Southwest Virginia Blogs

Sometimes the Internet reminds me of the canal that runs behind our house.  Its waters are dark, and you never quite know what's lurking there.

We can all go off half-cocked sometimes.  Yet on the Internet you can do a lot of damage to someone's reputation.  It's probably the biggest danger that I see to the free-wheeling Internet world.   

Over a year ago I did a post about a product that I really liked.  I got some positive feedback on the article, and I didn't think much more about it other than to see it show up in the stats once in a while.

Sometime this fall when I was swamped with other stuff, someone posted something negative about the company.  I should have checked it out immediately, but I was doing classes and studying for exams so it slipped my memory until I got a note from a friend of the owners telling me the comments were false.

I sent back that the owners were welcome to tell me their side of the story, and I would act accordingly.  I got a nice letter from the company owners which prompted me to remove the negative comments from my website.

I think one of the weaknesses of world of blogs is just pure lack of time and adequate resources to check everything in a freewheeling environment.  I am very careful about what I mention on my blogs, but it is easy to slip up.

I did a post on one of my other blogs on "Blogs and personal product marketing."  While doing that post last night, it occurred to me that  I've never sold anything in which I didn't have absolute confidence.  It turns out that all that confidence has come from using the product or service.

The other part to that is that I have been lucky enough to be in positions where I could fix problems when they happen as they inevitably do.  If you see me mention a product or service on one of my blogs, be assured  that I have tried it and am sharing my h0nest comments.

Maybe there will be some checks and balances on the Internet someday, but right now we just have to depend on the personal integrity of the individual.  I plan to guard mine jealously.

Maybe all of that is being a Boy Scout, but I have never had a problem with that.   The huge visibility that you can gain in an instant on the Internet from articles like my, "What Jobs told me on the iPhone," is both an honor and a huge responsibility.

While I plan to make the most of the great visibility,  I don't exactly have any plans to get rich off of it.

Sometimes the Internet reminds me of the canal that runs behind our house.  Its waters are dark, and you never quite know what's lurking there.

We can all go off half-cocked sometimes.  Yet on the Internet you can do a lot of damage to someone's reputation.  It's probably the biggest danger that I see to the free-wheeling Internet world.   

Over a year ago I did a post about a product that I really liked.  I got some positive feedback on the article, and I didn't think much more about it other than to see it show up in the stats once in a while.

Sometime this fall when I was swamped with other stuff, someone posted something negative about the company.  I should have checked it out immediately, but I was doing classes and studying for exams so it slipped my memory until I got a note from a friend of the owners telling me the comments were false.

I sent back that the owners were welcome to tell me their side of the story, and I would act accordingly.  I got a nice letter from the company owners which prompted me to remove the negative comments from my website.

I think one of the weaknesses of world of blogs is just pure lack of time and adequate resources to check everything in a freewheeling environment.  I am very careful about what I mention on my blogs, but it is easy to slip up.

I did a post on one of my other blogs on "Blogs and personal product marketing."  While doing that post last night, it occurred to me that  I've never sold anything in which I didn't have absolute confidence.  It turns out that all that confidence has come from using the product or service.

The other part to that is that I have been lucky enough to be in positions where I could fix problems when they happen as they inevitably do.  If you see me mention a product or service on one of my blogs, be assured  that I have tried it and am sharing my h0nest comments.

Maybe there will be some checks and balances on the Internet someday, but right now we just have to depend on the personal integrity of the individual.  I plan to guard mine jealously.

Maybe all of that is being a Boy Scout, but I have never had a problem with that.   The huge visibility that you can gain in an instant on the Internet from articles like my, "What Jobs told me on the iPhone," is both an honor and a huge responsibility.

While I plan to make the most of the great visibility,  I don't exactly have any plans to get rich off of it.

Sometimes the Internet reminds me of the canal that runs behind our house.  Its waters are dark, and you never quite know what's lurking there.

We can all go off half-cocked sometimes.  Yet on the Internet you can do a lot of damage to someone's reputation.  It's probably the biggest danger that I see to the free-wheeling Internet world.   

Over a year ago I did a post about a product that I really liked.  I got some positive feedback on the article, and I didn't think much more about it other than to see it show up in the stats once in a while.

Sometime this fall when I was swamped with other stuff, someone posted something negative about the company.  I should have checked it out immediately, but I was doing classes and studying for exams so it slipped my memory until I got a note from a friend of the owners telling me the comments were false.

I sent back that the owners were welcome to tell me their side of the story, and I would act accordingly.  I got a nice letter from the company owners which prompted me to remove the negative comments from my website.

