Windows 8: Metro Masochism

You know, I rather wanted to like the Windows 8 interface. Maybe it's just because I can't resist tinkering with new gadgets. Or maybe it's just stubbornness. I've got no love for Microsoft, but after seeing how much hate was poured on this new OS I just felt compelled to give it a chance.

I needed a new laptop so I got one with a touchscreen. I'd read that for Windows 8 to be tolerable, you'd need one. And Lenovo had one that wasn't more expensive than the comparable non-touchscreen models.

After a couple of hours of playing with the "modern" or "metro" or whatever-they-call-it interface I had a pretty good idea what Microsoft was going for with it. This is a super-minimal interface, insisting on childlike simplicity. Controls are tucked off the edge of the screen as "charms", and the nature of these charms are unified between applications. Rather than creating a unified experience, though, it's just confusing. Tapping the "settings" charm for one app isn't going to bring up the same menu as another, and I'm still not clear on when it's supposed to bring up system-wide settings instead.

The layout does seem rather over-simplistic for a large laptop screen (as opposed to, say, the phones they're trying to unify with). But at the same time I'm one for reducing distractions whenever possible. So I kind-of liked the zen, one thing at a time, one-focus approach of it.

Plus, sweeping your hand across from the left side of the screen to switch between a text editor and a music player felt kind of cool. For a couple of days.

It's just that they've gone too minimal with this interface. They've out-Appled Apple--and as anyone who's looked for a delete key on an apple keyboard can attest, there's not much else you could cut from a Mac without losing functionality. I've spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to preform the simplest things in this interface. Like, how do I find out what folder an application is saving my files in? How do I change the display size of my text? And what fucking time is it?

(I've discovered the clock is just a swipe away, but c'mon. Would it have killed them to leave it in the corner of the screen?)

And then there's the quality of the apps. They're terrible. All of them.

"Evernote Touch's" simplified interface just about kills the feature of sorting and classifying your information--the main strength of the desktop application.  And it's buggy. Every time it syncs with the server it kicks the cursor down to the bottom of the page and seems to switch you from an editing to a read-only mode. And forget about preserving font settings between the Evernote Touch and Evernote for the desktop. It'll sync the notes, but switching between the versions wreaks havoc with font choices and even between-paragraph line spacing.

Video watching applications are loaded up with ads that clutter the screen and counter-intuitive controls. Granted I used the free apps, but why should I pay for something I can do on the desktop with VLC for free?

The Xbox music player (installed by default) worked fine at first, but when it realized I was missing a couple tracks off a particular album, it went online and streamed them. Then, because it was playing a song I didn't own, it blasted advertising at deafening volume through my headphones. I guess it's pretty cool that you can type in any song and hear it immediately for free, but the way it just went and did it without notifying me felt intrusive.

Finally, one of the core functions computers perform is opening, editing, and saving files. But here, every app's interface for doing this is different, counterintuitive, and frustrating. Again, the impulse to keep the interface childishly simple just doesn't work when you have to navigate a computer chock-full of files. There's no easy way for selecting groups of files on a touchscreen, either.

So I've found myself switching over to the standard desktop again and again, until I realized I hadn't worked in the Metro interface at all in weeks. Why would I, when standard, free open source desktop applications did every single job so easily.

The laptop works great, and by ignoring all that new stuff it's given me just what I wanted: a nimble PC that doesn't get bogged down by today's crap-happy internet. But as for Windows' grand experiment with this new interface, nothing "just works." It's extra maddening because the feel of the setup makes it seem like it should. I gave it another try today with a couple more apps from the store, a Youtube viewer-downloader and an e-book reader. They installed in seconds, but both required multiple launches after crashing. Then the downloader said it was saving a file in one format when it really used another. On the other hand, it did allow me to grab an mp3 of one of my favorite artists, eventually. Finding the file after saving it was the usual hassle, and involved leaving the app and performing a search from the desktop. The eBook reader somehow adhered to the minimalist design aesthetic while providing one of the ugliest interfaces around for navigating books. And while it displayed the text in a nice, distraction free layout, it anti-aliased it in weird fuzzy waves across the screen that had me checking my glasses.

Seriously, I haven't used consumer software this rough since the early 90s. It's like the developers just don't care.

So I'm wondering, is anyone else out there still giving the Metro interface a chance? And is anyone still developing for it? Microsoft still claims this is their future, and they’re not backing down—their latest update keeps the start menu off the desktop so you’re forced to pop back to Metro for lots of functions. But shopping through the app store feels like picking through a bargain bin of beat up old misfit toys. How are they planning on selling a system that nobody’s writing quality applications for?

