Keep an eye on Shandon Anderson when the Knicks take on the Minnesota Timberwolves tonight. On Monday, with Allan Houston and Keith Van Horn both on the sidelines, Anderson propelled the Knicks to a 94-88 win over the Boston Celtics. He scored 28 points and, more importantly, brought new life to the Knicks' "traffic jam offense" (sit and wait) by driving to the basket and making things happen.

Under Pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy, the Knicks were a dreadful free-throw shooting team even though they had their chances. Now their free-throw percentages are up, but because they always seem to resort to the 18-foot jumper, it doesn't matter. In last Wednesday's loss to the L.A. Lakers, the Knicks had 6 free throw attempts compared to 47 for the Lakers.

Anderson's 28 points included 6 free throws--not a particularly high number but relatively impressive. Unjaded by stagnation, he showed off a number of dazzling acrobatic maneuvers under and near the basket. Forget Kurt Thomas, best known for committing an offensive foul from behind the three-point arc last year; Shandon Anderson is the one to watch.

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The next post will be Monday. Have a nice Thanksgiving.

I'm getting the sense that the urgency for innovation from cell phone manufacturers has resulted in some cut corners on quality control.

To take advantage of AT&T's GSM network (and a more favorable calling plan only available with it), I bought a Motorola T720 phone. It's much flashier than the v60 I previously used; it has a color display, is capable of all kinds of Internet applications, and improves even more upon the streamlined and compact design of Motorola flip-open phones.

But this morning I experienced the most recent example of a problem stemming from basic operation. My cell phone had been plugged in overnight, charging. When I went to unplug the phone, however, the phone was off. I pushed the "on" button and nothing happened. Finally, after unplugging the actual cord from the outlet and re-inserting it, the phone came on.

In fact, the 720 has these kinds of problems all the time. It will turn off when I end a call. It will say it's charging when afterwards, the battery level is somehow lower. Occasionally with the v60 I experienced similar irritations that were easily solved by power cycling, but on the 720 they seem much more frequent.

The v60 was like Mac OS 8.6--graciously antiquated but relentlessly reliable. I'm saving my old phone in case I ever want to go back.

It's official: Time Warner has agreed to sell its music division to a group led by Edward Bronfman for $2.6 billion. This may be the most exciting day in business history since Cablevision shut down The Wiz. (They tried to sell it, but nobody was interested.) Maybe the economic recovery will be propelled by conglomerate breakups, unleashing shareholder value previously buried in delusions of "synergy."

The Time Warner sale is just about as direct a rejection of the conglomerate model as you can get. Of all the music companies, Warner Music actually had the corporate siblings to take advantage of online distribution, including AOL's subscription base of 25 million.

Now this music business can participate in the market and make deals according to their true value instead of some fantasyland vision in a high-level strategy memo. It's about time.

The MTA may be "going your way," but most people aren't. Among them:

5) People that can't figure out how to use a MetroCard and prevent you from catching the train right in front of you. Swiping the plastic card through the reader seems to be a self-evident process, but not for everybody.

4) People that descend subway station stairs too slowly while you hear an oncoming train. Sometimes you can slalom around them but on the narrower staircases, such as those at 72nd Street, this is difficult and you're probably out of luck.

3) People that prevent you from entering the train despite generous open space in the middle of the car. These people insist on standing next to the door even though you're at 96th Street and they're getting off at Canal.

2) People that prevent you from entering the platform by exiting through the same turnstile you want to use to get in. Somehow, they manage to choose the one worst turnstile out of the five or ten available. They also don't know that common sense etiquette dictates that they should let you make the train before they leave the station.

1) People blocking you from departing the subway car by standing right in front of where you need to get out. So much for the "Step Aside" campaign of a few years ago. A surprising number of people still don't realize that your getting off the train is the necessary first step in allowing everyone else to proceed.

Nobody expects a press release to offer objective information--precisely the point is to present news in the most favorable possible light. But it's time to stop the thinly disguised advertisements in purported analyst testimonials about the relevance and value of new technology. What's more, these quotes mark a missed opportunity to establish credibility with more general, toned-down statements.

Today, AT&T Wireless announced enhancements to its mMode wireless Internet service. This press release features a quote from a Yankee Group analyst that reads like it was drafted by the AT&T Wireless PR department.

Here's a dirty little secret of analyst quotes: it probably is.

The decline of the technology sector has made the technology analyst landscape more competitive, too. The Yankee Group, Gartner Group, Jupiter and other players are just as hungry for publicity as the companies they cover. If I had to take a guess, Yankee Group was just as excited to be in this press release as AT&T Wireless was to issue it.