I think one of the weaknesses of world of blogs is just pure lack of time and adequate resources to check everything in a freewheeling environment.  I am very careful about what I mention on my blogs, but it is easy to slip up.

I did a post on one of my other blogs on "Blogs and personal product marketing."  While doing that post last night, it occurred to me that  I've never sold anything in which I didn't have absolute confidence.  It turns out that all that confidence has come from using the product or service.

The other part to that is that I have been lucky enough to be in positions where I could fix problems when they happen as they inevitably do.  If you see me mention a product or service on one of my blogs, be assured  that I have tried it and am sharing my h0nest comments.

Maybe there will be some checks and balances on the Internet someday, but right now we just have to depend on the personal integrity of the individual.  I plan to guard mine jealously.

Maybe all of that is being a Boy Scout, but I have never had a problem with that.   The huge visibility that you can gain in an instant on the Internet from articles like my, "What Jobs told me on the iPhone," is both an honor and a huge responsibility.

While I plan to make the most of the great visibility,  I don't exactly have any plans to get rich off of it.

This morning I received a copy of Joseph Rago's article, "The blog mob."  A subscription might be required to see the article.  I think probably the most interesting of Mr. Rago's comments might well be the subheading of the article on the WSJ main opinion page.

"Written by fools to be read by imbeciles."

That is a fairly generalized and inflammatory subtitle for an article written by someone who seems so concerned about the loss of the "checks and balances" of the mainstream media establishment ("MSM").

Certainly the MSM, such as it is, collapsed itself. It was once utterly dominant yet made itself vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue adversarial agendas. Still, as far from perfect as that system was, it was and is not wholly imperfect. The technology of ink on paper is highly advanced, and has over centuries accumulated a major institutional culture that screens editorially for originality, expertise and seriousness.

Perhaps my worldview here on the Southern Outer Banks  might be a little different than that of Mr. Rago's view from his WSJ office. I am certainly no enemy of the printed word. As I admitted in my post, "The morning newspaper," I am a newspaper junkie so I often read the WSJ, the New York Times, and the Washington.  I sometimes read a little farther down the food chain and will pick up copies of The Carteret County Times and The Tideland News.  I would hate to find out what our esteemed Mr. Rago would think of them, but he does offer us some clues.

Nobody wants to be an imbecile. Part of it, I think, is that everyone likes shows and entertainments. Mobs are exciting. People also like validation of what they already believe; the Internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying the mediocrity of the masses.

Immediately the assumption that I pick up from paragraph is that the only way we in the masses can be gratified is by subscribing and paying money to read the likes of Mr. Rago.  I wonder exactly what enlightenment I might pick up from Mr. Grasso's writing.  Is it that he is highly educated because he likes to use words like "vastation," "logorrheic," and "fatuities."  I actually come way with the opinion that his writing reeks of elitism.

Perhaps Mr. Rago, who is so unimpressed with the world of blogs, is overly impressed with his own importance as an "assistant editorial features editor" at one of the few newspapers in American which actually brings in enough revenue from its online business to take it seriously and not have to worry very much about firing people.  According to a March 14, 2005 NY Times article, "Can Papers End the Free Ride Online?," the WSJ has a total of 700,000 paying online subscribers including me.  That probably makes Mr. Rago's immensely important job fairly safe.

That's actually a rarity in this day and age. However for those businesses and publications not so fortunate, the Internet and even blogs come to the rescue. The same issue of the Journal which Mr. Rago's article even has an audio post about the Internet saving my small business.

Our latest Internet revolution is all about the localization of content.  Now very little of it may be relevant to Mr. Rago, who appears to be a big fish in a fairly well mapped big and prominent pond.  Yet to those of us who either are no longer in that race or never chose to be there, there is a whole world out here where information is scarce and the mainstream media hasn't seen fit to grace us with their enlightenment.

I am admittedly a member of a significant minority.  I use Macintosh computers. That means that while I have the choice of products from many manufacturers whose products claim compatibility, in reality the products may or may not work with my Macs.  While I might not know as much as about editing articles as Mr. Rago, I can generally make technology hum.  I did a fair amount of research before I went out and purchased a new HP AIO Photosmart C6180.  In the end my purchase was a gamble of sorts because information much of it from the mainstream media was scarce and conflicting, and sometimes tainted by the somewhat obvious need to not offend an advertiser. 