What’s going on here?

Hard Drive Replacement in Macbook Pro

A friend of mine had a secondhand 2007 MacBook pro that the hard drive crapped out on. She bought a new hard drive from Best Buy for $40 and took it to one of those "Mac Express" places that litter the malls to ask how much it would cost to have it installed. They told her, "We only use our own hardware. The drive we'd put in would be $120 and it would cost around $150 for labor." The saleslady then added, in an attempt at mock solidarity, "I'm trying to think of someone around here who might be able to do that for you for cheaper, but I just can't come up with anything."

This is disingenuous on too many levels to count. I know she makes her living by selling services--why be timid about it?

Anyway, I love pulling apart computer hardware and sometimes I’m even able to put it back together. And I've replaced a couple of hard drives in my time. So I took her computer home with the promise that I'd have a look at it, and wouldn't break anything I wasn't confident I couldn't fix.

I'd never done surgery on a Mac before. I found a great guide to the hard-drive replacement procedure on line. It mentioned I'd need a Torx T6 screwdriver. What the hell is that? And what's wrong with a Phillips?

Strangely enough, the local hardware store had a set of tiny precision screwdrivers for sale right on their impulse display which included a selection of Torx bits. Armed with this, I set to the task of taking out screws. And more screws. Most were Phillips. Some Were Torx. Some flat, some pointy.

Good lord, Apple uses a lot of screws.

Organization was key.

After they’d used so many screws, you wouldn't think they'd have to use so much glue. But they glue down all kinds of stuff in there—especially the paper-thin ribbon cables which needed such delicate removal.

This is where I got nervous about keeping my promise not to break anything. These cables are cheap and shabby, and it looks like you could tear them with a fingernail. I used a guitar pick and lots of patience to pry them up and work the adhesive off of the back, just hoping that I wasn't straining something at the molecular level that would disconnect this precious chain of copper atoms.

Here's the monster open, with the keyboard and the hard drive removed. When you get a Mac apart you can really get a feel for how cheap and shabby their build quality is.

You can see the pesky ribbon cable on the left.

Putting the new drive in and doing the reassembly was fairly easy after this. Forcing the keyboard panel back onto the base was tricky because the clips didn’t want to re-engage. Again, the cheap plastic around the DVD drive wanted to collapse when I pushed on it, so I had to hold the slot open with a couple of credit cards while pressing down.

Putting the operating system back on there was the next challenge. I had a scare when I turned the computer back on and it didn't detect her Snow Leopard installation disk. It turns out you have to hold the "option key" to boot to the DVD drive. Then, the installation wizard didn't see the new hard drive. Had I severed the cable with my guitar pick? No, it turns out you have to use the disk utility on the install disk before it will see a new drive.You'd think Apple could offer to do this for you, rather than sending you to hunt through menus. Thank goodness for the OS install walkthrough I found here.

I feel like Apple was fighting me every step of the way, here. Which of course they were. Why would they want my friend to fix this old computer when she might be persuaded to just buy a new one?

But once the install got going it was simply a matter of clicking a few menus and walking away for an hour. The computer actually ran great after that. It didn’t in any way feel like it was six years old. It booted in 20 seconds, connected to wifi, did its thing, and felt just as fast as any other PC I've tinkered around with lately.

Good for another 3000 miles or another six years, I hope.

Back to Linux for Good?

I probably spend more time tinkering with the operating systems on my old computers than I spend tinkering with my typewriters (and lord forgive me but there isn't a heck of a lot of time left for actually writing anything after all this tinkering).

For the last seven or eight years I've been going back and forth between Windows and Linux. Sometimes I use dual-boot configurations. More often I just wipe one OS and switch to the other whenever I got particularly frustrated by some failing.

For a while Windows will draw me in with its officially sanctioned, up-to-date video drivers and the vast collections of software (including games) available for purchase. But then some malware or virus brings the system to a halt, or the anti-virus software starts slowing it down. One time I got an obnoxious notification across my monitors that my copy of Windows was not Genuine. Turns out this happened to millions of customers whether their copies were genuine or not.

So, with that bad taste in my mouth I'll download some recent Linux ISO and burn it to a disc. I've given all the Ubuntu flavors a spin (Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu) plus Linux Mint, Bodhi Linux, and of course the adorable Puppy (for my ancient Sony Viao, circa 2000, maxed out with 256 MB of RAM). I'll spend a few months marvel at the array of free software available, and the ease with which I can install software and configure my system. There's a software center built right in, which is kind of like an app-store, except that everything is free. But if you know the name of the software packages you're looking for, you only have to open a terminal and type sudo apt-get install xyz... and you'll have a new office suite, photo editing program, 3D rendering package, or game in minutes.

