It is probably inevitable that all of us who are the consumers of the new millennium are destined to live on the cutting edge of our technology. In other words, we want the latest and greatest of whatever there is to be had in the way of computers, laptops, iPods, Video gear, gadgets and toys, etc… al. Besides that, we want those things with all the bells and whistles that go with them, right?
“Dang! My Trio Phone’s battery went dead again! Now I lost all my numbers and that ebook I was reading!”
The only problem with that is we are skating in our lives right on the ragged edge of technology. And when our toys fail, we cry.
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Time to Shoot the Programmers?
This old computing world is a world of woe!
Virus attacks daily! Microsoft security warnings daily! PC users are not
safe anymore!
Besides that, these Windows PCs are ever more complex and hard to learn. Common people will never figure out how to set all them security features to protect themselves and all their data on their cheap store-bought personal computers.
How did it all get so complicated? How did it all get so bad? Every PC Continue reading »
commentator is screaming about a pending worldwide Digital Pearl Harbor. What’s worse, they may be right!
Computing is way cool, huh? Got to love it. All the great new technology and devices. Things are mostly sweet on the computer, but only if you use a Mac. What a great time to be alive!
People say that all our data, all our music, our pictures, and even our home movies are going to last on their new CD medium for a hundred years or more. We can be proud that our grandkids and even their kids will be able to see us and read or watch what we do today as we live our lives at the beginning of a brand new millennium.
Fact is, there is a dirty little secret about computing that almost no one ever talks about.
The secret is that the medium we store all our beloved data on won’t last out the decade. Let alone last to the next century.
Huh?
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I am coming out of the closet now. I have thought about it for a long, long time. I must remain anonymous, however, because of my job – I hope you understand.
Yeah, it’s true. I am a former Macintosh user and even a former ranting Mac evangelist.
I use a Windows PC now.
I am one of those rare birds who went from the Mac to Windows, not the other way around, as so many are doing nowadays, running from the insecurity and vagaries of the Windows environment to the safety and security of the Mac. Continue reading »
(Those wimps!)
A certified non-copyrighted article, Continue reading »
Treason checked for plagiaristic content (software permit license number #4B2420216)
Author ID #7965539 Ð Licensed to write, March 25, 2021
This Article is Certified Government ProForm Compliant by Editor ID #66166882
Yeah, you swim in it every day, if you own a computer and have a dial up or some such connection to the Internet. You and I can’t help it. We have to at least cross it to get to the other side of where we are going, if nothing else.
Spending time on a computer today can be compared to nothing better than taking your life in your hands when you cross a moving river, one that is full of moving junk and debris, and where the water contains obvious filth and toxic elements. Your wife and children have to swim in this stuff too.
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That did it! No more PIBGORN! Just too brutal. Rats! It was such a nice and funny cartoon too, by a great artist who made each panel a work of art! Did you know that Brooke McEldowney, who also does 9 CHICKWEED LANE was the artist? I followed his new work in PIBGORN for a long time, until last night. I guess horror, vampires, murder, bleeding victims, lightning bolt throwing ghosts and stabbed vixens just got to be too much.
PIBGORN is jus the latest one of a bunch of comics I quit reading lately. This has gotten to be a crisis in Comicland! It may even be the end of America as we know it! What caused this crisis? Perhaps it is our current overly politically correct climate, or even our eternal deadlines.
You have a daily list of cartoons and comic strips you read faithfully? Have you noticed the change in many of them?
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I aught to know what its like. I am a writer myself. I have gone searching fruitlessly for something to write when there just wasn’t anything. I have taken dictation from my muse, when she was speaking faster than I could type. I have gone without sleep, writing, waiting to see what would happen next in my stories, eager to get to the end to see how it all turns out.
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Some reporters and pundants are calling the new G5 case design a Cheese
Grater? No, no, no! You don’t understand! Apple’s new PC case design is leading the whole PC industry (again).
Apple Computer, with the new G5 changed the way computer builders are going Continue reading »
to be thinking about how their components are to be laid out in their cases.
Why? Because Apple came up with a whole new paradigm of computer design
that perhaps no one had ever thought of. Watch also, as all the other major
PCs start to put fully ventilated faces on their best desktop models.
We who love the Macintosh have been accused, sometimes rightly so, of being sort of Johnny-One-Notes. When you write for a Mac site on the Web, the Mac is what you speak of. We do reviews of products for the Mac, and we write about what the new Macs are like when they come out. We are pretty good about defending our favorite platform of choice: That’s what we do.
But there is more to life than the Macintosh, obviously. Most of us have families, and we also have other interests and even different jobs. Some of us are teachers, instructors, or artists. A few of us fight monumental health issues on a daily basis just to be able to apply our fingers to the keyboard. I am usually amazed and humbled by witnessing the others around this cyber place, knowing what they must do to write, and how well they do it. Puts me right in the shade, folks.