But there's a way for everyone to gain exposure and remain credible at the same time. These kinds of press releases should include general information about trends, not specific company endorsements. For a press release about wireless phone Internet applications, information from a study about the increasing popularity of this technology would have been more persuasive and more believable. It's a golden opportunity for PR departments to accomplish more by saying less.

We're getting to the time of year when medium-range weather forecasting becomes part guesswork at best. Case in point: the on-again, off-again predictions regarding the duration of the current East Coast rain event.

Several days ago, forecasts predicted rain for mid-week followed by clearing. (This rain has now arrived in NYC.) Then, on Sunday, a couple of the computer models began hinting that a "cutoff low" would develop off the Carolina coast and stick around, producing an extended period of clouds and showers.

Cutoff lows are every meteorologist's nightmare. Typically, storms are steered by upper air jet stream currents, so by looking at the upper air winds you can predict how fast a storm will move and where it will travel. Cutoff lows have a mind of their own. They seem to self-generate out of nowhere, and either sit or meander for days.

As late as last evening, most forecasts came into agreement that this cutoff low would keep rain in the area through most of the weekend. But then, all of a sudden, updated computer model runs took this storm out to sea. Meteorologist Nick Gregory was first on the scene, updating his prediction for Friday and Saturday to a mix of sun and clouds with no rain.

Now everyone seems to agree that the rain will last only through Thursday. It's a nice reminder that whatever any computer model shows beyond two or three days should be considered with caution.

Today's $2.5 billion bid for the music division of Time Warner is great news, and is yet another sign that the outdated conglomerate business model is finally out of fashion. For all the controversy the company has faced in recent years, Time Warner deserves credit for dumping one non-core business after another, including half of Comedy Central, a CD/DVD manufacturing division and its vanity Atlanta sports teams.

Time Warner isn't the only company enlightened enough to get out of the sports management business. Disney has sold the Anaheim Angels and News Corporation has sold the Dodgers.

The one holdout is--who else?-- Cablevision. The Dolans insist on holding on to Madison Square Garden, the Knicks, Rangers and Liberty. Maybe this is why Don Cheney's coaching contract has been extended through 2006--it's easier to renew the current contract when you also have to monitor the rollout of voice-over-cable telephone service and deal with various accounting irregularities. Last week Knicks center Dikembe Mutombo managed to commit a foul on an opening tip-off, a sure sign of another long winter for New York basketball and hockey fans.

Some of the most interesting advertising recently is from the tourist offices of other countries.

Spain has a wonderful campaign anchored by the slogan "A Friend From Europe." A vacation-themed ad touts Madrid as a tourist destination, while a simultaneous business-oriented ad shows a photo of a modern subway car to entice American companies considering European outposts. Either way, the "Friend" wording is clever, tapping into perceived American attitudes about Spain's neighbors to the east.

Now Canada has chimed in with a "Discover Our True Nature" campaign, featuring a sweepstakes to win a vacation. This weekend's print ad in The New York Times shows a couple frolicking past a French café presumably in Montréal. However, the photo must have been taken in New Orleans, because there is no snow on the ground and the people are not wearing six-layer parkas while battling bitter winds.

It turns out, however, that you only win the Montréal trip if you're from New York. If you're from Boston, you're sent to Québec City. This is also cleverly appropriate, because the relationship between those two cities is just like that between the Big Apple and Beantown. People in Québec City are always comparing themselves to Montréal, while those in the latter simply don't acknowledge the comparison.

And if you're from L.A.? Although Vancouver would have been the logical choice, you win a weekend in Alberta. What could be more appealing to those Santa Monica surfers than some quality time in thirty-below temperatures?

Who cares about hail in Los Angeles? The real story is here on the East Coast, where a massive storm now up in the Canadian Maritimes has created extremely windy conditions. Here are five lesser-known but important aspects to this big weather story.

5) Steep pressure slopes. Large-scale wind is caused by differences in air pressure. The tighter the gradient, the windier you get. As the storm center moved across upper Michigan, within a three hour period the barometric pressure rose 8 millibars at Madison, Wisconsin while falling almost 8 millibars at Toronto. That's a huge simultaneous rise and fall with not much space in between.

4) It's not that cold. Really. Large storms in the Northeast are frequently followed by a severe outbreak of cold air. Not this time. While the air feels cold, actual temperatures in NYC are hovering in the lower 40s. Without any wind, it would be seasonably cool for a nice autumn day.

3) Continuous chill. Winds should subside steadily behind a fast-moving storm center, but not this time. At La Guardia Airport, sustained wind speeds have been 23 mph or greater every hour since 5am yesterday, with gusts every hour of at least 33 mph. The latest observation shows NW winds at 31 mph gusting to 39. A wind advisory remains in effect until 4pm today.

