I remember a silly demonstration on an old TV talk show. In that segment, one person told a joke and that person, in turn, would repeat the joke to someone else. After going through several generations of this behavior, the story that emerged from the final person in this group had little or no resemblance […]

To many of you, the Mac programmers over at Microsoft are the company’s shining stars. Although they labor within the confines of a byzantine bureaucracy and strangely wrong-headed policies, they are not supposed to be drinking the company’s kool-aid. Rather, they’re supposed to be devoted Mac users who have carved out a solid niche where […]

You know, when movie and TV producers want to depict the quintessential computer nerd, they usually present a character that bears more than a passing resemblance to Bill Gates. However, in the real world, Gates is more of a marketing genius than a programming genius. While he has certainly written some software in his time, […]

My friend Tim was late to personal computers. In recent years, his WebTV unit handled all his email and Web surfing. However, he didn’t get full-blown a PC right away. He dreaded the task of having to set up what he presumed to be a complicated piece of electronics gear, but finally he decided to […]