Once upon a time, I had about two dozen phone numbers memorized. I knew the birthdays for just about every family member. I could keep a week’s worth of appointments, as well as upcoming due dates, right in my head. I even had trivial facts memorized and could recite poetry or explain important dates. Today, my tablet knows all that stuff.
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February 7, 2014A World of Empty HeadsFebruary 5, 2014Mistakes Apple Wishes You’d ForgetThey are the perhaps the most prestigious company on the planet. They represent a certain status. Only the cool kids use their stuff. Of course, it’s Apple, the company that revolutionized technology with the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. That’s the same company that failed to revolutionize anything with some ripe products in their boneyard — stuff that they’d wish people would forget. February 3, 2014Feminists Take On WikipediaWikipedia is just too slanted to the male perspective, or so say feminists who want to fix it through extensive editing. They’ll be holding editing-a-thons across the country over the next few weeks. Being a man, of course, I can’t fathom their specific issues. I expect they’ll be changing the third person singular from “he” to “she” all over the place. You can’t do that in Chinese or Latin or other languages. And maybe references to a ship as “she” will go down the tubes. I know a ship is a “she” in Italian. Can’t change that one, of course. Oh, English is so sexist!
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Would You Like to Play a Game?Joshua, the computer personality of the WORP mainframe from the film War Games, uttered the most famous line in all of computer gaming history. It asked Matthew Broderick’s hacker character, “Would you like to play a game?” How can anyone say no to that? January 31, 2014Google Sells Motorola to LenovoMuch fanfare met the purchase of Motorola (one of the world’s leading Android phone manufacturers) to Google (the only Android operating system developer) last year. It was like an Android fanboy’s fantasy: The operating system and hardware would be made by the same organization. Take that, Apple! Recently, Motorola has been sold by Google. The buyer is Lenovo. If you recall, Lenovo is the Chinese company that made news about a decade ago. That’s when IBM sold them their entire PC division. IBM decided it wanted out of the consumer computer division, and that was a smart move. As a consumer of consumer computers, I was a bit worried. I prefer the IBM brand. My first PC was a (used) IBM PC. (My first computer was a TRS-80 Model III.) Since IBM sold their PC business, I’ve purchased many Lenovo computers. In fact, the first one I bought still had the IBM logo. My most recent Lenovo computer is a laptop I bought last year. It’s a solid machine. In fact, I recommend Lenovo laptops. The extended warranty is worth the price, and the service is excellent. Lenovo delivers a good product, so I’m not concerned about them dipping into the smartphone waters. In the big picture, I believe Google wants to remain a software company. True, they have the Nest line of products and Chromecast. But these, too, may be spun off to various hardware manufacturers. I see that as a good move. The only concern I have is that Lenovo try to keep the Nexus line pure. The Nexus phones and tablets are as close to stock Android as you can get. I like that.
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Task Manager to the Rescue!I’ve used this trick so often, I don’t even think about it. In fact, I’ve done it on my son’s computer so often he knows it well. It’s the old “Kill a program by using the Task Manager trick,” and if you aren’t familiar with it, you should be.”
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January 30, 2014Play with Virtual LegosI don’t know whether or not to be thrilled, but apparently Google has introduced a Chrome app that lets you play with virtual Legos on your computer. Perhaps the app also lets you bury random Lego pieces in the carpet, which you can step on at 3:00 AM? Or maybe Lego pieces that become eternally stuck to each other? O the possibilities!
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January 29, 2014When Filenames Were ShorterUp until 1995, PC users existed in a world where filenames could be only eight characters long. It actually wasn’t as painful as you might imagine.
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January 27, 2014Happy Birthday, MacI was a pretty-well established computer geek by the time the Macintosh computer debuted 30 years ago. It wasn’t until April of that year (1984) that I actually got my hands on a Mac. January 24, 2014Updating Your Old Word DocumentsWord 2007 introduced a new document format. Along with it came a tornado of confusion and anger. |