My safety net when I purchase the HP C6180 was that while I wanted the product to work on a Mac,  knew that I had a Windows machine to fall back on if needed.   When I actually got the product to work on my Mac, I wrote up a couple of posts, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180" and "The not so reluctant home system engineer," about my experiences.  Now while these posts might not be of much value to Mr. Rago, I suspect the well over 3,000 people who have read just the first one might disagree that they were written by fool to be read by imbeciles.  I apologize for taking the liberty of slightly altering the subtitle for "The Blog Mob."

Those posts about the HP AIO filled in a little but significant crack of knowledge that the mainstream media had chosen to ignore because it would not draw enough readership that anyone cared to track so that someone could be paid to write the review.  Even more significantly it is likely that no one in the mainstream media cared enough to even think of writing the article.

So if we are to judge by the standard that the only things worth reading are those where people have been paid to write them, I would argue that we make our lives immensely less satisfying.  If paying writers makes content better, then I wonder what happened to television and the writers whose content happens to offend my sensibilities.  I am not so sure that writing for free is something we should discourage.  If I am providing my best judgment on a product, service, or an issue and someone has decided that they would rather have my opinion than one from someone who is receiving money to promote something,  who is Mr. Rago to declare that this is just "gratifying the mediocrity of the masses."  Perhaps reading the WSJ's paid articles is just filling the pockets of wealthy publishers.

I could suggest one article for Mr. Rago, "Let the Seller Beware," which is a WSJ review of a book by that name.  Just maybe it might help him understand what's happening on the Internet a little more fully before the mediocre masses completely take over the world.

While my writing expertise or that of many others on the web might not be as financially well rewarded as Mr. Rago's, that does not mean that our opinions and posts are worthless dribble as Mr. Rago seems to hint.

While Mr. Rago's opinion piece has the benefit of being supported by the likes Fidelity and Toshiba. Mine has to supported by the time and effort that I take from earning money. Generally that means I have to believe that what I write has value before I even start.  Then when I start writing, I take it very seriously.  My considerable good reputation is on the line. 

I often write about small businesses which again is an area which the mainstream media has found unprofitable or at least hard to capture except by the likes of Google.  When I find a hidden gem like Kelchner's Cocktail sauce, The Depot at Cody Creek, or Backpack, I write about it.  By the traffic that I see and comments that I receive, I know these posts have some positive impact.

Do I sometimes get ideas from the mainstream media, certainly.  Do I "ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps?"  I don't think so.  Do I exactly know what my niche is?  Probably I don't even care.  I have written things as diverse as "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth" and "The Dippy Egg."  I even chronicled how to plant and care for tomato plants in the hope that the wisdom my mother passed down to me along with what I've learned might somehow be valuable to my kids. 

I added all the links in the last two paragraphs just as a statement that I believe interactivity in media has great value.  It certainly allows even us mediocre masses to do a little exploring on our own without the divine guidance of the mainstream media.

I would also take exception with the following comment by Mr. Rago.

But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting -- the news -- already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.

I would argue that there is a certain rigor enforced by doing it now and trying to do it right the first time with only one set of eyes for a safety net.  I try hard to check for facts and just as religiously correct for errors when I find them or they are pointed out to me.  Just because you have the luxury of doing something slowly doesn't mean that it is going to turn out well.  Those of us writing out without pay would love to have a second set of eyes to scan our works.  Often it turns out that it is our readers who find and report errors and omissions which can easily be corrected in our instant world of blogs.

Long ago I learned that wisdom and beauty are where you find them, not exclusively in a gated community where you have to pay to enter.  The idea that all blogs are "Written by fools to be read by imbeciles," makes as much sense as every article which has an editor and a dollar value attached to it is enlightening.

Finally in stating the obvious, "Journalism requires journalists," let me remind Mr. Rago of the second definition for "journalist" which is "a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events."

That sounds remarkably like writing a blog. I wonder if that might be acceptable training for the next generation of professional journalists?  It will certainly require a closer look than the one Mr. Rago gave the world of blogs.

This morning I received a copy of Joseph Rago's article, "The blog mob."  A subscription might be required to see the article.  I think probably the most interesting of Mr. Rago's comments might well be the subheading of the article on the WSJ main opinion page.

"Written by fools to be read by imbeciles."

That is a fairly generalized and inflammatory subtitle for an article written by someone who seems so concerned about the loss of the "checks and balances" of the mainstream media establishment ("MSM").

Certainly the MSM, such as it is, collapsed itself. It was once utterly dominant yet made itself vulnerable by playing on its reputed accuracy and disinterest to pursue adversarial agendas. Still, as far from perfect as that system was, it was and is not wholly imperfect. The technology of ink on paper is highly advanced, and has over centuries accumulated a major institutional culture that screens editorially for originality, expertise and seriousness.

