Apparently, blogging makes people happy. I agree a little.

I guess it’s understandable that some shy people get out of their shell when chatting, blogging or updating their social networking sites. In fact, I know somebody (my elementary school classmate, I don’t know if she knows me) who was very reserved. By accident, I came across her web site 10 years ago and blogging was not a hit then. Her words in her Web site “betrayed” how I knew her then. I didnt’ know that she was very articulate. Looking back, it seems to me now that she is a natural writer who really has a passion for writing. Her words were bubbly, highly contrasting her silent demeanor. I e-mailed her but she never replied.

The Internet also makes everything highly accessible. You can say anything without having to open your mouth or standing in front of a crowd. Naturally, there’s a great chance somebody is “listening” (reading), which leads to a great chance somebody will be interacting. This makes networking, collaboration or discussion faster than actual personal contact.

That is why I agree a little that blogging makes people happy… that is until the blogger starts to monetize. When the blogger tries to monetize via advertisements, his/her focus would be divided between writing/interacting and making money. When this happens, there will be long stretches where the blogger won’t be that happy. When he/she eats, all that he/she can think of is “monetize”. When he/she takes a leak, he/she thinks “monetize”. When he/she…. You get the drift.

For some time the blogger will not be that happy… that is until he/she starts earning. And my guess is that he/she will be happy again.

I am using Wordpress version 2.3.2 and haven’t been receiving comment notifications ever since. I was a bit busy with my day job so I didn’t have time to work on this.

Finally, I decided to take care of this on a weekend. The fix (or workaround?) is to create a valid “wordpress@<yourdomain>” mail account. The defect, together with the fix/workaround, is documented here.

I just installed IE8 beta hoping to see visual improvements, especially on the toolbars. I would prefer the refresh and stop buttons on the left side where it should be. I know I could have just googled the browser screenshot but I wanted to try it out anyway. I guess I’ll also mention that I was hoping I could skin IE8 and add add-ons ala Firefox.

Anyways, I also have been planning a browser shift from Firefox to IE7 or IE8 for the longest time. My Firefox keeps crashing on me (I’m using Vista Ultimate). I have long suspected Firefox to crash when a lot of Flash movies are being loaded in the browser. The IE8 beta release seems to have finally made me do the shift. I’ll have to admit there’s no real improvement in my browsing except that my browser won’t crash that often.

For now, I don’t care about 2 new significant features introduced by IE8 – Activities and WebSlices. I’m sure their product page can explain those features much better.

A new poll from employment advertising company Monster says 77% of U.S. workers say they work much harder than their firms’ presidents. I don’t know why this article ever got printed. It’s clearly nonsense. Though the company admits the activity is not scientific, the fact that workers generally are biased against their bosses makes this poll uninformative. It’s like asking a woman if women are more intelligent than men.

Workers work “more” because they think less and have lighter responsibilities. It’s the quality of work (over quantity) that should count *most often*. The workers obviously want their salaries comparable to that of their bosses. The best way of identifying which job position requires a higher salary is when you hypothetically set the salaries of the bosses and the workers equal. Then, let the workers pick which job they would rather have, knowing they have equal salaries.