Welcome to the December 18, 2001, issue of Hewie's Favorites Views & Reviews. Be sure to visit Hewie's Favorites at http://www.hewie.net/. Hewie's Quick Thoughts appear almost daily at http://www.hewie.net/weblog/.

Make it a daily routine to see what is added. It is a log of items as I find them. There are archive pages, so you can catch up on older items. Feel free to let your friends know about this page and the entire site.

+++ Happy Birthday to Hewie's Favorites
+++ Old Computers
+++ Old Friend is Being Retired
+++ Air Guitar For Geeks
+++ Don't Install OfficeXP Service Pack 1 just yet
+++ Some Recent Blogger additions
+++ Hewie's Favorites has been updated

+++ Happy Birthday to Hewie's Favorites

On December 12, Hewie's Favorites has been on line 6 years! I ran an electronic bulletin board, "The FABulous BBS", as system operator (sysop) for well over 10 years. Everything that those system operators wanted to do with bulleting boards, and then some was to be done by the Internet. I closed down all of the incoming phone lines and started Hewie's Favorites to remain connected to the world, or have the rest of the world connected to me.

You may have noticed the Webtracker logo that shows close to 30,000 visits since we started. By the way, the free service at Webtracker, http://www.fxweb.com/, apparently is having some problems. Sometimes we get the logo and number and sometimes it is not connecting. I removed it for a while, but after they came on line, I restored it. However, you will get a bad graphic link in its place if they are down. If it continues, I will pull it again.

+++ Old Computers

If you have been a computer buff over the years as I have, or are interested in see some of the "ancient" computers" from the 80's and earlier take a look at http://www.old-computers.com

My first computer was a 1978 Commodore Pet http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=191 Then came a 1979 Tandy TRS-80 Model I Level II http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=409 . In 1982 I bought an Osborne 1 http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=181 and joined the Tampa Bay Osborne Group, a user group. In 1984 I bought my first PC, the AT&T PC 6300 http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=531. After that began to have PC clones built for me.

One of my favorites was one of the first "palm" computers, the Poqet Computer which came out in 1990. Take a look at my first hand held computer Poqet at http://www.cadigital.com/poqetpc.htm . It weighed about a pound and used 4 AA batteries. A friend has it and it still works.

+++ Old Friend is Being Retired
I received a notice from Verio, my dial up ISP, that they are transferring all of their Dial-up Internet services to Earthlink. My first dial-up service was MagicNet and I have maintained it since 1995, even though Verio bought it from them a few years ago. I have kept my MagicNet email account, but that all will be retired with this change over in the next 2 weeks. I am closing the account, so if you still have my email address as MagicNet, I will not receive it. I have been changing many of my newsletters from that address to another and that has been a chore. Some e-newsletters don't make it easy to change your address while others make it simple.

+++ Air Guitar For Geeks
This is from a recent Mike Elgan's Letter < http://www.mikeslist.com/>. As technology becomes increasingly sophisticated, it becomes harder to tell who is a geek and who is insane. The Swedish Senseboard Technologies AB showed a prototype of its Senseboard product at Comdex last [month]. Here's how it works. You wrap sensors on either hand, and type as if there were a keyboard there. The sensors figure out which keys you would have typed if, in fact, there had been a keyboard, and sends those keystrokes to your PDA via wireless. Samsung showed its own version of this concept, called the Scurry, which features sensors on individual fingers and a cool, futuristic design. For more information go to http://www.senseboard.com/.

+++ Don't Install OfficeXP Service Pack 1 just yet

From Woody's Office Watch http://www.woodyswatch.com/
1. OFFICE XP SERVICE PACK 1 - DANGER WILL ROBINSON The ActiveWin web site (http://www.activewin.com ) has announced that the first Service Pack for Office XP - called Office XP SP-1 - went "gold" last Thursday and will be released this Thursday, December 13, on the Office Tools site (http://www.office.microsoft.com ). According to their report, the Admin pack update will be made available on the same day.

One piece of advice: DON'T INSTALL IT.

If you want to know why, go to Woody's site at http://www.woodyswatch.com/office/archtemplate.asp?v6-n54.
Be sure to subscribe to his newsletters.

+++ Some Recent Blogger additions

Make sure that you check my Blogger page on a regular basis at http://www.hewie.net/weblog/. Some recent topics discussed are:

1. Google targets catalog business
2. Google announced the expansion of their image search, Web search, and Usenet search.
3. Roxio to Acquire MGI Software
4. Excite.com to be salvaged.
5. Segway is the official name of "It",

+++ Hewie's Favorites has been updated