I just want to get one thing clear. I am definitely not Microsoft’s W2K servers project manager. We may share the same name, but I can assure you that he is not me. In fact, I shudder to think we would even be mentioned in the same sentence, but that’s the way it goes.

Of course, Microsoft’s Mark Tennent may be a perfectly OK guy. He, like me, puts pen to paper occasionally, or more accurately pinkies to keypad—only two pinkies in my case. But you can be pretty certain that the Mark Tennent who writes that he considers Linux to be “a big seller of Windows, especially W2K data centre” is hardly likely to be the same person as this Mark Tennent who writes with glee about Microsoft’s struggles with the European Union. Plus I don’t know what a W2K data server actually is.

The other Mark Tennents who Google finds seem far more interesting than me. I would love to claim that I am the Mark Tennent who leads expeditions up mountains. I have been aware of him for some time and even wrote to congratulate him on opening his Glencoe Mountain Sport business, not realizing that at the time that his business was being ruined by the effect foot and mouth disease had on outdoor pursuits. Maybe that’s why he didn’t reply.

Then there is the Mark Tennent who sounds very cool. He keeps winning the Shark Island Swim challenge. Mind you, if I were swimming round Shark Island I think I would be going as fast as I could, trying to keep as little of my body immersed in water and looking as inedible as possible.

There is, like in every family, the occasional black sheep. In our case it’s Mark Tennent of Water Street, Earby, who pleaded guilty to four charges of dishonestly making false statements to obtain over £7,000 in Housing Benefit. On the other hand, Mark Tennent in Australia redresses the balance by being the Finance and Accounting manager for the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, and we did exhibit at the Midwest Museum of American Art’s Legacy show last year.

The frightening thing about Googling for your own name is when it turns up something you had forgotten about. Having been Web-active since the early 1990s, it is an awfully large amount. Yes, it was I who discussed some pertinent points on the QuarkXPress forum in 1993, and it was my article translated into Italian for their Web site. It’s funny how more respectable it makes it look even if I can’t understand a word of it, and I wrote it in the first place.

But please, do not think I am the Mark Tennent who designed the Brimfast House Bed and Breakfast Web site. I know we live locally to each other, but this Mark Tennent would never, ever use Front Page and especially not Zapf Chancery for the typeface.

Links for all the above? Try Mark Tennent in Google.

Copyright © 2006 Mark Tennent, mark@tennent.co.uk. The Segments section is open to anyone. If you have something interesting to say about life with your Mac, write us.