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There is a little known curse that comes with teaching Critical Thought. It is especially bad if you also teach History. It is that your thoughts do not always go where you want them to go. Sometimes they bring you to conclusions that you would rather not think about.
I have not written in a while. Events happen, or rather transpire, and the writing sometimes gets pushed aside. However, that does not mean that the thinking goes away. Watching events play out on the world’s stage lately have transfixed us all, especially since 9/11. You know what I mean? This whole interplay between America and the rest of the world seems to be something brand new, and most people are unsure of what to think about it.
The fact is America has been, and is now, in the position of being not just the world’s benevolent leader, but the world’s dictator. In other words, America could become an Imperium like Rome was in its days of glory. The reason this has never happened is because our leaders have been patriotic Americans who have been fairly well reasoned individuals who were more intent on using diplomacy to solve the world’s problems. Our leaders generally have also had the check and balance of Congress to oversee their decisions.
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Perhaps San Francisco too.
But New York?
We all just got a tough call by Apple Computer, Inc. about missing Macworld Summer 2004.
Seriously! What was that sudden and capricious announcement by Apple anyway?
Was it really all about not wanting to go to Boston? Once they saw Boston was in and New York was out, did Apple decide to ‘fuggeddaboutit?’
Most of their power users in publications and graphics are in New York, after all. That is where Macworld should be on the East Coast, not Boston.
Or perhaps Apple just got tired of IDG, the people who run Macworld, and their recent history of a callous customer gouging attitude, especially aimed toward publishers and writers.
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You and I know that all men are created equal, and that we all have individual rights. Our Bill of Rights says so. As we celebrate our Independence, here is a ‘Think Piece’ about what might happen if too many Americans took their rights for granted. . .
ADVANCED CITIZENSHIP 10101
Greetings, students and future Citizens of Earth. This is your introduction to the New Age of Man, and the rise of the Republic of Earth. This is your only introduction to Advanced Citizenship 10101. Attend!
INTRODUCTION Continue reading »
At the dawn of the third millennium on Earth, (2000AD) the brave new world of Man had only just begun. Many of the inhabitants of that early world may not have even been aware of what was to come, or knowledgeable, perhaps, of their participation in those monumental events that would forever shape our world today. We call this simple period of time, the DM, for the Dawn of the Age of Man.
She sits now, for a while, quietly mourning her dead.
Yet her lamp is still lit, and the masses still come.
A day in September forever marks her calendar.
Her children run quickly now to war, yet once more.
At times like this, people will question her again. Continue reading »
Why are you here? What do you hope for?
So final, so selfish. Or is it?
I have faced terminal cancer, and its aftermath of pain from the poisons they put in you to kill it. Which is more frightening or painful? Man’s cure is much worse, believe me. This battle is not over yet. The outcome is still unknown. That fact, that uncertainty, has its own pain too.
There were moments in all of this, when the idea of putting an end to my life was a real consideration.
Why did I not do it? Well, I didn’t do it. Call it courage or cowardice. Courage, to keep living for your family, and for respect for Life, however curtailed and painful. Cowardice, for not having the guts to just end it.
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The End of the Internet
Another tale from Working On Dark Side Of The Internet
(Some time in the near future)
I finally found a way to make money off the Internet. I did it by writing a book about how the Net died.
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I remember Gina. Loving her was so easy! I could be anything around her, she was so accepting of me, and of anything I wanted to do. It was so free and easy loving her! She and I were such a team, and she gave me my best dreams!
But that was long ago. I married Martha, of course.
It was a sound decision to do so. All my family and friends thought I would do well to marry her. I could have gainful employment because of her. I would have a secure life.
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The Lie
One of the oddest abilities of Man is the ability to believe a lie. No other creature has this dubious distinction. The current Lie of the decade is the one that every computer user is faced with, as they are deluged with all the propaganda and misinformation out there, and as they face their employers and every IT person who is promoting it. The Lie is everywhere, and few people there are who do not succumb to it.
What is the Lie? It is that Microsoft is the only business software supplier, and that the PC is the only business computer there is.
Amazing! Business computing today is like the final days of the Third Reich, or the last days of the Taliban, where everyone says “Everything is fine, fine!” and where no one dares to voice the truth of the situation.
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It has been two weeks now since my faithful but alien laptop was linked to the Mother Ship. I nurse it along, hoping that it can just make it a few more days. I have lots of work to finish, and I cannot afford to lose this little beast now.
I am alone here in the desert, and there is no hope of finding any kind of service for this faithful, but dying alien friend of mine. PCs are such weird devices anyway, and so alien compared to my always reliable Macintosh.
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MyMac Podcast #403
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