2) West-facing wetlands. It's unusual for west-facing shorelines to experience flooding, because most strong storms travel east of the city, circulating back northeast-to-southwest winds pushing water away from these beaches. Not this time. Some residents at the east end of the Great South Bay are now reminded that Long Island actually tilts a bit north of east. Bay-side beaches were exposed to a long fetch of waves driven eastward by gale-force gusts.

1) Great Lakes, great energy. Ice usually covers the Great Lakes once winter starts. But for this storm, lake surface temperatures remained well above freezing, providing the influx of heat energy for dramatic intensification. Most intense storms that affect the Northeast draw their energy from the Gulf Stream off the Virginia and Maryland coast. In another month or so that will be the norm, but for now the Lakes were obviously warm enough for an unusually abrupt strengthening so far away from the ocean.

You get your restaurant check and in addition to the itemized charges for what you ordered, and tax, you see another $2.00 charge "to defray the costs of complying with city health and food service establishment codes."

This would be crazy. But somehow this strategy has found its way into cell phone provider small print.

AT&T Wireless charges a $1.75 "Regulatory Programs Fee." This funds "compliance with various government mandated programs which may not be available yet to subscribers." Cingular is less demanding, tacking on only $1.25 "to help defray its cost incurred in complying with obligations and charges imposed by State and Federal telecom regulations" and other requirements. Both companies note that this fee is not "required" and is not a "tax."

Why stop there? The companies should make the fee $10.00 and say it is to help pay their legal bills. Then they could advertise lower rates for their monthly plans.

As part of its online support, Apple has discussion areas (basically the same kind of setting as a newsgroup) where customers can post questions. These discussion boards are especially helpful for two reasons. First, when you post a question, you can check boxes to have contents of the thread e-mailed to you either as individual posts appear or as a daily digest.

Second, just as importantly, designated "helpers" populate the support system. This gives inquirers and readers confidence that they will receive helpful and legitimate information. This, in turn, encourages use of the bulletin board, a less expensive support channel than the one-to-one telephone call.

That said, Apple is smart to call these designated assistants "helpers" instead of cloaking them with more blatant manifestations of agency. (On the AT&T Wireless Web site, equivalent authorities are designated with a small AT&T logo next to their username.) The stakes are high with technical support, and if recommended remedies are misinterpreted, ambiguously communicated, or misappropriated and unwisely applied by a third party, a user can lose data. Even if actual legal liability is limited, any perception that Apple-related personnel made someone's situation worse would damage the company's reputation.

The "helper" designation is ideal. It establishes confidence in a less expensive support option for the company. But it's also somewhat passive and ambiguous, and suggests that these people can be a little more experimental than official call center representatives or other clearly identified Apple employees.

Does anyone actually buy those Thanksgiving cards?

Maple Grove Farms of Vermont makes outstanding salad dressing, and a welcome addition to its product line is the new lime basil variety.

Maple Grove Farms managed to combine two robust flavors in a complementary but not overwhelming way. That said, the dressing is strong, and is best sampled cautiously. Try it over plain salads (such as romaine lettuce, lightly seasoned croutons and Havarti cheese) because this dressing over anything eclectic will wind up being too busy. Also, start with a small amount. You can always add more.

5) The Lincoln Center lag. The eastbound stop on the southwest corner of Columbus and 65th takes forever. In the late evening, Lincoln Center performances let out a throng of bus riders not known for their speed in MetroCard processing and in finding a seat. In addition, this corner is a new MTA checkpoint, with a sidewalk-based monitor, clipboard in hand, to regulate bus flow. To secure a seat in unfavorable weather, walk west to Amsterdam and board there.

4) The Columbus exodus. Don't waste effort activating the "Stop Requested" sign between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue. 95% of the other people on the bus are getting off there also. Let one of the naive newbies (or compulsive commuters) push the tape for you.

3) The Lexington shuffle. Heading west from 3rd Avenue? Bring a good book. Between Hunter College and the 68th Street subway stop below it, as many as 30 people will board the bus at peak hours.

2) The Third Avenue tease. The eastbound Third Avenue stop is on the far corner, so you'll almost certainly have to wait for a red light before proceeding across the street. Fortunately, Lexington Avenue to Third Avenue is one of the shortest blocks in the city, so get off at Lex and just walk over to Third.

1) The East Side evasion. The M66 totally avoids the street for which it is named on the entire East Side part of the route: you'll never find it on 66th Street. Going east, it travels along 65th to Madison before continuing on 68th. Going west, it stays on 67th all the way until Fifth Avenue. Maybe it should be called the M66-ish bus instead.