Perhaps my worldview here on the Southern Outer Banks  might be a little different than that of Mr. Rago's view from his WSJ office. I am certainly no enemy of the printed word. As I admitted in my post, "The morning newspaper," I am a newspaper junkie so I often read the WSJ, the New York Times, and the Washington.  I sometimes read a little farther down the food chain and will pick up copies of The Carteret County Times and The Tideland News.  I would hate to find out what our esteemed Mr. Rago would think of them, but he does offer us some clues.

Nobody wants to be an imbecile. Part of it, I think, is that everyone likes shows and entertainments. Mobs are exciting. People also like validation of what they already believe; the Internet, like all free markets, has a way of gratifying the mediocrity of the masses.

Immediately the assumption that I pick up from paragraph is that the only way we in the masses can be gratified is by subscribing and paying money to read the likes of Mr. Rago.  I wonder exactly what enlightenment I might pick up from Mr. Grasso's writing.  Is it that he is highly educated because he likes to use words like "vastation," "logorrheic," and "fatuities."  I actually come way with the opinion that his writing reeks of elitism.

Perhaps Mr. Rago, who is so unimpressed with the world of blogs, is overly impressed with his own importance as an "assistant editorial features editor" at one of the few newspapers in American which actually brings in enough revenue from its online business to take it seriously and not have to worry very much about firing people.  According to a March 14, 2005 NY Times article, "Can Papers End the Free Ride Online?," the WSJ has a total of 700,000 paying online subscribers including me.  That probably makes Mr. Rago's immensely important job fairly safe.

That's actually a rarity in this day and age. However for those businesses and publications not so fortunate, the Internet and even blogs come to the rescue. The same issue of the Journal which Mr. Rago's article even has an audio post about the Internet saving my small business.

Our latest Internet revolution is all about the localization of content.  Now very little of it may be relevant to Mr. Rago, who appears to be a big fish in a fairly well mapped big and prominent pond.  Yet to those of us who either are no longer in that race or never chose to be there, there is a whole world out here where information is scarce and the mainstream media hasn't seen fit to grace us with their enlightenment.

I am admittedly a member of a significant minority.  I use Macintosh computers. That means that while I have the choice of products from many manufacturers whose products claim compatibility, in reality the products may or may not work with my Macs.  While I might not know as much as about editing articles as Mr. Rago, I can generally make technology hum.  I did a fair amount of research before I went out and purchased a new HP AIO Photosmart C6180.  In the end my purchase was a gamble of sorts because information much of it from the mainstream media was scarce and conflicting, and sometimes tainted by the somewhat obvious need to not offend an advertiser. 

My safety net when I purchase the HP C6180 was that while I wanted the product to work on a Mac,  knew that I had a Windows machine to fall back on if needed.   When I actually got the product to work on my Mac, I wrote up a couple of posts, "HP AIO Photosmart C6180" and "The not so reluctant home system engineer," about my experiences.  Now while these posts might not be of much value to Mr. Rago, I suspect the well over 3,000 people who have read just the first one might disagree that they were written by fool to be read by imbeciles.  I apologize for taking the liberty of slightly altering the subtitle for "The Blog Mob."

Those posts about the HP AIO filled in a little but significant crack of knowledge that the mainstream media had chosen to ignore because it would not draw enough readership that anyone cared to track so that someone could be paid to write the review.  Even more significantly it is likely that no one in the mainstream media cared enough to even think of writing the article.

So if we are to judge by the standard that the only things worth reading are those where people have been paid to write them, I would argue that we make our lives immensely less satisfying.  If paying writers makes content better, then I wonder what happened to television and the writers whose content happens to offend my sensibilities.  I am not so sure that writing for free is something we should discourage.  If I am providing my best judgment on a product, service, or an issue and someone has decided that they would rather have my opinion than one from someone who is receiving money to promote something,  who is Mr. Rago to declare that this is just "gratifying the mediocrity of the masses."  Perhaps reading the WSJ's paid articles is just filling the pockets of wealthy publishers.

I could suggest one article for Mr. Rago, "Let the Seller Beware," which is a WSJ review of a book by that name.  Just maybe it might help him understand what's happening on the Internet a little more fully before the mediocre masses completely take over the world.

While my writing expertise or that of many others on the web might not be as financially well rewarded as Mr. Rago's, that does not mean that our opinions and posts are worthless dribble as Mr. Rago seems to hint.

