I’m looking at resumes for web designers today (see also), and on three occasions I’ve had my browser window forced to a “full-screen” size that extends so far that I can’t find the bottom right corner to resize it.

Memo to designers (including, I will admit, my own coworkers in France): resizing browsers to unwieldy screen sizes does nothing to improve the performance or likability of your designs. All it does is aggravate the end user—in this case, the hiring manager—and greatly reduce the probability that the user will ever return to the site.

You’d think that in 2005 we’d all know this.

In this delightful mid-decade era of dotcom revivalism—VC money! hot tech stocks! freelancing!—comes Max Delivery, a new service for downtown Manhattan. Get DVDs and toothpaste delivered to your door an hour! I’m guessing the ridiculous perks of Kozmo and Urbanfetch (movie pickup, no tipping, free T-shirts) no longer apply, but with built-in delivery fees and New Yorkers’ demanding style, this business model could rise once again.

Back in March I popped into del.icio.us the stock charts of 10 listings that were sent to me via email spam. I was curious whether the blind feeds led to any quick ramp-up, in days or weeks, via speculation or otherwise. Hit “read more” for the results.

Back in March I popped into del.icio.us the stock charts of 10 listings that were sent to me via email spam. I was curious whether the blind feeds led to any quick ramp-up, in days or weeks, via speculation or otherwise.

First up was Martin Neutraceutical (MTNU.PK), which arrived in an email dated 2/23. On February 23rd, the stock traded at around $1; it popped up a few cents around the 24th, then began a long and steady decline. It is now trading at $0.14.

Yukon Gold Corporation (YGDC.OB) only trades once or twice a day, according to the daily chart and volume totals. First noticed March 8, the stock has basically flatlined since then, and trades at $1, off from $1.10-1.20 in March.

Humatech Inc (HUMT.OB) went for around 10 cents on March 9. It peaked there and is 7 cents today. Not bad, as long as you only own 100 shares.

OSSI.PK no longer trades; it is now TSAS.PK and only has a 5-day chart. So much for that.

On March 10 I was urged to buy Sivalt Systems (SVTL.OB) at just under $2 a share. What a missed opportunity: the stock never broke $2 and is down to $1.35 today.

Well, four to go, or three, rather—KSIG.OB is now KSIGE.OB. I can’t follow the trend, but it’s at 6 cents, so that’s not a good sign.

Anywhere MD (ANWM.PK), unlike the other stocks on this list, actually has news items and a six-month chart. What it doesn’t have is performance: The stock had dropped from $0.20 to $0.10 before the email spam and never recovered, trading at $0.05 today after a brief spike down to almost $0.

The charts of Yap International (YPIL.PK) and DSI Direct Sales (DSDI.P) look like the other ones above: on the decline before the spam, no different after. Both have a value half of that when the spam first hit my in-box.

That’s nine in a row gone sour. Stock spam seems to operate on the “even a broken clock is right twice a day” theory, though, because my inventory review did uncover a winner.

Gaming Transactions (GGTS.PK) came to me on March 12 with a forecast in the email of “near term target 0.45, long term target 1.00.” Nice estimating: from a price around 30 cents in mid-March, the stock burst past $0.50 in early April and is trading at $0.74 after peaking at $0.90. An investment in this stock would have nearly tripled in value in three months, a pretty good return on some junk mail.

I’m not a financial analyst, so I won’t get into the specifics of ROI for my experiment. The findings are clear, though: you too can have a winner playing stocks in spam messages—you’ll just have a lot of losers along the way.