Many years ago, Web pages were static.

Words and images.

And hyperlinks.

Simple displays of information.

Then someone thought, [more...]

If you’re a Windows user, have you gotten sick of having to worry about your computer’s security?

Or having to spend your time or pay someone else to repeatedly disinfect if from all of the bad stuff that keeps infecting it?

Windows’ swiss cheese-like security was one of the main reasons that I started looking for an alternative about 11 years ago, and [more...]

Regular readers of this Journal know that Linux replaced Windows on my PCs in July of 2006.

As the Distrowatch Web site illustrates, there are hundreds of different Linux distros (flavors, models). Some are designed to be easy for beginners while others are designed for experienced users. Many are are designed for general use at home or in corporate settings, while others are designed for [more...]

Regular readers of this Journal know that I became a full-time Linux user (instead of Windows) on my home-office computers back in July of 2006.

In the past 5 years, my Linux computers have all been completely virus, spyware and malware-free, despite the tact that none of them run any antivirus, malware, spyware or firewall software.

In fact, I’ve rarely ever had to do any [more...]

I remember, in the late 1980s, when I was a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota, I used the University’s BitNet connection to exchange text files with a colleague who had moved to Kyoto, Japan. That was my earliest experience with what would later become known as “email.”

I remember back in the early 1990s, when the multinational corporation where I worked as a computer consultant ran only the non-routable NetBEUI protocol on all of its employee PCs. [more...]

A few days ago, my friend Keith called me with another computer problem.

But this time, the problem wasn’t his.

It was his girlfriend’s.

He wondered if I would be willing to take a look at her Windows laptop — she had been [more...]

I’ve been a Mac person.

And I’ve been a PC person.

For awhile, I was both at the same time.

But, for the past 5 years, I’ve been [more...]

I’ve been using personal computers since 1979.

I began by using CP/M, MS-DOS, Apple DOS, and other text-based operating systems on computers with monochrome displays, then moved on to the original black-and-white version of the Macintosh OS and the original version of Microsoft Windows.

I used to use computers with only 8KB of RAM; or two [more...]