Welcome to 2008. My prediction: This year will not suck. If you think it will suck, then you’re spending too much time watching TV news. Turn. Off. The. TV. Thank-you!

Thanks to reader Troy, I now know about Vetusware. I’m thrilled!

Vetus is the Latin word for old, and vetusware.com is a web site that contains abandoned software — so-called abandonware. That’s software that was once copyrighted and sold for real money, but because the software is old or supports an older operating system (think DOS) it’s been dropped by the developer.

Visiting the vetusware site you’ll find all sorts of programs that you may have once owned, or possibly even lusted after. All of them are sitting there waiting download. For example, the old WordPerfect 5 for DOS, or Sim City 2000, or even Norton Ghost 2003. Providing that you have the ancient PC to run such a thing (or an emulator), the world is your oyster at Vetusware. Definitely check it out.

Wambooli Updates Dept. My old blog, Wambooli Lunch, contained some interesting articles. One of them I pulled from the maws of that gravesite is my article about producing a vinculum in Word. It’s a cool trick, and you can read about it here.

New Years 404 Dept. The New Years Eve celebration in Seattle is marked by a festive fireworks display at the Space Needle. It almost didn’t go off this past week; at the last minute technicians noticed that the file which controls the fireworks display was corrupted. One, two reboots failed to fix the situation. Eventually the show was run manually. My question: was the computer running Windows?