Urban Vancouver

I'm glad to see that you're learning about open source software, the quality really is better. :)

My favourite part of OpenOffice is the export to PDF, that way you can be sure that the person that receives the file sees it exactly how you want.

If Microsoft software is so inferior, why still use Windows even?

I challenge you to install a flavor of Linux, use it for 6 months, and report on your blog if such a move was better or worse and why.

You seems to be so jealous with Bill success and dicredit all Windows products because of your envy towards him.

you had a good write up here

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/11/10/geezers.who.blog.ap/inde...

Senior citizen bloggers defy stereotypes

Thursday, November 10, 2005 Posted: 1448 GMT (2248 HKT)

Former newspaperman Jim Bowman, 75, writes four regular blogs.

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Forget shuffleboard, needlepoint, and bingo.

Web logs, more often the domain of alienated adolescents and middle-aged pundits, are gaining a foothold as a new leisure-time option for senior citizens.

There's Dad's Tomato Garden Journal, Dogwalk Musings, and, of course, the Oldest Living Blogger.

"It's too easy to sit in your own cave and let the world go by, eh?" said Ray Sutton, the 73-year-old Oldest Living Blogger and a retired electrician who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. "It keeps the old head working a little bit so you're not just sitting there gawking at TV."

Thanks to the Associated Press, I was directed to your site, and commend you for not allowing yourself to vegetate like so many of my only-slightly-older peers. Hurray for Gray Power, sir!

I agree on all points you make about alternative software.

AVG 7.0 has been updated to 7.1 and is still as good as ever, though I had to downgrade from its combined firewall-and-antivirus package after I discovered they do a very bad job explaining the firewall is set to OFF and they don't do a good job explaining how to change this. I wound up reformatting my hard drive on that one, but stayed with them anyway because the A/V itself is splendid, far better than even ZoneAlarm (though its free firewall is better than the ZA paid firewall; go figure!).

OpenOffice 2.0 is now out and does work well, though certain functions from Word are not there (including custom formatting for small caps, and other weirdness that only self-styled desktop publishers might want anyway). It's a good overall system, but it's also 75MB of file --- somewhat prohitive for dial-up users to try to acquire. (Moral: ask a friend with broadband to burn this free program onto a CD, but still get it and use it).

The only (repeat, only) negative comment I have about your posts in general centers on formatting. Probably due to you pressing RETURN at the end of the line on your screen, rather than letting the software keep going on the same line. Using Firefox, I see lines with one word or two, meaning artificial breaks were introduced somewhere.

Other than that minor quibble, I am glad to see you helping us keep those **** brats in line on OUR Internet! [ :=) ]

Hi. Noticed your comment on Microsoft, Windows, etc. There is truth in what you say. But I, for one, feel that Microsoft has provided a serious benefit to the computer world - and I don't work for them or own shares or have any other affliation.

I got my introduction to computers back in 1974-5 on a mainframe at university which used punch cards (like those ones for Unemployement Insurance years ago), used a number of different mainframes over the years, moved to the Apple II about 1981 (still using a mainframe at work) and then finally to PCs with the comming of the 80286 chip (~1985) and have owned MANY DOS and Windows PCs since - while work moved to UNIX (Dec then Sun Workstations) and finally to Windows PCs.

During this evolution, I saw a lot of what I called computer bigotry. First it was Apple at fault. The Apple II was hopelessly outclassed by the first IBM PCs in 1982 but Apple had an "Apple II forever" campaign and by 1995 they were still selling the same level of technology while the PC had gone through 4 major steps in the evolution (from 8088 to 80286 to 80368 to 486 to Pentium). The PC was literally a thousand times the machine and Apple was still willing to reel in suckers for their Apple II. (Of course they sold Macs too, which were good machines, but very expensive.)

Back then everybody had a favourite machine, if Apple, Commodore, Atari, or other and none of their files or disks would work with any other machine. NOT ONE. Since I had an Apple II and the university had Commodore for the small machines, I could not port my work back to home even though the machines used the same basic chips and disk drives and liscenced the same Basic Interpretter (from Microsoft...) Everyone was confident that their favourite machine would win the "computer wars" and become the standard. I had, back then, heard a thousand discussions why Commodore would win or why Apple would win or (later) why UNIX RISC machines would win. Everyone was confident that the stupid PC fad would soon be over and Microsoft would die a horrible death. (These people were usually clever, usually university students and/or grad students and/or professors...)