But then a friend will want me to play some Windows only networked game with them. Or I'll miss the facility of organizing my thoughts with the Windows-only Evernote, or I'll have a day where tinkering on the command line to try to get a printer working just isn't what I'm in the mood for, and it'll be be back to Windows for six months or so.

(This is why I store all my documents and media on a separate hard drive from my operating system. It makes wiping the OS and switching the system to a new one ever so much easier. Plus, if I ever do get a new PC, I can just pop the spare drive into an empty bay, rather than copying files over a chunk at a time.)

One fun side-effect of all this switching is that it feels like I get a new computer every six months, when in truth I haven't bought one in four years (and that one was used). Anyway, every time I make the switch back to Linux, I find myself spending more time there. I opted for Linux Mint on the latest install,  because I'd used it before with good results, and because its developers don't try to re-invent the wheel by getting fancy with the desktop. While Windows 8 has gone all sketchy with their "Metro" interface, forgetting that the whole point of Windows was to have, you know, multiple windows open on your desktop, and Ubuntu has decided to confuse their desktop with some equally confusing, tablet-driven sidebar business, Mint seems content to provide your classic panel-on-the-bottom-with-a-menu-when-you-need-it which has been serving us perfectly well since 1995.

There weren't any obvious changes since the last time I'd been in Linux Mint, but as soon as I started installing and configuring stuff I was struck by how much easier this was now than in the past. Wireless networking, sound, printing, and the first monitor came right up from the get-go. There was a little hiccough getting my second monitor to work, but before I could really get frustrated about it, a notification popped up suggesting I update my proprietary video drivers. A quick reboot later and I had both screens glowing politely at me.

And the selection of applications is getting better. In the past, I'd used an interface program called WINE to run the two Windows programs I couldn't live without: Scrivener, for writing fiction, and the aforementioned Evernote. It worked, but loading up all those Windows DLLs always put a strain on the system, and for some reason Windows programs inside Linux just looked bloody awful, with jagged blocky fonts and impossible to manage text-sizes. Given that these were my two go-to programs for getting things done, it was just frustrating that I had to spend so much time working with software that just looked so terrible, because their developers couldn't be bothered to port a native Linux version of their code.

So I was thrilled to discover that Scrivener had a Linux version available now. There was a warning attached that it was in beta, but I've used it for a couple of weeks now without any trouble (while making regular backups) and it doesn't seem to be lacking any of the features that I'm used to. There really is nothing like it for organizing and planning fiction, or even longer nonfiction projects. More in praise of Scrivener in some future post, no doubt, but suffice it to say that my eyes have been rejoicing to have an integrated and well-rendered version of my favorite software to use within Linux.

Evernote still seems to be holding out on a Native Linux version, but some volunteers have provided a third party client, called Nixnote. It doesn't have the full functionality of Evernote running in Windows. Notably, the handy screen capture utility is missing. But it syncs to the same Evernote account, and it imported all of my notes without a hitch. Again, it looks smooth and elegant--no more of those jagged microscopic fonts. And the interface matches the rest of the Operating System.

WINE is a handy way of getting things done with Windows software in Linux when you have to. It's just not polite about it, and it seems better to do without it whenever possible.

Surprisingly, gaming on Linux seems to be coming along, too. I'm guilty of indulging in the occasional Minecraft marathon (it's a surprisingly social experience when you play a networked game) but performance in Linux was always abysmal compared to the same game running in Windows. Not this time. It must be the update to the video drivers that is making 3D rendering much better all of a sudden.

Pressure for this change might be coming from Valve software and their Steam content delivery platform--which recently became available on Linux for the first time. My amazement at this development was a little diminished by the limited number of titles that were available through the platform (you can buy Half Life 1 for Linux now, but not Half Life 2 or Portal), but still, it's a huge step in the right direction. It felt surreal, and strangely wonderful, to install the Steam platform with a sudo apt-get install steam command.

And better yet, my seven year old computer with its budget video card can actually play a bunch of the games.

So this time, I think I may be hanging around in Linux for good. I know I've said that before, but... Well, most of the reasons that sent me scampering back to Windows in the past just don't exist any more. And there's enough new and exciting stuff happening in Linux now to make up for the few frustrations that remain with running what used to feel like a hobbyist OS.