While Mr. Rago's opinion piece has the benefit of being supported by the likes Fidelity and Toshiba. Mine has to supported by the time and effort that I take from earning money. Generally that means I have to believe that what I write has value before I even start.  Then when I start writing, I take it very seriously.  My considerable good reputation is on the line. 

I often write about small businesses which again is an area which the mainstream media has found unprofitable or at least hard to capture except by the likes of Google.  When I find a hidden gem like Kelchner's Cocktail sauce, The Depot at Cody Creek, or Backpack, I write about it.  By the traffic that I see and comments that I receive, I know these posts have some positive impact.

Do I sometimes get ideas from the mainstream media, certainly.  Do I "ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps?"  I don't think so.  Do I exactly know what my niche is?  Probably I don't even care.  I have written things as diverse as "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth" and "The Dippy Egg."  I even chronicled how to plant and care for tomato plants in the hope that the wisdom my mother passed down to me along with what I've learned might somehow be valuable to my kids. 

I added all the links in the last two paragraphs just as a statement that I believe interactivity in media has great value.  It certainly allows even us mediocre masses to do a little exploring on our own without the divine guidance of the mainstream media.

I would also take exception with the following comment by Mr. Rago.

But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting -- the news -- already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.

I would argue that there is a certain rigor enforced by doing it now and trying to do it right the first time with only one set of eyes for a safety net.  I try hard to check for facts and just as religiously correct for errors when I find them or they are pointed out to me.  Just because you have the luxury of doing something slowly doesn't mean that it is going to turn out well.  Those of us writing out without pay would love to have a second set of eyes to scan our works.  Often it turns out that it is our readers who find and report errors and omissions which can easily be corrected in our instant world of blogs.

Long ago I learned that wisdom and beauty are where you find them, not exclusively in a gated community where you have to pay to enter.  The idea that all blogs are "Written by fools to be read by imbeciles," makes as much sense as every article which has an editor and a dollar value attached to it is enlightening.

Finally in stating the obvious, "Journalism requires journalists," let me remind Mr. Rago of the second definition for "journalist" which is "a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events."

That sounds remarkably like writing a blog. I wonder if that might be acceptable training for the next generation of professional journalists?  It will certainly require a closer look than the one Mr. Rago gave the world of blogs.

The BBC is reporting that Gardner has made a prediction about blogging and other technical areas of interest.

Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer said the reason for the levelling off in blogging was due to the fact that most people who would ever start a web blog had already done so.

He said those who loved blogging were committed to keeping it up, while others had become bored and moved on.

"A lot of people have been in and out of this thing," Mr Plummer said.

"Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it."

That's something of broad prediction.  I might disagree since I think blogging tools will continue to get easier.  I think there are a lot of people who have tried blogging and stopped.  The same thing could be said about exercise bikes, but that doesn't stop new people from trying them.  For some of the new people it really works.

Just because someone doesn't update their blog everyday doesn't mean that their blog is dead.  You could easily have a family where it only gets updated once or twice a year.

Still I don't think blogging is a fad.  The kinds of useful information and filtering that you can find in a blog is just too valuable to disappear.  I think there will a realization that business blogging is very important, but that it will likely require dedicated, paid bloggers.

Will blogs such as mine disappear.  I don't think so.  There are many of us who enjoying writing and getting feedback from readers.  As I wrote in one of my other blogs, what we write is "Glue for the modern world."  We fill in the cracks between sometimes unconnected information.

I am looking forward to the evolution of blogging.  While writing for free isn't for everyone, it suits some of us very well.

The report also had predictions that Vista will be the last version of Windows and that the total cost of ownership on PCs will halve by 2010.

The BBC is reporting that Gardner has made a prediction about blogging and other technical areas of interest.

Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer said the reason for the levelling off in blogging was due to the fact that most people who would ever start a web blog had already done so.

He said those who loved blogging were committed to keeping it up, while others had become bored and moved on.

"A lot of people have been in and out of this thing," Mr Plummer said.

"Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it."

That's something of broad prediction.  I might disagree since I think blogging tools will continue to get easier.  I think there are a lot of people who have tried blogging and stopped.  The same thing could be said about exercise bikes, but that doesn't stop new people from trying them.  For some of the new people it really works.

Just because someone doesn't update their blog everyday doesn't mean that their blog is dead.  You could easily have a family where it only gets updated once or twice a year.

Still I don't think blogging is a fad.  The kinds of useful information and filtering that you can find in a blog is just too valuable to disappear.  I think there will a realization that business blogging is very important, but that it will likely require dedicated, paid bloggers.

