Next comes Hermes, known to the Romans as the god Mercury. Hermes was messenger to the gods, the god of commerce, and most importantly, the god of thieves. That last aspect him directly responsible for BitTorrent.

Eris is most definitely the god of the political bloggers. To the Greeks, of course, she was the goddess of discord. Need I say more?

Finally there’s good old Eros, known as Cupid to the Romans. While Cupid may bring up images of tiny putti angels and arrows of romance, Eros was flat-out the god of lust and desire. Because the vast hoard of information on the Internet is pornographic in nature, there’s no denying the presence of Eros.

I enjoy playing games like this, mostly because of my love of the classics. We have a lot to learn from older cultures. Indeed, the ancient gods explain more about mankind and our own social and emotional being than the do of some supernatural culture. I believe that’s the entire point of the exercise.

In my travels I learned how to read legalese. That comes in handy because laws mean little to the corrupt. But it also comes in handy when looking at any legal document. Take this portion of the Facebook End User License Agreement (EULA):

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

Using my 8th Grade Powers of Sentence Diagramming, the above sentence (yes, it’s all one sentence) boils down to this:

You Grant License.

The word irrevocable means that you cannot take the license back. The word perpetual means that the license is granted to “the Company” forever, even after you die. (And “the Company” is defined elsewhere as Facebook or whoever buys Facebook in the future.)

The object of the sentence is vast. Basically it means that Facebook can do anything it wants with whatever images you post there. It can use them “for any purpose.” The next sentence in the EULA (not shown above) states that even if you remove the images Facebook is still free to use copies of those images from its backups or archives.

Now I don’t think Facebook is evil, thought its EULA is crafted by lawyers and they are most definitely evil. My point is, when you post that cute picture of your kids on Facebook and you find the picture being used a few years later in Germany to sell soap, there is nothing you can do about. I’m not implying that such a thing has happened or will happen, but it could. Legally. You agreed to it.

Here is the full Facebook EULA.

Because I know what I need and what I want from an old computer, I prefer to copy files to the new computer manually. I just connect both old and new systems to the network, then copy over the files I need. I copy only personal files, not programs; programs must be installed on a computer, not copied.

Despite feeling uncomfortable about using the migration wizard, I went forward with it anyway.

The procedure worked surprisingly well, though it involved me crossing the room a few times as the program configured itself.

The migration wizard I used is provided by Lenovo, the PC’s manufacturer. I assume that other manufacturers provide similar tools that work along similar lines: Copy the user’s files, Windows settings, and options from certain programs. And it worked between XP and Vista as well, as my old PC used Windows XP and the new one is on Windows Vista.

When the operation completed, my personal files were copied, even desktop icons and my wallpaper. That was good. And the various settings seemed to make it over okay as well. The entire operation worked rather well. But I probably won’t do it again (unless I have to write about it).

I had ordered the new PC with Windows Vista Business installed. I’m growing fond of Vista, as long as I ignore the intolerably long startup process. Yet the presence of the XP Conversion Kit caused me to pause.

The computer I replaced ran XP. It ran okay. I was happy with it. All the software worked on XP . . .

After a few seconds, though, I said Naaa. I plan on keeping my new PC for a long time, at least another 6 years. I don’t want to be a so-called “computer expert” in 2014 running an operating system that’s 12 years old. That’s kooky.

Yes: Microsoft may have a new version of Windows by 2014. It may have a new operating system altogether. But remember: I do not recommend upgrading the operating system. I don’t want to. So the pause was brief, I set the discs aside, and continued configuring my new PC.

By the way, the XP Conversion Kit consists of Lenovo/IBM recovery DVDs. It’s not a generic conversion kit; it restores a Lenovo PC only, so I won’t be selling it on eBay.

The boy loves his iPod, so a replacement is in order. Then again, I remembered that the iPod nano has been out a while. A long while for Apple. So I visited the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide web site.

The MacRumors Buyer’s Guide web site lists a life cycle guide for the various Apple products, including the iPod. According to the site, they recommend not buying a new iPod because whiffs in the air tell that new iPods are coming. So the lad will have to wait.

I find the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide web site a blessed relief. As a Mac addict, I’m loathe to fall into the pit of despair when buying a new Apple-this-or-that and finding a new one introduced just weeks later. Hopefully the web site will help you, too, make prudent buying decisions for your Apple stuff.

Here are my thoughts:

1. There is strength in paper. It exists without electricity or an Internet connection. As such, it’s more convenient than reading a web page. Do not abandon the printed page. Instead, enhance it.

2. Better writing equals better reading. The Internet is full of mediocre writing. People crave well-written material. Do not give it away on the web.

3. Provide a web page. People expect it to be free, so give them something free. But don’t give away the farm. Instead, tease. If people want the details, they can subscribe. But do not cheat the subscribers: give them more information than is found (or cut from) the printed version. Do the web page right, make it brilliant, but make it something only the subscribers can see.

4. Leverage your strength in advertising. Require web subscribers to provide detailed marketing information. Use that information. Don’t junk up a subscriber’s web experience with random, cluttered advertising. Instead, sell targeted ads. Subscribers will prefer that, and your sales force will love it. Plus you cut out the expensive on-line advertising middlemen like Google, and you can justify higher ad rates for targeted ads.

5. Use the power of your subscriber demographics further to customize content. Give people the news they want to read. Play down what they don’t.