Now the big question is whether the next laptop I buy will be able to run Linux at all. It looks like Microsoft might be set on locking up the machines that carry their latest travesty of an OS. And I've even read a report of a Linux install bricking (ruining) new Samsung laptops. I've been saving nickels for a new laptop for about a year, but now that I'm close to a purchase it looks like I may be waiting a good deal longer--and doing a lot more research.

Because what's the point of buying a new machine if it doesn't run the software that I love?

Trying Optimism in 2013

I’m not one for resolutions generally, but maybe I can present a little more pipe and a little less grumble in 2013.

Running Wired and Wireless

High Resolution Typecast

I set my scanner on its highest resolution to see how a typecast from the new Underwood would come out. Then I decided to churn it through some filters in the open-source image editing software The Gimp.

The original scan. Digital noise from the scanner was quite apparent at 1200 dpi.

Adjusted to a more Internet friendly resolution.

Contrast heightened.

Blurred to reduce the noise.

Introducing a little of my own noise.

A bit of cubism.

Bent in post-production.

A nice edge effect glow.

A little edgier.

Too much WD-40 on the ribbon.

What the Predator enjoys reading.

Almost got flowers growing in the text.

I always enjoy the interplay of analog and digital technologies.

It's a lovely typeface, I think. Maybe I'll get this printed on a couple of tee-shirts. Or a bumper sticker.

Information Density

No, I don't plan on outlining my entire novel this way. However, who can resist having a bit of fun with a new stack of index cards and a fresh ribbon?

The nice thing about these cards, I can be typing away on a page, come up with an idea to note for later, and insert an index card behind the paper, roll it through, type it up, and then pull it out without messing up the alignment of the page.

Who says you need a modern operating system to run two processes at the same time?

The Casual Vacancy of the Tablet

I'm wondering what my fellow typewriter enthusiasts think about tablets.

I am tempted by the latest round of offerings from Barnes and Noble and Amazon. A 9" screen with just as many pixels as an HDTV--that's really remarkable, and it's just another example of how the world is realizing the Science Fictional dreams of my youth.

I could use the tablet to...

Read the news in bed, without going outside to pick up the newspaper. (Except that I can do that already with my laptop, and I don't even get the paper.)

Watch movies, alone, from anywhere. (Except that I find it hard to watch whole movies, and when I do watch them, I want to be with other people.)

Purchase and browse magazines without a stack of clutter building up in my house. This one is pretty damn tempting, and the scrap-booking feature of the new Nook almost has me sold.

But I just can't cozy to the idea of investing in a device with no keyboard. For me, the tablet says, "Consume, don't contribute." That pop-up on screen keyboard is just convenient enough for putting in your credit card number, and then it disappears again.

Is it just me, or does the idea of losing a keyboard feel a bit like, well...

castration?

Linux, Youtube-DL, and the Tinkerer's Satisfaction

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Shared from a new-to-me Remington. More on that to come...

When I Dream of the New iPhone

...I should probably not share it on the internet.

Linux Mint 13 Saves the Day

I'm back running Linux on my PC again, after 18 months with Windows 7.

This time I decided to go with Linux Mint, since I don't really like the look and feel of the new Ubuntu, and reports indicated Mint would work well on my older hardware.

Why the switch back? Well, last night I got a nasty notice informing me that "This copy of Windows is not Genuine" It popped up when I started the computer and stayed in the corner of my screen like a piece of digital graffiti. And there was a link I could click that would make this go away so long as I forked over a credit card number.

I really have no idea whether the copy is genuine or not, since I bought the PC third hand. But I wondered, if it's not, why did it take them so long to catch on? And what is Microsoft doing, reaching into my home and under the hood of my computer, monkeying around without my permission?

I really didn't feel like calling them up and arguing the point, so I did a bit of googling and ran some awkward utility that did who knows what-all and locked up my system, but when I restarted it, the message was gone.

Still, I was shaken. The proprietary beast had reared its ugly head in again, reminding me that my computer wasn't really mine. All the tools I've started to rely on could be snatched away if I didn't provide a flow of bullshit and revenue on a predictable schedule. And I shouldn't have to turn to buggy, untrusted utilities just to keep using my computer, wondering if they've installed some back-door or trojan in the process.

So I downloaded the new Linux Mint ISO, burned the DVD, and ran it in trial mode for just long enough to discover it's bloody fantastic.

