The other day I imagined myself working at Microsoft. No, it wasn’t a nightmare. My job was to produce an operating system for professional PC users and hobbyists. I was head of the revived Xenix division.
(more…)

“Eight hundred dollars! Are you serious?” Yes, Radio Shack was serious. That was the cost of upgrading my TRS-80 Model III with a floppy disk drive. The upgrade also boosted system RAM from 16KB up to the maximum 48KB. But I wanted that disk drive!
(more…)

Putting my email in a book wasn’t an original idea. I credit Roger Parker with my inspiration.
(more…)

It’s called Palermo. It’s my favorite coffee shop in Ventura, CA. In fact, I adore this place.
(more…)

I recognize that I’m odd, but I figure I’m not the only one who looks at a web page address and thinks, “What does all that crap mean?” Some addresses are pretty clean. Others look like the cat walked on the keyboard, lied down, and took a snooze.
(more…)

My first thoughts about buying recommendations for a new phone is, does anyone bother to ask?

Of course they do! The problem right now is that few people know which features are desirable or can make a difference. Buying a phone is more than just choosing a plan and finding a low price.
(more…)

Computers die, sometimes in a painful and lingering way. The goal in getting a new system is to replace the old one before its inevitable death.
(more…)

Each time I setup a new PC, I copy over my all-time favorite DOS utilities. They dwell in a special folder, COMMANDS\, found off my main profile folder in Windows. I even configure the DOS prompt program, CMD.EXE, so that it references that folder, giving me command line access to my favorite text mode tools. And now they don’t work.
(more…)