Myself, once I understood what IBM, Microsoft and Intel were trying to do with backward compatability (old software still runs on updated newer machines -- not true for ANY OTHER machine back then)
and I saw how the business world was "going IBM" without any resistance at all (all those Apple IIs in the garbage, I had paid $5,000 for a "complete system"...) I decided I better think about this and within 2 cups of coffee I had concluded that IBM/Microsoft/Intel would win the wars because of the practicality of not having to type all your work in again everytime you updated a machine. That's not why I wanted to own a computer but it was my reality. (This was in 1984-5.) (I still have a couple of old DOS programs that I find useful and they still run on my Pentium IV on Windows XP, 20 years and 7 "evolutionary" steps later. Hard to believe actually.)

Since that time every computer bigot (pro Apple, Commodore, Atari, etc., or even UNIX/LINUX) I have encountered has lashed into me because I was taken to be some kind of traitor.

When I bought my 486 an engineer friend of mine had given me a cable and a software program (DOS) and I connected it to my old 286 and copied all the files over and was very surprised and happy just how fast all my old programs ran now (on the better machine) and that they ALL worked exactly as they had on the 286. Not one failed. I told the UNIX guru this at work, we were friends and were going to lunch. He stopped mid step and looked at me and forcibly asked "YOU MEAN THE PROGRAMS ACTUALLY RAN?" I repeated that they had. He literally looked up in the sky and said "That's why..." I asked "Why what?" "Why the PCs have won." I asked if this wasn't true in UNIX (at least UNIX at the time) and he said that he would have to recompile (read lots and lots of work) and/or buy (at the time UNIX software was extremely expensive) all the software again. This was the only admission from any PC bigot in my life that the IBM/Microsoft/Intel machines had something going for them. (He was/is a decent man even if he was a UNIX bigot. He now uses PCs.)

Sun Microsystems (for example) didn't start out by offering software alternatives for MS Office and the like. They had their own hardware (my employer paid about $60,000 a box) and their own operating system (UNIX and X Windows system - about the same as Windows) and their own softare and in the office I worked at there was a staff of 4 engineers to keep the Sun UNIX systems up and running in ~1992. (A program to copy pictures from the screen into a file (JPEG file) cost $1,000 per computer. Windows did this for free at the same time.) (At home, my 286 and 486 didn't need anybody but me.) Now that new Pentium IVs sell for under $1,000, many UNIX based companies are desperately trying to find some way of continuing to exist and this is why such companies are attacking Microsoft applications (such as MS Office). They have given up attacking Windows and they have given up on their own hardware. They are trying to survive.

Really, all I know or care about it is that I can put my work on a disk (these days a flash memory USB stick) and if I can find a computer somewhere (when I don't have one of my laptops with me) I can continue to work. To me, with the hell the pre-Windows world (read mainframes, Apple, Commodore and UNIX) gave me, this is a lot. I'm not saying too much. But this standardization is a lot and for those who don't know just how horrible things were before - they don't know how much the standards that IBM/Microsoft/Intel imposed on the industry means to a normal user. Computers have gone from needing a staff of scientists/engineers to operate it to something that "just works". I, for one, am grateful.

I use computers to test ideas - I am not interesting in spending 95% of my energy learning weird tricks in order to coax the damn things into being actually useful. Microsoft has provided that for me, and everyone else too. Just ask any old computer hack what it used to be like. (But you might get swamped in the nostalgia too...) It is true that Apple Macs were ahead on this, but they were really pricey.

Brian James

PS I don't like Norton either. I wish MS would incorporate an anti-Virus into the OS (Windows). In the meantime, my ISP (Shaw cable) provides a decent free one just for hooking up with their very fast and not expensive service.

PPS About using those latest technologies in Open Office. Be a little bit careful there. Many of these technologies won't survive more than a few years. What has helped me over the years has been to be slow to adopt unnecessary "improvements". Otherwise I end up with unusable files down the road. By the way, Microsoft does this too, and intentionally so. One reason I like them.

BJ