Why I Write

It really wasn't that long ago when the Internet was the playground of Universities and the Government, and mere mortals like us were using Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). Our on-line world was limited to the number of BBS phone numbers we had, many times the good ones were a long distance call. Using ANSI screens, mostly DOS based, the better systems were the Wildcat and TBBS systems. You could download files, read and post messages, real time chat with the SYSOP (System Operator). Then came the day when I wanted to run my own BBS. I bought a 4 port Wildcat system and went "on-line"...

In the early days, I quickly tied in with the FIDO system, this was a pull email distribution system. My system would dial-up an upstream post-office and download packets destined for my system, my system would then upload packets, for distribution throughout the FIDO system. This was a crude USENET system. I was fairly content running my own system, designing menu systems, creating ANSI art to go with the basic Wildcat menu screens. Working with users to tweak modem configuration strings to optimize modem upload and download speeds. Yes those were the days...

But in 1993 things started to change, Internet service was starting to be available to the general public. I went on-line and knew my little local BBS was going to be short lived. The future was obviously the Internet. But little did I know how the removal of the commercial ban in 1998 was going to effect this wonderous tool. It was the opening up of the Internet to commercial ventures which exploded the Internet and led to the wide usage seen today. Along with the good, obviously comes the bad with Viruses, Spyware, Trojan Applications, SPAM and real world scams twisted to work in an on-line world. And it was into this world I found my chance to reach more people, to share my knowledge of things I have learned along the way. But obviously with this unrestricted ability to publish and share without editorial oversight, or management focus, I sometime lose my way and the site takes off in directions I have never intended it to go...

It's while on these tangents I occasionally feel as if I'm not accomplishing anything and often think of chucking everything and withdrawing all together. Such is the recent 2 or 3 months between posts from April till earlier this week. I was going to take my server down, move the 2 sites I host over to other services and slowly withdraw...

But after 2 months of no posting, I took a long and hard look at what I was wanting to accomplish. I've decided to keep up with the web, keep my site populated and keep posting. I am changing the focus a bit, fewer posts about family and more about technical issues along with the frequent opinion or editorial entry. I'll also be posting more about my personal history as I believe everyone if given the chance has interesting details in their lives. I often find it very interesting to see the route someone takes to get from leaving home to where they are today. Mine is by no means unique, but it is a bit unusual and I'll be posting more on this later.

My goals for the foreseeable future are to post at least weekly, these should be substantial posts, not regurgitation of posts from other blogs or events in the news. If I do post about a newsworthy item, it will include my thoughts and opinions on the issues...

I'm also looking to start posting a series of technical PDF articles/papers. These will be a little less frequent, probably one every month or two. So if this seems appealing to you, stop by every now and then, I'm always updating...

12/19/2010: Corrected spelling.