Will blogs such as mine disappear.  I don't think so.  There are many of us who enjoying writing and getting feedback from readers.  As I wrote in one of my other blogs, what we write is "Glue for the modern world."  We fill in the cracks between sometimes unconnected information.

I am looking forward to the evolution of blogging.  While writing for free isn't for everyone, it suits some of us very well.

The report also had predictions that Vista will be the last version of Windows and that the total cost of ownership on PCs will halve by 2010.

The BBC is reporting that Gardner has made a prediction about blogging and other technical areas of interest.

Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer said the reason for the levelling off in blogging was due to the fact that most people who would ever start a web blog had already done so.

He said those who loved blogging were committed to keeping it up, while others had become bored and moved on.

"A lot of people have been in and out of this thing," Mr Plummer said.

"Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it."

That's something of broad prediction.  I might disagree since I think blogging tools will continue to get easier.  I think there are a lot of people who have tried blogging and stopped.  The same thing could be said about exercise bikes, but that doesn't stop new people from trying them.  For some of the new people it really works.

Just because someone doesn't update their blog everyday doesn't mean that their blog is dead.  You could easily have a family where it only gets updated once or twice a year.

Still I don't think blogging is a fad.  The kinds of useful information and filtering that you can find in a blog is just too valuable to disappear.  I think there will a realization that business blogging is very important, but that it will likely require dedicated, paid bloggers.

Will blogs such as mine disappear.  I don't think so.  There are many of us who enjoying writing and getting feedback from readers.  As I wrote in one of my other blogs, what we write is "Glue for the modern world."  We fill in the cracks between sometimes unconnected information.

I am looking forward to the evolution of blogging.  While writing for free isn't for everyone, it suits some of us very well.

The report also had predictions that Vista will be the last version of Windows and that the total cost of ownership on PCs will halve by 2010.

Fortunately people do not ask what I do with most of my time these days.  It’s one of the benefits of being over fifty-five.  You get a senior discount in the grocery stores, and people assume you do not do anything worthy of much attention.

If they did ask, I would have to say that I spend a lot of time writing without getting paid for doing it.  It seems strange when I actually say it, but I have become an active participant in the great online experiment of posting articles about whatever comes to mind on a given day. Writing about my interests for the web has defined much of my life over the last couple of years since I left Apple Computer.

It seems like only yesterday when I had little idea of what constituted a blog or weblog.  Certainly I was not a technophobe, but even twenty years in the middle of the technology world did not prepare me for the rapid way that communication is changing today.  Yet I have taken to this new online world like a duck to water.

Two years have rolled by since I wrote my first post at “View from the Mountain,” my home blog, I have done over one thousand posts, and earlier last month I hit another homerun.   I define a homerun as a post that draws more than ten thousand visitors to one of my sites in less than twenty-four hours.

Web articles are a viral form of communication.  They often take on a life of their own after you have loosed them on the world.  All it takes for tens of thousands of eyes to see you, is for a site like Digg to pick up your post and have a number of people vote that what you have written is interesting.  Then you are off to the races.  It is not unusual to have a really popular post picked up by other writers in several countries.

My latest successful piece, “Lessons learned from nearly twenty years at Apple,” even brought referrals from a Greek blog and ended up attracting enough attention that Wired Magazine’s “Cult of the Mac Blog,” did a profile with a picture of me.  All of that happened in less than twenty-four hours. Four days later there were still over six thousand people a day reading my posts.

Not only is the success sometimes instant, but the feedback can also be quick with direct comments from all over the world.  The blogging service that I use, Typepad, lets me see what sites are referring others to my site.  Visiting them to see what they have had to say about what I have written is an interesting way of getting feedback. Seeing how others use your words is often just as enlightening as the comments left on my own site.

I also use a company called Feedburner which lets people subscribe to my posts and see them automatically without having to go to my website for each new article. Though it varies from day to day, I have nearly fourteen hundred people subscribed to my two main sites.  It is an interesting feeling knowing that well over a thousand people will likely read any good post that I write.  Usually within five minutes of putting an article on line, I can see people starting to read it.
Using Feedburner I can actually watch to see where the hits come in from around the world.  I keep thinking they should have a graphical representation of how a particular post spreads around the world in real time.

Having become technologically adept at this, I also use Technorati tags to make it easier for people to search topics among the posts I have written. I am particularly interested in people finding my photos and prints for which I do occasionally receive some money.    Actually many of my readers come to me from Google searches. Thinking of Google brings me to why I believe writing about my interests is of value in a world where millions of others are doing the same thing.