Some of the more pleasant surprises from this release:

• The MATE desktop saved the best and simplest aspects of the Gnome desktop, which has been discontinued in pursuit of Unity's flashy tablet-style interface.
• The selection of pre-installed utilities is perfect. Every time I went to install something I thought I needed, I discovered it was already there. At the same time, it didn't come with much that I won't use. Other than instant messaging and IRC chatting, I'll probably use just about every application on here.
• The default music management program, Banshee, can manage my iPod! It does a much better job of it than the third party application I was using in Windows. Not to mention it's much simpler than iTunes, and doesn't advertise to me every time I just want to play some music.
• The disc-burning tool, Brasero, provides the most intuitive method for burning CDs and DVDs that I've ever encountered.
• It installed in just 15 minutes and runs great on my old Pentium-4 computer. So I decided to put it on my antique netbook, which is the original Eee701. That little netbook has no optical drive, so I had to put the ISO installation file on a USB stick. This took all of ten minutes with Imagewriter, another utility that was installed by default.

What am I going to miss about Windows? (And why had I been using it for 18 months?) Evernote, I guess. That had been the Killer App for me, even though it nagged me about updates and begged for money. (Sorry, but I'm not about to subscribe to software.) Solution: Tomboy Notes seems to handle the Evernote workload pretty well, minus images, and I still have access to my old work through the web-interface. (Which in itself is rather creepy.)

My guilty pleasures of Minecraft and Second Life will take some fiddling, but I think I can make them work in Linux eventually.

My old student copy of Photoshop from 1998 fit me like a well-worn glove. Figuring out the Gimp for image manipulation is going to be a pain in the ass. I understand it's a powerful program, but I just can't wrap my head around that interface.  Can anyone suggest a decent online tutorial for it?

Then there's the scanning for viruses and malware and all the rest...

Oh wait, I'm not going to miss that at all.

Branding and Distraction

The age of distraction is getting even more distracting. Just turning on a computer now means exposing yourself to notices and branding as soon as the electrons start to flow.

I get the Macintosh chime when I turn on my Apple. Then the anti-virus program pops up a window to tell me about how many threats it's protected me from. Clicking this leads to a web-site that tells me it's monitored 503 "suspicious processes". I guess I'm glad somebody's monitoring them. Launching Evernote--my preferred word processing and research utility--exposes me to little nagging ads in the bottom corner which I can only eliminate by giving them money. (And I would gladly pay them money if it meant a one time purchase. But Evernote wants us to subscribe, and I'm just not ready to pay a subscription fee for access to my own writing.) Then when I launch Firefox, the Google home page comes up with a notice that they want me to "Like" them on Facebook.

Good grief. I haven't read or written a single word yet, and my head is already spinning.

Is it any wonder we all have attention deficit disorder? (For the record, I don't. Or at least I'm not medicating myself for it.)

The question is, how much do I want to cut myself off from these distractions? In a very real sense, we go to our computers to be distracted, the same way we used to go to our televisions. (What's that? People still use televisions? I guess so. Just the other day I was floored by a co-worker who told me she didn't like football, but she always watched the Super Bowl for the commercials.) We want the unexpected. We want something marvelous and new to "pop up" and give us a little rush of endorphins, to make us want to click something. Maybe even want to want something.

Only the objects of desire we're presented with are so banal. The chance to "like" Google on Facebook? I don't think we have the choice of liking Google or not, since they're changing their privacy policy and our online lives simply are Google, at this point. Online security reports? I suppose I should be thrilled I can use this computer I paid a big chunk of salary for without having my bank accounts raped by phishers and malware. But it used to go without saying that you could use the tools you purchased, without them chiming in to tell you what a good job they were doing every hour.

It's the banal stuff getting pushed at us that's crowding out the interesting stuff we come here for. The dark forces that drive television are threatening to turn the Internet into something bland, something that encourages passivity rather than curiosity, and something that you have to spend more and more money, every day, to enjoy.

How do you keep your focus, on the Internet? How do you walk the line between being distracted by crap and finding the stuff you came here for?

Trying to Contact My Senator

Hmm, this is interesting.

I was going to send senator Kerry a quick email to let him know how I feel about the SOPA and PIPA legislation worming its way through congress. (Quick synopsis: I don't like it.)

Except when I click on his "contact me" link I get a 404 We're Sorry page.

Which is the same thing I get when I click on any link of his website.

So either he's joined the day of protest along with Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, and hundreds of others, or his servers are down, or he just doesn't want to hear what we have to say.

Either way, I don't like it.

If you're not familiar with this legislation, and you're at all fond of the internet (and if the idea of spending 5 years in prison for singing "Happy Birthday" on youtube seems unreasonable to you) I urge you to get educated quick and register your displeasure to your representatives. Google has a handy page set up for this.