Ten years ago, one of my editors did a completely on-line version of a magazine. It was phenomenally successful. It sold extremely targeted advertising, which not only moved products, it was appreciated by the subscribers. My editor deftly fused technology with the content and advertising power of traditional print media to achieve success. You can, too.

The once-almighty Railroad Barons thought that they were in the railroad business. Nope. They were in the transportation business. (More precise, they were in the logistics business.) When interstate highways came about, as well as air travel, railroads lost their prominence. The Barons failed to adapt. They got squished.

Newspapers are owned by barons, just as the railroads once were. Owning a newspaper can be a highly lucrative business. Anyone ever hear of William Randolph Hearst? And just like the railroad barons of old, today’s newspaper owners apparently don’t know what it is they sell. That’s my guess of course, but it’s based on the fact that so many newspapers are downsizing and going out of business.

The Internet is not the enemy of the newspaper. People still read the paper, despite the presence of radio and later television news. Yet as the Internet gained prominence through the web, newspapers suddenly started losing their audience. That’s when they forgot what business they were in and began obsessing over the Internet. It was a panic.

Understand that the Internet is not about information. The Internet is about the timely delivery of and access to that information. Any company that’s in the business of information distribution must accept that the Internet is not competition, but merely a way to improve delivery time. Put another way, the Internet does not improve the quality of the information, only its speed.

Newspapers, and to a lesser degree radio and television news, obsess with deadlines. They cannot compete, at least not using their traditional model, with a news delivery service that is instantaneous. Yet they try. Not only do they try, they act like fools and give away something valuable — their content — at no cost. What kind of idiotic business model is that? It’s just plain dumb! So it’s no wonder that newspapers are failing.

As long as the newspaper concentrates on writing about current events and providing advertising, it is possible for them to flourish in the Internet age. I’ll explain more next post.

I see potential here for a major goof-up. While I enjoy Jerry Seinfeld, it’s disappointing to see him shill for Microsoft. As a former shill for Microsoft myself, I can feel his pain. Now maybe Jerry can pull it off. Maybe he can bring some humanity to Windows dry, humorless reputation.

Of course, the problem isn’t Jerry Seinfeld. The problem is Windows. It’s boring. It’s severely uninspired. Windows is clumsy and cartoony and just never seems to capture the miracle and awe that Apple puts into its software. The older term for the Macintosh was insanely great. Windows will never been insanely great, with or without Seinfeld and $300 million worth of PR.

How about taking that $300 million and using it as seed money? Create a rogue startup. Make it very independent of Microsoft and its top-down brutality. Have them come up with a new operating system. Start over. Yes, it will cost much, much more than $300 million to complete. But such a move would most definitely break the Windows stranglehold on the PC, and finally give Microsoft an operating system for the 21st Century.

Most computer keyboards are non-mechanical. They use magnets in the key caps to complete the circuit. That setup makes the keyboard feel squishy to me. I can tolerate it, as I do on most of my keyboards, but for my main writing keyboard, I demand something sweet.

Above you see a picture of my collection of old IBM, mechanical keyboards. Those metal monsters weigh a ton. I keep them because they are mechanical; they make a loud click as you use them. I love the noise! But more importantly, I enjoy the responsive feel made by the keyboard as I type. That’s why I collected them, why I still have three.

Sadly, the old IBM keyboards are incompatible with today’s PC hardware. And they’re huge, heavy, and dominate my computer desk. So I’ve looked elsewhere.

The first alternative I settled on was the Das Keyboard, shown above. No, that’s no defect in the image; the key caps are blank on purpose. Supposedly it helps you to be an awesome touch typist. That’s fine, as I’m already a touch typist and don’t look at the keyboard. But for typing key combination, such as Alt+M or pecking the % character, the Das Keyboard proved too tedious to use.

Recently, the Das Keyboard people came out with a new, mechanical keyboard, shown above. I love it. Yes, it has key cap logos on it. But the touch and feel is delightfully mechanical. I believe it’s better than that original terminal keyboard I remember enjoying so many years ago — the one that created the keyboard snob in me.

The Das Keyboard retails for $99. It’s USB and supposedly works with a Mac, though I haven’t hooked it up to a Mac. Buy it if you like; no link here because I’m not out to make money on the thing, just write.

Having hosting the Wambooli site since 1997, I’ve always wanted to keep the content updated and fresh. One way I went about that goal was to create a newsletter back in 2002. Rather than put the newsletter on the site, however, I chose to e-mail it out.

My newsletter, the Weekly Wambooli Salad was very popular and had thousands of readers. Writing the newsletter was easy, but sending it out every Sunday required major work. So I dropped the newsletter in 2005. (You can still get it in bound, book form, check out my title list for the Weekly Wambooli Salad books.)

After the newsletter perished, I tried running a blog. The software was awful and awkward to maintain. I stopped writing the blog, but I still wanted to have some good, updated content on Wambooli.

Late last year I found the WordPress software and tried it out. I was thrilled. At the same time I was teaching myself PHP and MySQL, which are the software tools used by WordPress for this blog. So using and customizing this blog came naturally for me. That was the easy part. The difficult part, as anyone who writes a blog knows, is actually writing the blog.

For the past few months, I’ve consistently written blog posts three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Keeping to that schedule has helped make this blog successful. Plus the software has scheduling abilities. So, for example, when I was on vacation earlier this year, I was able to write and schedule all the blog posts before I left. That’s the kind of convenience computer software should be known for.

Anyway, 100 posts down, many more to come. Thanks for reading.