It’s not that most of us new online writers are bringing particularly brilliant commentary to the web on critical issues.  More likely than not, we are providing a more personal look at many very ordinary things.  In a larger sense what we are doing is filling in the web of local connections that have somehow been broken by the modern world.

We have become such a mobile and wired society that the default source of information is the web and Google, not your neighbor.  Google by indexing content like mine is providing very important glue for our increasingly impersonal and fractured world.

I have had people moving to the areas that I call home write me and offer thanks for all the local information that I provide.  We have called some restaurants that I have reviewed to be told that we can have our choice of reservations since my posts have sent them so many customers.  There are dangers.  Once a host at a restaurant recognized me and brought me a free deep fried Oreo for dessert.  I would have rather passed on that.

The interaction with small businesses and local people brings a degree of responsibility with it.  I try really hard to be right about what I say so that I do not become just another local booster who can see no wrong.  After all my credibility is at stake.  I have found it is better to say nothing at all, than write a post that will not stand the test of time.

My free writing has given me a new identity along with lots of new friends, who live in places around the world that I will likely never visit except through their written words.

Now that my Fortune 500 business card is gone, it is also nice to have an identity on which to fall back.  The good thing is that my web presence is really me, and not just an adjunct to a carefully controlled corporate image.  I am up there on the web for everyone to see and to try to pick apart if they so choose.

Just surviving that trial by fire has made me a better writer, hopefully a stronger person, and something of an authority in my chosen areas.  If you type a Google search of “Travel Guide, Swansboro, NC,” or “Travel Guide, Beaufort, NC,” you see that I’m top ranked.  If enough of you do a search on “Dippy Egg” and click on my link, Google just might move me ahead of Wikipedia to the number one spot.  I don’t suppose anyone is interested in my article on “The Menhaden saga and limits to growth?”  It’s nice being the authority on something even if it is somewhat obscure.

Fortunately people do not ask what I do with most of my time these days.  It’s one of the benefits of being over fifty-five.  You get a senior discount in the grocery stores, and people assume you do not do anything worthy of much attention.

If they did ask, I would have to say that I spend a lot of time writing without getting paid for doing it.  It seems strange when I actually say it, but I have become an active participant in the great online experiment of posting articles about whatever comes to mind on a given day. Writing about my interests for the web has defined much of my life over the last couple of years since I left Apple Computer.

It seems like only yesterday when I had little idea of what constituted a blog or weblog.  Certainly I was not a technophobe, but even twenty years in the middle of the technology world did not prepare me for the rapid way that communication is changing today.  Yet I have taken to this new online world like a duck to water.

Two years have rolled by since I wrote my first post at “View from the Mountain,” my home blog, I have done over one thousand posts, and earlier last month I hit another homerun.   I define a homerun as a post that draws more than ten thousand visitors to one of my sites in less than twenty-four hours.

Web articles are a viral form of communication.  They often take on a life of their own after you have loosed them on the world.  All it takes for tens of thousands of eyes to see you, is for a site like Digg to pick up your post and have a number of people vote that what you have written is interesting.  Then you are off to the races.  It is not unusual to have a really popular post picked up by other writers in several countries.

My latest successful piece, “Lessons learned from nearly twenty years at Apple,” even brought referrals from a Greek blog and ended up attracting enough attention that Wired Magazine’s “Cult of the Mac Blog,” did a profile with a picture of me.  All of that happened in less than twenty-four hours. Four days later there were still over six thousand people a day reading my posts.

Not only is the success sometimes instant, but the feedback can also be quick with direct comments from all over the world.  The blogging service that I use, Typepad, lets me see what sites are referring others to my site.  Visiting them to see what they have had to say about what I have written is an interesting way of getting feedback. Seeing how others use your words is often just as enlightening as the comments left on my own site.

I also use a company called Feedburner which lets people subscribe to my posts and see them automatically without having to go to my website for each new article. Though it varies from day to day, I have nearly fourteen hundred people subscribed to my two main sites.  It is an interesting feeling knowing that well over a thousand people will likely read any good post that I write.  Usually within five minutes of putting an article on line, I can see people starting to read it.
Using Feedburner I can actually watch to see where the hits come in from around the world.  I keep thinking they should have a graphical representation of how a particular post spreads around the world in real time.

Having become technologically adept at this, I also use Technorati tags to make it easier for people to search topics among the posts I have written. I am particularly interested in people finding my photos and prints for which I do occasionally receive some money.    Actually many of my readers come to me from Google searches. Thinking of Google brings me to why I believe writing about my interests is of value in a world where millions of others are doing the same thing.