Also, check out the livestream of the SOPA and PIPA protests, if you're on today.

Interesting times.

Room for Second Life in a Busy Life?

It seems that the more technology I accumulate around myself, the less meaningful work I get done. I used to be able to write a story every week on my typewriter. Now, I’m lucky if I get past checking my email accounts, blog feeds, and facebook statuses.

Then, for some reason, as if I weren’t distracted enough already, I got the grand idea of checking out Second Life. Now, that has sucked up pretty much any free time remaining to me.

Oh, but it is fun! And it’s satisfying, this feeling of being thoroughly engaged, always something to check up on, always someplace to go -- without leaving your chair. And at the end of the day, I have no piles of paper bearing down on me, as I did in the old typewriter days. Am I worse off for not having told a story in the old, traditional medium? Would anyone have read it?

In Second Life, I can listen to a concert performed by folks playing together from  three different continents. I can chat with Australians and Englishmen and South Americans all at the same time. I can be told off by an irate Detroiter in one window while psychoanalyzing a graphic designer with low self esteem in another. I make friends with people from around the globe, and suddenly I’m concerned about what time zones people live in. What time is it in Poland? In Peru? There are friends there I want to talk to, when will they all be on? 

Second Life is rather like World of Warcraft, only instead of all the dull leveling up and treasure hoarding, there’s conversation, art, and music. Not all of the highest caliber, of course, but that’s true of everything. As Ted Sturgeon said, “97% of Science Fiction is crap. But then, 97% of everything is crap.”

My Puritan Guilt has me thinking this new time-sink is a terrible development. If I go after the Nanowrimo trophy this year, I’ll have to set Second Life aside for November.

Ah, but I am still holding down a full-time job, finding time to visit the folks on occasion, scratching the dogs on the head several times a day. And I’ve even gotten outside to replace that broken window-pane and re-putty one and a half whole window sashes. (Only 20 and a half more to go!) I’m going to play the moderation card on this one, just as with booze and tobacco, and say it’s all right.

Will we continue reading stories in the century to come? Storytelling survived radio and television, although it was certainly changed. But now that the words-on-paper format seems stuck in precipitous decline, just what forms will our fictions take in the future? And will we miss the old ones? Can culture survive a population that is aware only of distractions and diversions, and never focused on real content? How can we remain aware of current events when there’s a party going on every minute?

If Romans had computers, would the end of their world have looked a little like this?

Ultimate Writing Software

We can all agree, I’m sure, that the best distraction-free writing hardware out there is a manual typewriter. However…

After long, careful, and somewhat regretful consideration, I’ve determined that the best word processing software I’ve used over the past decade and a half is Microsoft Word 97.

Marvel as it launches, entire, within microseconds of that second click. Struggle to spot the tiny 50 MB memory footprint. Relax as you discover that it handles novel-length documents without a hiccup. Thrill as you discover the organizational potential of its online layout view. Wonder at what, exactly, software developers have been doing for the past decade and a half to improve on a package that did everything you needed, without complaint.

Granted, it’s proprietary. It’s not open-source. It won’t open the documents your friends and co-workers might email you, since they’ve most likely moved on to pointlessly newer iterations of the office suite. Oh well. Just ask them to dig into their “save as” menu for something more compatible.

Alas! When I think back on the writing tools I’ve tried over the years, only to settle back to this one. But OpenOffice takes a full 20 seconds to launch, consumes eleven times the RAM, requires the Java Runtime Environment, and from what I can tell doesn’t offer me a single additional feature I have any use for. Then there’s AbiWord, the lightweight open-source alternative, but with every machine I’ve ever run that on, the text has flickered as I type. Not only is this distracting, it leaves me with the impression that my words are the merest whispers on a screen, ready to be swept away by the slightest electrical whim. (This is true, of course. But there’s no call for rubbing it in.) Evernote does a nice job of organizing my thoughts, but it invites a bit too much obsessive shuffling around—and there goes my focus. Besides, who really wants to have their every thought and self-indulgent drivel synchronized across internet servers, anyway? That’s what blogging is for!

It was on a lark that I popped this old Office 97 disk in when I found it during a deep tidying-up. I thought, “Gosh, this ran just fine on the computer I was using 14 years ago, and I wrote two novels with it. I wonder how well it would work on a Pentium-4 with a dedicated graphics card and dual monitors?” (Yes, I think I’ve officially “maxxed out” the old PC which I bought from the gentleman who recycles pieces he picks up at the dump.) And it turns out that Word 97 launches faster on this computer than Windows 7 Notepad.

