Despite the expected context of this blog this is not about Personal Computers. It about being Politically Correct...

Recently Microsoft has issued an update to a Bookshelf Symbol 7 font. The font was found to contain "unacceptable symbols". A press-release with apologies has been promptly issued. The blame went to poor oversight and artist mistake. Apparently what caused the whole thing was a presence of two swasticas in the font. A few things are worth mentioning:

1. The actual font file has a copyright of Ricoh Corp inside - it seems that it was licensed from Ricoh
2. The swastika (or swastica) was borrowed by Nazis from ancient India culture as an Arian symbol. Other cultures has also embraced this symbol to some extend. Most notably in Buddhist countries, especially in Japan, this symbol is associated with Good Luck and Prosperity.
3. The swastika in the font was a part of a range of Japanese (Kanji) characters.
4. This character (or rather its mirror image is a sign used on maps in Japan to designate the location of Shinto temples (can be seen on Yahoo Maps)
5. Here are the screen shots of the font before and after:

Before:

After:

This is something I have seen, while returning from Lake Tahoe this weekend. A sign said: "Such and such, Attorney at Law. Crime Pays." 'nuff said.

Another ad grabbed my attention as I was passing Bay Bridge. It was a Nextel billboard featuring their newest Java phone i730 and saying "If you want a fashion accessory - buy a poodle". I'd say this is somewhat arrogant coming from a company known to offer ugliest phones on the market.

Someone has pointed me to a (product/project/utility/kit) called Utlimate Boot CD. Highly recommend it. It's an extremely handy collection of tools packed together into a bootable CD image. My favorites are NT password editor and partition resizer. To burn the image I've used ISO Recorder - what did you expect?

Register solemnly proclaims Windows XP MCE to be a dead product. I would not throw away my MCE machine just yet. I guess, I'll wait and see what Mr. Gates will say tomorrow in his Comdex keynote

In a pile of junk I found today a video tape labeled "Apple's Operating System Strategy. March 1997". Interesting... It's a pity I do not own a VCR anymore...

It was frequently pointed out that ugly cars have their special kind of charm. One can learn to love Porsche 964. Nissan 280 ZX has quite a following. I own a 1997 Jeep Wrangler SE (no picture is available), which many consider not quite an appealing design. To that I say, that rugged faces are not necessarily beautiful. Suddenly Daimler-Chrysler introduces a Jeep Treo concept - um, interesting...

Suddenly I realized that the newsgroup postings are not enough. They get trampled all over too easily. I need my personal forum. Wait!.. I have one... What was that password again? Well, it''s been 7 months. How am I supposed to remember it? Fortunately Neil is always there for me and he's got admin rights on this blog server.

Samsung just impressed the hell out of me. They have two new absolutely gorgeous devices. One is a PocketPC Phone Edition - i700, soon available through Sprint. It's beautiful, shiny and has a camera capable of 640x480. The other one really left me drooling. It is their new SmartPhone - i600. I think it is the first (or one of the first) flip-smart-phones. Me, I'm usually happier with a smaller form factor. This one has a size of StarTAC. And everything you would expect from latest generation smartphone inside. Now to wait 'till it becomes available.

First day of Ask The Experts I was helping out in the Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server booth. Amazingly (not!) most of the questions were turning around the suggested upgrade path. "Can I upgrade my NT4 only domain?" "Can I keep 2K member servers in native 2003 forest?" "Can I...". Amazingly most of the answers are available one level down from http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/default.mspx

Oh, well. By now I'm used to the fact that most people do not read the available documentation and besides it is always easier to ask...

Tomorrow morning I'm flying to Dallas for a week of TechEd 2003. See y'all in a week. This promises to be fun.