The More You Know: Amazon and "obidos" (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

Almost every Amazon page has it (correction: had it), but not many actually know what "obidos" really means. Luckily for the curious, the now defunct Google Answers has the answer.

According to someone who supposedly worked at Amazon:

Obidos is the area where the Amazon is "concentrated" - it narrows to
a point about a mile wide and a couple hundred feet deep. It's the
chokepoint of the Amazon. A wry sense of humor turned that to the
naming scheme.

Amazon wrote their own web serving environment because the selection
of scripting/webcontrol languages when they got started was so lousy.
They had to call it something, so obidos it was. :)

So there you have it…

Technorati Tags: The More You Know, Amazon.com, Amazon, obidos, Brazil, Portugal, Google Answers, web development, programming languages, TMYK

Posted in: amazon , information , misc , tmyk

The More You Know: Microsoft and "1033" (Martin Gordon's Blog (cptncelchu)) by Martin

I've seen the number in various install directories for Microsoft products. This shot of a Windows Vista retail box shows the very special number in the URL in the 2nd paragraph and my interest was suddenly rekindled.

According to this MSDN blog, the number is the local identifier for "English (United States)" based on a formula described in the post.

So there you have it…

Technorati Tags: The More You Know, Microsoft, 1033, Windows, Vista, localization, language, translation, software, TMYK

Posted in: information , microsoft , misc , psa , tmyk