It’s funny how hardware and software have been advancing in lockstep, with applications growing bigger and more bloated just as processors grow more powerful and memory more accommodating. Why does it feel as if it takes just as long to get something done on a computer today as it did 15 years ago? This is patently absurd. But the business plan of selling cheap hardware loaded with the latest bloat-ware—thereby making your new computer feel just a little out of date as soon as you’ve turned it on—has been doing a decent job of driving Moore’s Law into the 21st century.

The best operating environment for me these days seems to be a moderately up-to-date PC (four to eight years old) running software from the generation before. Excel 97 launches faster than the Windows Calculator, and has become my go-to tool for summing columns of numbers or performing basic arithmetic. Photoshop 5.5 (from another late 90s install disk) is more than capable of formatting images for blogging and has the capability of handling more professional photo-editing than I’m qualified to perform, and it, too, runs nimbly on a modern, high-definition monitor.

Notable exception: Windows Live Writer, which provides the simplest interface for blogging on any platform. Even Apple doesn’t have anything to compete with it, for love or money. Which is surprising. People have been blogging for over a decade now and only Microsoft has come up with a simple way for them to edit posts locally and then post them to any service. Who would have thought?

iPod Repair Results

iPod Touch Repair Challenge

I ended up getting a co-worker's cast off first generation iPod Touch. Like I need another gadget, I know. But the price was right (free), and it came with an added bonus that many gadgets don't--it didn't work. Stopped working a year ago, actually. The screen turns on and the battery holds a charge, but the touch-pad is completely unresponsive. We can't even push the "slide to unlock" bar. Because I like to tinker and I hate e-waste, it's a challenge I couldn't refuse.

At our local mall there is a kiosk that sells protective cases and screens for "smart" phones. They've got a big poster that says, "Screen broken? Fix it here!"

Surprisingly, getting the young fellow's attention was a challenge. Usually those kiosk guys are shouting at passer-by, doing the hard sell. This guy was too wrapped up in his own iPhone to notice the passing crowd.

When I did get his attention, and he did see the gadget, he said, "Oh, sorry. We can't get the parts for those old models any more."

"Old models?" I said. "These things were released under four years ago."

"Yeah, but we see it all the time. Touch screens stop working after a while."

"All touch screens?" I said. "On everything?"

He said, "Hey, it's like life. Things wear out and stop working."

"You're a philosopher," I said.

So...challenge accepted. Even Apple can't make a product so crappy it's unrepairable after just four years.

Can they?

Will My Computers Ever Do Anything Besides Update Themselves?

I know this might sound a bit Andy Rooney, but Good Grief!

I use the damn things so infrequently these days that it seemsevery time I turn one on, it sets itself so single-mindedly to attending to its computer business that I can’t seem to get any people business done.

First the antivirus starts updating, then the operating system, then when I launch any single goddamned program I’m asked if I want to update to the latest version. Heaven forbid I want to play a game. By the time they’re done downloading new “splash screens” and game data, my supper’s ready and free time’s over.

Then I realize the reason it’s grinding to a halt is it’s performing a virus scan. “Last scan performed over one week ago!” Thanks for the warning, jerk. I last turned this piece of junk on a week ago!

Even my word processor is out of date! Open Office has become something called Libre Office, and the Windows Live Writer I use for blogging just encouraged me to help Microsoft develop their products and switch my default search provider to Bing. Apparently it wasn’t happy just composing blog entries.

When I give up and shut the things down, they tell me I can’t turn them off because they need to finish installing their updates.

Tell me why I shouldn’t go back to using my typewriters again?

High Tech Hallucinations

When I think about it, it seems like a lot of energy was expended in the second half of the last century trying to get high in one way or another.

Drugs, literature, art, music. Choose your poison. A lot of it came down to the pursuit of that wow man, far out, sort of experience. Jimi Hendrix playing an electric guitar with his feet, Jackson Pollock splattering canvases with house paint, Philip Glass droning on with his repetitive rhythms and harmonies, Phil K Dick blurring the boundaries between the real and the hallucinatory, movie directors translating those visions to the screen, quantum physicists seeking the cracks in the fundamental laws of nature.

There was this sense that we were constantly on the verge of something fantastic and abstract and mind expanding. Much of the time, this something didn’t seem like it could come from outside, in the world. It was just waiting to burst out from within us, if we could just find a way to give it permission. If only we could nurture our inner child and rub the right crystals and find the reiki practitioner with a light enough touch.

