25 February 04: The colophon, which traditionally has been the tail pinned onto the printed word, by extension is gaining favor as a way of pining a tail on the digital word. Colophon comes from a Greek word that means finishing touch. I've been online since 1995, and in that time I've also developed a lot of skill in breaking, fixing, and building personal computers and small networks. This is where I tell you what's under the virtual hood.
Cameras Since going online with this website, I have had two cameras. The first was a $215 Kodak DX3215, 1 megapixil and 2X zoom, with proprietary batteries at $10 a pop, with little staying power. I went to a propreitary charger, which was about $50 with special batteries. Then the zoom broke and I limped along for a while. Now it rides in my book bag, out of sight and out of mind. My second camera has been a jewel, a $350 (list $400) Fuji FinePix 3800 with 3 magapixils and 6X zoom, which is wonderful for outdoor stuff. Indoors, forget it, unless you use the flash and a tripod. This model had the highest zoom in its price range a year ago when I bought it. I recommend this camera. Computer I prefer building my boxes rather than paying Dell or the cow crowd. I'm running an ECS Elitegroup motherboard, 512 megabites of RAM, and a 1.4 gigabite AMD processor. Total cost, minus a bunch of boards and stuff on hand, was about $200. It's enough to run Dreamweaver MX, which I use for web page design and execution. Operating system Windows 2000 Professional, not because I like Bill Gates, but because I own too much expensive Windows-based software to comfortably switch to Linux, which I have been playing with off and on for a long time. I will say this about Windows 2000 -- it is stable and reliable beyond anything else I've used, including Millennium Edition, Win95, or Win3.1. Windows 2000 is the last operating system ala Gates that you can install without dailing the mothership for an unlocking serial number, restricting you to one box per cash outlay for an OS. Don't know what I'll do when Windows 2000 won't cut it for me, but I expect to get several more years out of Win2000. I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. Security If you're surfing the Internet without a personal firewall and antivirus software, you might as well take your most treasured possessions and leave them out in the rain. I use Zone Alarm and Norton Antivirus. Browsers Opera and Internet Explorer. I use Internet Explorer when I want to make online purchases, especially, but also in general, now, too, because of my website work. Opera is superior as a power surfing tool. I use the paid version instead of the adware version. I used to use Netscape but now I only remember cursing it and then walking away about three years ago. Computer books Just one that I would recommend -- The Cluetrain Manifesto, by Doc Searls and others. Markets are Conversations. So are churches. |
& Perkins
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