I recently started my Netflix subscription up again. Between DVR and cable I haven't been renting movies for the past couple years and usually buy them if I want them. After reading A Room with a View by E. M. Forster I decided I had to watch the film again.

It was just as good as I remembered it. Outstanding performances by the entire cast and accurately captured the book. It wins all-time favorite movie kiss on my list.

The two-disc special edition includes commentary with Merchant and Ivory and is also worth checking out. Now, I'm just waiting for disc #2 to arrive from Netflix.

The other day I wrote that John Viescas has been publishing with us for over 15 years. That made me wonder--we have a lot of long-term author relationships, many who have been publishing with us for over a decade...but who has been publishing with us continuously and for the longest period of time?

I sent email to the team and after some debate in our team meeting--we took folks out of the running who worked at Microsoft Press in the early days and then left to become authors (and agents!).

And the winner is...Charles Petzold who has been publishing with us for 19 years. He published the 1st edition of Programming Windows in 1988, and his latest book, Applications = Code + Markup: A Guide to the Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation was just released.

Microsoft Press Quiz:

What was the first book to be published by Microsoft Press?

Answer: The Apple Macintosh Book by Cary Lu in 1984.

Congratulations to John Viescas, Jeff Conrad and the entire team here at Microsoft Press on the publication of Microsoft Office Access 2007 Inside Out.

Continuing on the success of John's previous Running Access and Access 2003 Inside Out, this is the BIG book with everything for Access for power-users. A big thank you and congratulations to John, a Microsoft MVP veteran since 1993, who has been publishing bestselling Access books with Microsoft Press for over 15 years. Please keep the photos from Paris coming! 

This was Jeff Conrad's first book with us. We like to grumble here when our authors are "poached" by other Microsoft teams. Jeff started this book as an Access MVP and ended up being hired by the Access team. We hope that once he settles in his day job as a Software Design Engineer in Test on the Excel--Access Services, he'll still find the time to work with us on future book projects. Sorry you had to leave Bend!

Please be careful when picking up this book not to drop it on your toe. It really does contain everything you need to know on Access, and what couldn't fit in the book is on the CD.

...then you need to check out the Showbiz Show with David Spade, and especially his funny and snarky blog.

Not for the easily offended.

I hope they repeat this program. I caught an episode of American Masters on PBS called Novel Reflections on the American Dream. I haven't quite figured out if this was a one-shot show or part of a larger series. This episode focused on six or so novels including the Grapes of Wrath, Sister Carrie, and the Great Gatsby.

One of the interviewees mentioned one of my favorite non-fiction books, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. As a fellow listmaker, I like to pull that book out every once in a while and read it again. The ultimate creater of the American dream, Ben really makes you feel like anything is possible.

I've been reading more British classics lately--I recently finished both Daniel Deronda and the Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. I ALMOST finished a Room with a View last week while on vacation. Unfortunately, my last day of vacation I put it down while I was multi-tasking and by the time I made it out to the backyard where I was planning to sit and complete it, I couldn't find it. I still haven't found it. WHERE IS THAT BOOK???

Check out the website for the PBS show--it has some good recommendations for reading.

My top five email pet peeves:

1. Subjects that do nothing to help me find an email later.
2. Long rambling emails that bury questions in the text.
3. People that expect you to instantly answer their emails.
4. Red Bang email that isn't. (New slang for outlook email with a red exclamation point! I heard two people here use it in a sentence in one week, as in "I hate it when people red bang me!"
5. People who reply all with "thanks!" Please just thank the person with a reply, and not a reply all.

I just finished reading Gina Traponi's book LifeHacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day from Wiley.

This book has a lot of tips for alpha geeks, but you don't need to be an alpha geek to get some good advice out of it. I'm not really an alpha geek, I just work with them. Well, maybe I am. While I doubt I will ever create a text to do list on my command line, I can find something or someone on the web in no time flat. I am the Queen of search (at least in my mind). 

This book won't teach you any one methodology for time management, but it will give you great tips on how to cut corners and increase your productivity. Three chapters I really felt were definitely worth more than the price of admission--chapter 6, "Control Your Email", chapter 8 "Kickstart Your Productivity" and Chapter 9 "Master the Web."

Here's a great tip from Control Your Email that I will try out:

Lead by Example. You may be the master at writing effective email, but communication's a two-way street. Lead by example when you receive poorly written messages. When you respond, edit an email's unspecific subject line so that further correspondence on the topic is easily identifiable in your inbox. Break up someone's run-on message into chunks and respond inline. If the purpose of the message is unclear to you, respond with the question, "What's my next step regarding this?" If someone sends you a rambling, five-screen description, reply briefly: "Sounds good." These strategies train others to not expect long messages from you in real time and to craft better subject lines and task requests."

"Sounds good" is one of my pet phrases.