I'm not going to feed you a line here: No one ever asks us any questions, not about ourselves anyway. They ask us about why their mouse cursor sticks to the lower right or why they should care if Last-Modified behaves according to RFC 2616 or not, but they almost never ask anything about us.

Except ...

• Isn't this just another robot aggregator? --- Yes, and that should be enough for you. As for why, the answer is more complex: This all started out back in 1993 as a hotlist of relevent sites for communications professionals interested in this Internet Thing, an outgrowth of the seminars at Centennial College and my role at the Ontario Science Centre. The hotlist grew until it was a searchable database of website reviews, then a portal of KM, Free Software and IT news and reviews, and morphed into my own KM/IT blog round about 1997.

  There are lots and lots of semi-famous articles in these pages.

  But then something happened. It all went all wrong. Free software went commercial, blogs went ballistic, ICT went down the tubes and KM stayed right where it always was, completely un-revised and un-developed ... and, well, I just lost interest in spending so much time speaking to a brick wall, and then spending twice as much time scraping graffitti off that wall. With the advent of Everyone Loves Eric Raymond, I packed it in; I still use the aggregator, but less and less every day, so I leave it running, leave it here adding its small weight to the google rank of these small few sliver of a sample of the KM/ICT and Linux news you'd probably rather track through Google, but hey, it works for me and I haven't time nor inclination to reinvent it just now.

• What do you do ... exactly? --- I don't do Windows. don't even bother asking. I haven't coded a windows application since version 2.0 and I have never seen a visual basic program close up. as for the rest, every contract I've ever had has taken me into new places I never thought I'd be, from telepresence to xml news services, p2p file systems to a hulking geodesic earth globe with great circles of acid-trace lights to follow tape loops of Innuit throat-singing (among other things). that's quite a range.

  what I can do is tell you if your great life-changing million dollar idea is worth pursuing, how people might use your digital services and how they'd like to use them. I can also tell you (or your boss) how to save oodles and open vast brave new frontiers by embracing free software, and I can show you how to play the mountain dulcimer. beyond that, give me a shout and we'll see.

• Do you have a fax machine? --- no. we had one, it broke. too expensive to fix and the software fax had a voicemail from hell so we don't use it. who on earth still uses fax??? do us both a favour. buy a scanner.

• Where is Sauble Beach? --- it is no where near Collingwood, not if you're walking. From Toronto, Ontario, it takes about 90 minutes for you to drive to Collingwood, it takes us about 90 minutes to get there from here too. Our area is most well known as a teen-mecca for the May-2-4 holiday, a prime destination for bird-watchers, anglers, snomobilers, cottagers, and internationally renoun as the site of one of the largest Groundhog Day festivals.

  Part of the Town of South Bruce Peninsula, Sauble Beach is about 220 kilometers north-west of Toronto, along the eastern shores of Lake Huron, and why are you asking me when you can get driving directions from MapQuest?

• Can you work for us for free? For equity? For barter? --- no. been there. besides, xmlteam beat you to it.

• Can I visit you when I'm in Sauble Beach? --- sure. we love visitors, especially if they bring food. call first, and I dare to visit us in February. I double-dare you.

  real Canadians will laugh at that challenge. real Canadians will join me for coffee at 7:20am on February 2nd while we wait to get the skinny on spring from a wild animal

• Can you lend me $50? --- if I ever see $50, I will let you know.

If you've got more questions, do send them along, but be aware that you can't get into the FAQ until your question has been asked at least twenty times. Space is limited, act now, our operators are standing by to take your call.