Yet another article where I knock Apple. Odd how I tend to do that, since the only computer I own is a Mac. But then, it seems to me that the only way we'll have decent Mac product out there is if we don't cut Apple any slack. I've never wanted to be a salesman, pushing any particular product. I just call 'em like I see 'em.

The emergence of DSL and cable modems in much of the Bay Area is what prompted this piece. I was being asked by a lot of people whether DSL would work for their business — or, if you could get 1.5 Mbps DSL for $50 a month, how come they were charging $1000/month for a T1 line at the same speed? I wanted to try and answer some of those questions in this article, as sort of a public service you might say.

Another one of those times where I jumped at the opportunity to talk about a subject I really care about: in this case, comics. The comic book market is in complete disarray and a lot of artists are turning to the Web to get their work out there to the public. I got a few compliments on this one, even from people who didn't read comics — they could tell that I was really into the topic, something that's rare with this tech writing biz, for me.

I went to the Windows 2000 Launch Event in San Francisco and was completely underwhelmed. I was tempted, though, to write a comparison of this event and MacWorld (where I'd just been) — the Windows 2000 folks hooked me up with a much better free lunch, while I could barely find a Coke at MacWorld. This article got me a lot of flame mail, but not from anyone who wasn't heavily invested in the Windows platform. The editor of one Windows-oriented magazine wrote me a couple really seething emails. I told him I wouldn't respond in any depth because I considered him to be "a paid shill for Microsoft." Heh. It made me happy to actually slam someone back for once.

Another sort of information article, without any particular comment. I don't like doing it this way, these days. I think tech subjects can be deadly boring if you don't get the impression that the person writing about them has any feelings or interest on them. But this one isn't really a bad piece. It's just that I was more concerned with my upcoming birthday, at the time. For my birthday, my editor scored me hacker poster child Kevin Mitnick's autograph!

Along the lines of the earlier article I wrote about software End User License Agreements ("License to Bill" in 1998), this one is about legislation in Congress aimed at broadening software companies' powers with those agreements. Those jerks.

This is another piece more along the lines of a "rant" than an informational article. It really, really, annoys me that everything under the sun has to be subsidized by advertising these days. I hope I never have to resort to ads to fund anything I'm involved with. I wouldn't even want to know what kind of companies would want to endorse what I do, either.

When I wrote this article, Netscape 6 hadn't even come out yet. But I was predicting that its release would be a less-than-spectacular event in the annals of home computing — and when they finally did release it, they didn't prove me wrong. You still hear people talking about how bad that browser is today. I was saying it in April of 2000.

Oh, come on. That's got to be the best title you could hope to give an article about how Lars Ulrich wants to get rid of Napster and MP3s. That little drummer boy sure let down a lot of people with his hi-jinks in the Napster case. In this piece, I let him have it. I had fun writing this one. Death to False Metal!

This one is about print-on-demand publishing, which lets publishing companies accept pretty much any manuscript and whip up a single copy whenever anyone orders one. If you were to corner me on the street and ask me about this subject, I'd probably say it amounts to nothing more than good old fashioned vanity publishing. But I think at the time I was concerned about possibly offending some struggling authors, so I stuck more to the "look how technology is changing publishing" angle.

While the title is a pretty decent pun, I don't think it really fits the core of the article, which is about how computer use seems to favor English-speaking people. At the time I wrote this, I was pretty much met by blank stares from most of the people who read it. But I feel a little vindicated now, having heard other people address the subject in various ways, in the time since this piece was first published.

This is a negative piece about HavenCo, a platform in the North Sea that's being used as a colocation facility. Maybe I was pissed off that I'd read all of Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon and hadn't been all that impressed. Or maybe I was pissed off that some otherwise self-respecting, intelligent geeks seemed to be involved in what amounted to little more than a big media stunt. Worse, the early-20s Director of Technology at HavenCo was blabbering all over the place about how he was going to be rich. There seemed to be too much of various things I can't stand about the industry involved in HavenCo — so I decided to slag it.

Wireless wasn't quite as ubiquitous in 1999 as it seems to be today. This article was just sort of a survey of the wireless technologies that were beginning to emerge at the time, and what people were hoping to do with the airwaves. No particular opinions here — probably because at the time I felt like I was running out of them.

