CNET reports that some spammers are resorting to ASCII art to bypass spam filters. I have a love/hate relationship with this idea. I love it because it is undeniably clever. I hate it because Gmail isn’t clever-er.

Stephen Shankland, in his post, makes a good point though, “the very reason the art spam is hard to screen out also makes it, well, somewhat impotent as a spam method. ” It gets the information in front of your eyes, but that’s about it.

(Image Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

Not sure if you’re keeping track, but the Burj Dubai building is getting close to full size (2684ft). There are some pretty intriguing photos out there. I can’t imagine what it looks like in person.

Our programmers have been working hard lately beefing up our ability to assess the nuts and bolts of English grammar. Not an easy task. At least, I imagine it’s difficult. I haven’t actually helped, so I have no idea.

Instead, I’ve been finding ways to make grammar hilarious. This may be an even harder task.

Luckily, the guys at The Chicago Manual of Style Online have a better sense of humor than me. I recently stumbled across their Q&A section, finding it both informative and witty.

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Q. Is it ever possible to put a period after other punctuation as in: He had asked, “Will she go?.”

A. It’s definitely possible, but it would be wrong.

Q. Oh, English-language gurus, is it ever proper to put a question mark and an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence in formal writing? This author is giving me a fit with some of her overkill emphases, and now there is this sentence that has both marks at the end. My everlasting gratitude for letting me know what I should tell this person.

A. In formal writing, we allow both marks only in the event that the author was being physically assaulted while writing. Otherwise, no.

Comedy and grammar are together at last. But be careful, you might learn something too.

Who has time to read the hundreds of blog posts that would be useful? Surely not me. Some of those blog posts, while informative, just become too much information. Regular Joe (or Jane) doesn’t have time to read those. Academics and students, who are the majority of our customers, are so busy that it is crazy. There has got to be a solution for this…

Turns out that there is. We started using a service called Twitter (www.twitter.com) last week. This allows us to post what are called micro-blogs. Micro-blogs restrict the writer to 140 characters. That is the full length that is afforded to give an insightful update, or tell a part of a story.

The great thing about them is that they are easy for everyday, busy Joe (or Jane of course). With under 15 seconds you can evaluate the information, and then proceed to the external link if it seems of interest to you.

We currently have two Twitter accounts, one for Ideaworks and one for Bar Essay Prep. You can view them by going to www.twitter.com/ideaworks or www.twitter.com/bar-essays. Feel free to follow us on Twitter and interact, we would love to have you join the conversation!

In short, for easily digestible updates on Ideaworks, go to www.twitter.com/theideaworks. (Only 90 characters!)

It’s strange. Normally, events like the opening ceremonies of the Olympics are over-the-top, gimmicky, long and well…boring. But this year, I loved it. Perhaps it is my love for Chinese culture or maybe it’s because I’m finally mature enough to appreciate things like this. Or maybe (let’s face it) it’s because I love fireworks.

Mostly, I was struck by the way organizers combined amazing technology (such as a huge LCD stage) with lots and lots of people (almost 15,000 performers) to create a beautiful visual display. It reminded me that technology can be used to create unique, stunning art.

If you missed it you can see the video on nbcolympics.com. There are also some great photo galleries out there.

Recently, we started doing some thinking regarding our overall marketing strategy. We evaluated the voice from the many e-mails that get sent out for the company, and we worked to make them unified. We reviewed the different products, and we tried to see where we disconnected from the standard voice. Here is the biggest thing we noticed: Sometimes we tried to act a lot bigger than we actually are, and it was completely transparent. So we adopted a new stance.

We are a small company. We love being a small company. Being a small company gives us advantages that larger companies don’t have. So we decided to take our voice and presentation back to the people from which we came. By the people, for the people!

Keep your eyes peeled for some of the changes we will be making, they are exciting. I’ll give you a clue. One of the companies that has inspired some of my thinking about this, and I company that I feel has branded themselves well, is Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches. In particular, their slogan that I think is excellent is “Damn good, Damn fast.”

In short, be ready for changes.

Here’s an interesting concept of future web browsing from Adaptive Path. It looks pretty and suggests some good ideas. It’s also features some poor design choices (like hidden menus and tools) and visual displays that look shiny, but may not actually be useful (cloud display of related information).

Also, the background music is annoying.

Still, I admit that I don’t too often try and look this far into the future. I can think of a few small ways to improve Firefox, or some useful ways to integrate certain applications, but I’ve never considered radical new ways to discover, understand and share information.

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.