Carolina residents now have rights to check out e-books from public and college libraries. This is the result of “a $288,000 deal that gives state residents perpetual access to 10,690 titles from netLibrary, a Boulder, Colo.-based company that distributes e-books to libraries.” After obtaining a netLibrary password, users can check out books for 72 hours. The books are “returned” automatically. I am not sure if there is a limit to how many users can check out one title simultaneously. The concept of “borrowing” an e-book has never crossed my mind, but I guess it makes sense in the old paradigm of library lending. If publishers are confident that users can not make and distribute copies of the books at no charge, then they should be satisfied with the business model. In fact, having users check out an e-book or purchase it outright for their own personal viewing system gives publishers an advantage: you can easily lend or give the physical books you’ve read to friends or sell them to used bookstores, but you can’t do that with a locked electronic copy. (article via LTSeek)

Usually something is cute because it’s smaller than your frame of reference. Kittens, those new tiny Altoid tins, little handbags, you know what I mean. I was hit with a backwards effect yesterday when I saw a box of Tic Tac Silvers at the drugstore. Tic Tac Silvers are basically larger Tic Tacs in silver wrappers. The box they come in is a large replica of the little Tic Tac box, about 4 x 7 inches. The effect is really amusing! Yes I bought one. Had to. Felt…compelled…by the cuteness.