usa job typing

I was proofing a document the other day, but since I've been reading documents from the United States and Canada, I couldn't remember if behaviorial was the American or the Canadian spelling. Thank goodness for Google , I use it all the time to get answers. This time I came up with a site called Karen's Linguistics Issues . It gives the proper spelling for British, Canadian and American words and is very user friendly. It will definitely be added to My Favourites on the side bar of the blog under Spelling. By the way, behaviourial is spelled this way in Canada. I hope you find it as useful as I did.

A reader asked if I would post on the proper protocol to address Canadian dignitaries such as the Prime Minister or other Ministers in the government. This government site gives you that information and more. I will add it to my Favourites on the side bar of the blog under Addressing Dignitaries Protocol for everyone's convenience, but I would suggest you add it to your own Favourites as well. This is a must-have resource. For my readers from other countries, you will note there is a section for foreign dignitaries and if you click on that it will give you the proper form to address just about anyone in the world.

I have noticed in my role as an assistant that I can be called upon to do a lot of things. Our job is not just one thing, but many different tasks and it changes every day. If a conference comes up and they are looking for someone to do the registration, we can step in and do that or we can organize it from start to finish. If someone is needed at the Reception Desk to greet guests and take calls, we can easily step in. What about brainstorming to see what organizational tools would work best in the office? Who better than the admins to come up with something that works. Sometimes scheduling meetings can be a headache with no end in sight trying to get all the parties together. Give the task to an assistant and we will work with everyone involved and not only set up the meeting date and time, but book the boardroom, photocopy and distribute the meeting materials and arrange the flight and hotel if necessary. If your job changes, adapt to the new challenges. Be open to it as it not only...

Obama fever hit Ottawa today as President Barack Obama made his first official visit outside of the United States. I am not sure exactly what it is that has endeared this President to everyone's hearts, but he certainly has made an impression on us. I think he might be the change people are looking for from the regular politician and the same old, same old. He seems to offer youth, energy, charisma and hope for better times ahead. As the first black President, the message is that anyone can aspire to the highest office, no matter their race, colour or creed, which I think gives us hope that we as humans have progressed from our past prejudices and hatreds. He seems like a very capable man and it will be interesting to see how he performs as he enters this presidency in the worst economic times we have seen in a long time. His family seem like the ideal American family. His wife is beautiful and has been compared to Jackie Kennedy in her style. His children look well behaved and ar...

This is the second installment of a little series of discussions. They're not much more than that, just discussions. And I hope I'm inviting discussion rather than quenching it. But I'll be honest — the goal of this series is to pound a stake through the heart of a certain way of thinking about the world that has become quite popular. If my series fails in that regard, I hope it may still provide some entertainment value. Part one, The fish , was about a twisty line and a fish's examination of it. Today we move to a twisty plane. Embedded Systems There are many kinds of computer programs, and many ways to categorize them. One of the broadest and most interesting program categories is embedded systems . These systems are the centerpiece of today's little chat. Embedded systems are a bit tricky to define because they come in so many shapes and sizes. Loosely speaking, an embedded system is a little world of its own: an ecosystem with its own rules and its own ...

I finished Fallout 3 maybe six or eight weeks ago, and it was hands-down one of the best games I've ever played. A game like that gets you in the mood for more gaming, so I thought to myself: "Hey, I should plop down $160 for Fable II !" Actually that's not exactly what I thought, but it's what happened. I bought the game for $60, fired it up, got up to the part in the intro where a bird craps on your head (yes, this is how it starts), and it locked up hard. Reset the XBox, tried again, and this time got as far as some guy selling snake oil gadgets before it locked up again. Snake oil, indeed. I tried playing for about an hour, with the game crashing every 3 to 5 minutes, and I finally went online to read about how it kills XBoxes and it's the Game of Death and blah blah blah, all interesting but not especially helpful. Eventually I stumbled across discussions of the "install to hard drive" option. Nobody actually said how to do it, so it to...

So! I have all these cool things I want to write about, but I broke my thumbnail. Can you tell that's a long story? See, this summer I got excited about playing guitar again. I usually switch between all-guitar and all-piano every other year or so. This summer I dusted off the guitars and learned a bunch of pieces, and even composed one. I was prepping for — among other things — a multimedia blog entry. It was going to have a YouTube video, and a detailed discussion of a wacky yet powerful music programming language you've probably heard of but never used, and generally just be really cool. And then it all came crashing down when I busted my thumbnail off. And I mean off — it broke off at least a quarter inch below where the nail and skin meet. Ick. I just accidentally jabbed my steering wheel, and that was that. I remember reading an interview with some dude who said he had punched a shark in the nose. He said it was like punching a steering wheel. So now ...