Cool Mac Gear

Justice Bushwhacked
So the world's largest software manufacturer is apparently off the big hook, eh? And we all know that the U.S. Department of Justice antitrust people decided on their own not to ask the court to break up Microsoft, right? Hahahahaha. Well, what do you expect, when the whole country is run like a backwoods hoosegow? You may think you have rights, but when you can't count on the authorities to keep you from being [CENSORED], you have to get smart and act tough instead.

The first thing you can do is remember. Don't forget who's staffing the asylum and who his best buddies are. The second thing you can do is lighten your physical, digital, and moral load by doing everything you can to get out from under the Micro$oft boot-heel. Here are a few suggestions, expressed in absolutist style:

• Erase all Micro$oft apps from your hard drives. There are alternatives.
• Speak up when the need arises: agitate, propagandize, bash the corpuscles out of Micro$oft every chance you get. Ask yourself, "What would Batman do?"
• You say your editor requires you to submit manuscripts in M$ Word? Don't wimp out! Fight back, or change publishers or careers.
• (Etc. etc. etc...)

Well, I do actually own a rather old version of Word on a Zip disk -- just thought I'd mention that -- and if I'd been a Jewish fighter in the Warsaw ghetto, I'd have hung on to that captured Luger in case I found some ammo for it. Sure, you have to compromise here and there, MAYBE... but if you don't start out at least trying to single-handedly eradicate the Beast of Redmond, what are you going to say to your kids when they ask, "Mommy, did you ever use Office?"

See me, purge me, cleanse me, heal me
About 6 weeks ago my wife and I had to leave the rented adobe cottage where I've been doing my Applelinks work for the last year or so and go live with my mother in Tucson. During our residence in the adobe we had to make do with only a few of our things and leave the rest in storage.We've lived like this for almost two whole years, mind you.

Before we went to Tucson, we had to put at least half of the small amount of things we do have into storage with the rest. My computer system was the exception, as always, along with a mountain bike, a plastic carton of dishes and silverware, and a few clothes. I mean a FEW clothes, too. There must be some other goodies in the pile, but you get the idea: if it didn't fit in the back of the pickup, it got stored.

Now we're back in Taos (or rather Arroyo Seco), New Mexico, living in a one-month rental. This place is furnished and is probably the nicest place I've ever lived (small but absurdly posh). Next month we move to a 150-year-old adobe hut, er, house, in the middle of town. This will also be nice ("sweet," I'm told) though not furnished, and there is simply no room at all for my PowerMac 8600. Fortunately, I have an actual, authentic office now. This is about as rare for me as occasions in my life when I've had to wear a tie. Geez, rarer.

Yes, there's a point and here it is:
I don't even want that stuff in storage now. The "time capsule from hell," I call it. There isn't any furniture in there anyway, at least not the kind with cushions for your butt. We don't even have a mattress. We have books, old shotguns, wooden tables and chairs, stuff like that. But no sofa. I've decidedthat so long as a person has an office with space for a workstation, the other elements of domestic material happiness can be reduced to the following:

• At least one comfy sofa.
• A separate bedroom with a door that can be closed.
• Half a dozen T-shirts, lots of underwear, two long-sleeved shirts, one pair of jeans, a fleece jacket, and a few shoes.
• A mini-stereo or at least a decent radio.
• an iBook

And a pickup truck, of course. Gotta have the truck, so we can go out and score a sofa somewhere. Oh yeah, and a mattress. There's a place here in Taos called "Chacon's Mattress and Produce Outlet," I swear, where I keep threatening to go shopping for one.

Is that all?!
Well, I mean, it makes me wonder. We have physically changed residences 5 times in the last two years, if you count moving back and forth between 2 adjacent houses for 3 of them. Back in Maryland, where this all started, we had a lovely home packed to the gills with stuff I never penetrated past the first layer of. Now we have no real home to speak of and lots less stuff, but speaking for myself, I don't feel all that bad.

That's not to say a certain amount of suffering hasn't been involved, but now I'm frustrated for a reason, whereas before I was just frustrated. I think we're making progress here, but I can't really be sure. (Don't ask my wife, please.)

Enough of this nonsense!

Next week I'll show you all some tricks of the trade and share what I've learned after a week in an office with other Mac users:

"What, you leave yours on all the time?"

Senior Applelinks editor and columnist John H. Farr promises to stick to the subject someday. Hah!

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AUDIO CREDIT: embedded 44k file, European Birds -- Sounds and Sonograms.

DESIGN CREDIT: GRACK! byline graphic by Bob Farr.