The Wall Street Journal today features a great story about Washington Mutual, which has expanded nationally through innovative (and so far successful) marketing tactics. Part of its pitch these days is surcharge-free ATM use for customers of other banks.

Let's see if this lasts this time around. Republic National Bank used to have surcharge-free ATMs before it was acquired by HSBC. Then HSBC re-activated the charge to raise money for ad campaigns showing how the word "robot" does not mean the same thing in Japan as it does in South Africa.

Is any bank smart enough to tighten the link between free ATM usage and actual customer acquisition? Right now it seems the marketing strategy hinges on hope, that in the course of using an ATM you will come across compelling literature. Why not sweeten the hook? Program the ATM to pitch specific promotions before the machine dispenses cash. And ATMs print receipts. Let prospective customers bring ATM receipts as "coupons" to secure promotional bonuses for checking accounts or favorable lending rates. Instead, most banks today would rather penalize prospective customers for stepping onto their real estate, which seems odd for a consumer business strategy.

I finally made my first custom playlist on my iPod, a sequence of '90s rock. I've had the iPod for months now. But it took the better part of that time to overcome the assumption that making any mix would take hours, as it did in the days of recording CD tracks to a cassette.

Without any real reason, the first half of the 21-song playlist turned out to be unsettling while the second half is one of the best upbeat, party-oriented mixes I have ever heard.

The first half opens with Bush's "Everything Zen" but goes downhill from there. The sluggish "Lightning Crashes" (Live) after "Ants Marching" (Dave Matthews Band) is like rain on a parade. "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette is one of the decade's better songs but becomes a disconcerting irritation in between "Lightning Crashes" and "Tonight, Tonight" (Smashing Pumpkins). ("1979," with its steadier, more evenhanded presentation, would have been the better Pumpkins selection. And "Selling the Drama" instead of "Lightning Crashes" would put air back in the balloon.)

A fantastic party begins at track 11, though. "Low" (Cracker) is presented the way it should be--away from the rest of that album. "Santa Monica" (Everclear), "Long View" (Green Day), "Been Caught Stealing" (Jane's Addiction), "Shimmer" (Fuel) and "My Own Worst Enemy" (Lit) form a relentlessly appealing sequence of guitar-driven rock with infectious hooks, pinpoint production and humorous lyrics.

Gwen Stefani's voice is among my favorites, but here, "Just a Girl" (No Doubt) somehow provides an especially refreshing diversion. I'm still debating whether "Even Flow" (Pearl Jam) next is a clever "retro" break or simply out of place, but as a great song, it can't hurt. The second half finshes as strongly as it begins: "Send Me On My Way" (Rusted Root) is cheerfully organic without being trite; "Dammit" (Blink 182) is light and shallow without being useless. "Buddy Holly" (Weezer) delivers a lighthearted but intelligent penultimate track before "Plowed" (Sponge) captures the sound of 1995 and ends the mix with a satisfying cadence.

I love reading responses from PR people for trade associations everyone despises. Today's case in point: the response from the American Teleservices Association to AT&T's alleged violation of FCC telemarketing rules. The FCC accuses AT&T of pitching additional services to consumers that had supposedly specifically requested freedom from AT&T telemarketing calls.

The response from the ATA quoted in The New York Times was: "For a decade, [the FCC hasn't] done [its] job. Now [the FCC is] adding new regulation." No further elaboration appears to be available on the ATA Web site; the most recent news release is from October 14.

This statement is wrong one way or another. If the FCC hasn't been doing its job, then the regulation is not new. If the regulation is new, there was no job not to be done in the past. This tortured logic is typical of PR responses when there is no response. If the allegations are true, AT&T didn't honor consumers' requests. And, just because the police let most people drive on the Merritt Parkway at 75 miles per hour doesn't mean you're not liable for a speeding ticket when they catch you.

As for AT&T, its official response says: "We are confident we can persuade the FCC...that there were not 78 do-not-call violations." In other words, there were only 77. Now that's reaching out, well done.

Today may be the most visually spectacular day in New York since heavy snow turned Manhattan into a winter wonderland during the Blizzard of 1996. Not only is the foliage a perfect blend of red and yellow, but also we have bright sunshine and temperatures near 80--an unusual combination for early November.

Ideal fall foliage requires specific weather conditions in the early and middle autumn. You need enough days with sunshine, warm afternoons and cool nights. Obviously we had this, but it's surprising given all the rain we appear to have had as well--the reservoirs are full, compared to their normal level of 70% this time of year.

In addition, the sun angle is just right. It's low enough to have allowed for the foliage to unfold, but just high enough to have burned off the dense fog this morning. In winter, fog tends to stick around all day, but today there is enough mixing down of dry air to scour out the moisture despite high dewpoints and southerly winds.