Well, the quest goes on, I suppose. Because, well, let’s face it: if we find these moments at all, they never last. That’s why the addict always needs another hit, and why yesterday’s paintings don’t evoke the same response the second or third time we’ve seen them.

Fortunately, there is this: the portals into these sorts of experiences seem to be everywhere now, and most of them are a good deal safer than the pills and needles so many resorted to in the past.

I just lost a couple of hours messing around with a few free gizmos on my PC which I hadn’t even been aware I had.  I’ve long used Winamp, for example—it’s a far superior media player to the toxic ITunes disaster that Apple foists on the world—and I’ve used it to rip, play, and organize my audio files for years. I just hadn’t bothered to click on the little “Visualizations” button before. Which, in a moment of idleness, I did today.

At which point these images you’ve seen here started cascading across my monitor, in full high definition, at a rather dizzying 30 frames per second, and pulsing and dancing in sync with the music. Screen edges crumpled, vortices spun, fireworks launched, fractal ferns swayed, clouds and stars fought for dominion of the moon.

It helped that I was listening to Ludovico Einaudi, who tends to be fairly meditative and soothing. But the program transformed my easy listening background music into something utterly captivating.

And I thought, hell, any one of these frames puts to shame anything Jackson Pollock ever threw against a canvas. The Evernote screen capture utility did a nice job catching a few of the stills, since I had the odd compulsion to grab some of this stuff that was being generated on the fly. But after a few minutes of doing that I just sat back and listened to the entire two-disc album.

Far out, man. The things I’ve seen. And it’s nice that I didn’t have to drop acid or otherwise put my neurochemistry at risk to do it. William Burroughs should have been so lucky.

Mixed Reaction to Evernote Software

As a devotee of writing tools—let’s face it, I spend more time messing about with typewriters and computers and operating systems than I actually spend writing anything—it’s hard not to get excited about this free Evernote software. 

On the one hand, it seems to do just about everything I've ever wanted a note and information gathering piece of software to do. Screenshots? No problem. One-click gathering of content from the web? Easy. Drag and drop image collecting? Even easier. It’ll sync up your notebooks among as many devices as you install Evernote on.  If you think of something on the go, you can just email it to your Evernote address and it’ll be waiting in your notebook when you get to it later.

On the other hand, it pushes all of my paranoia buttons.

• Forcing me to register before first use. Why should I need to give out my personal information before I even know I like you?
• Encouraging me to "sync" all of my notes to the cloud, so that I can access them from other machines. Yeah, I understand this is a benefit, but it’s one I’m not entirely comfortable with. I’d rather the program default to not syncing. Consider: are these servers secured? Do I need to assume that anything I save in Evernote will be accessible to their staff? Or aggressive government investigators? Granted, I know that once I've registered I can set certain notebooks to not sync, but given the share-happy nature of the program I'm not optimistic that this wouldn't be easily switched by accident at some time in the future. And it’s creepy that anyone who guesses my email and password has instant access to all the notes I’ve collected.
• Loading the interface with features that can only be used by upgrading to a "Premium" account. The free version is plenty functional, but there’s plenty of buttons cluttering up the interface which you can’t remove. When you click on them, you get a pop-up asking you to upgrade. I'd almost be willing to do this, except for
• The monthly payment model. Sorry, but I'd be much happier to purchase your software all at once, rather than a little bit every month. (Yes, I know I’ll save money if I pay for the year in advance. That’s still a period. That ends.) Say I come upon hard times? Do the notes and content I've created under Evernote's premium functions become inaccessible if I don’t pay?  
• The use of ads on the interface. They're small and tucked in the dead space at the bottom left. They even provide you with a little "x" to click on, to close this part of the window. But clicking on that “x” brings up the offer for the premium package again. This feels like a bit of a slap in the face. Does the ad come back if my subscription expires?

This is why I never get anything done. Nice tools come along, and instead of using them to make anything, I work myself into a paranoid frenzy.  

Think I might make an exception this time, though. For gathering web-clips and doing any kind of journalistic work or blogging, this program is hard to beat. It’s one of the few cases where I’ve found something new and shiny to use on my computer that’s better than the software we had fifteen or twenty years ago.

It difficult to begrudge the software engineers’ their business model. I guess I’ll just bite my tongue and use the free version for a month or two and see if it becomes indispensible, doing my best to ignore my privacy concerns.

After all, I’m just not that interesting. What snoop is going to care what I think about ■■■■ ■■■ or ■■■■■■’■ role in ■■■■■■ anyway?