To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure just how sinister the FBI's Carnivore project really is/was. The disturbing part was that they weren't going to tell anyone how sinister it was. As I said before, I don't really go in for all the conspiracy stuff, but I decided that it was important to make sure everybody knew what the government was up to, and since I had a pretty big audience at SFGate, I decided to tell them about it.

A blatant play to get mentioned on Slashdot, though it didn't work. People go on and on about whether or not they'll soon be using a Linux machine instead of a Windows machine. I use Linux a lot at home, and I also use a Mac. My take on it is a little different than some, but still I don't think I really say the stuff Linux fans want to hear in this one.

I wasn't particularly inspired when I wrote this piece, but I learned something interesting: Windows CE users like their platform. A few of them were really incensed with the idea that the Palm platform would continue to dominate the handheld market, and they let me know it. But then again — it still does.

This is probably the one article I've written of which I'm the most proud. I think barely any of my usual audience read it though, as it's pretty hardcore technical. It talks about quantum computing, an idea that's coming out of modern physics that promises to really revolutionize computing — not these piddly revolutions you're constantly hearing about, I mean the real thing. Over the heads of most people, I think, but I got a couple letters from the scientific community — some from people with with Ph.D.s and pretty impressive curriculum vitae — complimenting me on my handling of the topic. It made me think I might like to be a science writer someday. But then, I doubt I have the education credentials. I never actually went to college.

You have to be careful when you're slagging Microsoft in an article, because it's almost too easy. The audience tunes out, because they've heard it all before. But I hadn't read too many people talking about this topic, which is the moves Microsoft has been making to try and dominate the market for "interactive TV" — an idea I think is utter nonsense, in and of itself. Some decent research and statistics in this one.

This one talks about Mac OS X, and isn't quite a favorable article, though I let Apple off a lot easier than I have in the past. I never really got much use out of any of the Beta versions of Mac OS X, and I'm still not sure it's going to gain mainstream acceptance for another couple of years yet. Still, I think it's pretty good technology and an interesting experiment if nothing else.

More anti-consumerism from yours truly: I can't stand the idea that companies will track your reading/TV watching/whatever habits as a way of measuring how to market you their products. Worse, when they claim that such marketing is the only possible use for a piece of computer hardware and any other use is against their license — well, then they're just asking for it..

I wasn't sure whether to call this one "World Domination 2001" or not. It's about Microsoft's future plans for its software, and it's upcoming .NET platform. Since the technology still doesn't exist, it's a plan for the future — but they announced it in 2000. Anyway, I think I actually have a pretty compelling argument/opinion here, and one that I've since heard echoes of from other analysts/writers in the field. Interesting stuff.

I was in sort of a crunch for a topic this time around, so I decided I'd just do an old fashioned product review. I don't have to trash everything all the time, do I? This one is about some products I actually use, which are city guides for the Palm handheld. I use Vindigo around San Francisco all the time, and I took CitiKey with me to Paris — though I hear that company and its product are now, sadly, defunct.

A little dangerous to be talking about "the future" — if you're not careful, you sound like Wired magazine, talking about how everything's getting revolutionized. But I'd just returned from a trip to Paris, and they really do use Smart Cards for everything over there, so I was inspired to write this piece.

Bored with simply reporting on "the state of the industry," as I all to often end up doing, I decided to put forward a straight up opinion piece. I wanted it to be much better crafted and well-informed than previous op-ed style pieces I'd done, though, and I think to some measure I succeeded there. The topic of this one: "Peer to Peer is mostly hype, and it'll soon be dead." The only catch is, if the topic of P2P is so unimportant, then why am I asking my readers to sit through another 1,200 words on it? You decide.

At last it was time — I'd write an unabashedly supportive article about Apple. Ratings on Apple articles are usually sky high, but this one actually won me the #1 spot on SFGate for the day. More people read this article than the weather, the sports, the news — anything on the site. That was a first for me. Previously, I'd always been beaten out by articles about the San Francisco 49ers. This time, I ruled. Thanks, Mac fans.