It’s not that most of us new online writers are bringing particularly brilliant commentary to the web on critical issues.  More likely than not, we are providing a more personal look at many very ordinary things.  In a larger sense what we are doing is filling in the web of local connections that have somehow been broken by the modern world.

We have become such a mobile and wired society that the default source of information is the web and Google, not your neighbor.  Google by indexing content like mine is providing very important glue for our increasingly impersonal and fractured world.

I have had people moving to the areas that I call home write me and offer thanks for all the local information that I provide.  We have called some restaurants that I have reviewed to be told that we can have our choice of reservations since my posts have sent them so many customers.  There are dangers.  Once a host at a restaurant recognized me and brought me a free deep fried Oreo for dessert.  I would have rather passed on that.

The interaction with small businesses and local people brings a degree of responsibility with it.  I try really hard to be right about what I say so that I do not become just another local booster who can see no wrong.  After all my credibility is at stake.  I have found it is better to say nothing at all, than write a post that will not stand the test of time.

My free writing has given me a new identity along with lots of new friends, who live in places around the world that I will likely never visit except through their written words.

Now that my Fortune 500 business card is gone, it is also nice to have an identity on which to fall back.  The good thing is that my web presence is really me, and not just an adjunct to a carefully controlled corporate image.  I am up there on the web for everyone to see and to try to pick apart if they so choose.

Just surviving that trial by fire has made me a better writer, hopefully a stronger person, and something of an authority in my chosen areas.  If you type a Google search of “Travel Guide, Swansboro, NC,” or “Travel Guide, Beaufort, NC,” you see that I’m top ranked.  If enough of you do a search on “Dippy Egg” and click on my link, Google just might move me ahead of Wikipedia to the number one spot.  I don’t suppose anyone is interested in my article on “The Menhaden saga and limits to growth?”  It’s nice being the authority on something even if it is somewhat obscure.

Fortunately people do not ask what I do with most of my time these days.  It’s one of the benefits of being over fifty-five.  You get a senior discount in the grocery stores, and people assume you do not do anything worthy of much attention.

If they did ask, I would have to say that I spend a lot of time writing without getting paid for doing it.  It seems strange when I actually say it, but I have become an active participant in the great online experiment of posting articles about whatever comes to mind on a given day. Writing about my interests for the web has defined much of my life over the last couple of years since I left Apple Computer.

It seems like only yesterday when I had little idea of what constituted a blog or weblog.  Certainly I was not a technophobe, but even twenty years in the middle of the technology world did not prepare me for the rapid way that communication is changing today.  Yet I have taken to this new online world like a duck to water.

Two years have rolled by since I wrote my first post at “View from the Mountain,” my home blog, I have done over one thousand posts, and earlier last month I hit another homerun.   I define a homerun as a post that draws more than ten thousand visitors to one of my sites in less than twenty-four hours.

Web articles are a viral form of communication.  They often take on a life of their own after you have loosed them on the world.  All it takes for tens of thousands of eyes to see you, is for a site like Digg to pick up your post and have a number of people vote that what you have written is interesting.  Then you are off to the races.  It is not unusual to have a really popular post picked up by other writers in several countries.

My latest successful piece, “Lessons learned from nearly twenty years at Apple,” even brought referrals from a Greek blog and ended up attracting enough attention that Wired Magazine’s “Cult of the Mac Blog,” did a profile with a picture of me.  All of that happened in less than twenty-four hours. Four days later there were still over six thousand people a day reading my posts.

Not only is the success sometimes instant, but the feedback can also be quick with direct comments from all over the world.  The blogging service that I use, Typepad, lets me see what sites are referring others to my site.  Visiting them to see what they have had to say about what I have written is an interesting way of getting feedback. Seeing how others use your words is often just as enlightening as the comments left on my own site.

I also use a company called Feedburner which lets people subscribe to my posts and see them automatically without having to go to my website for each new article. Though it varies from day to day, I have nearly fourteen hundred people subscribed to my two main sites.  It is an interesting feeling knowing that well over a thousand people will likely read any good post that I write.  Usually within five minutes of putting an article on line, I can see people starting to read it.
Using Feedburner I can actually watch to see where the hits come in from around the world.  I keep thinking they should have a graphical representation of how a particular post spreads around the world in real time.

Having become technologically adept at this, I also use Technorati tags to make it easier for people to search topics among the posts I have written. I am particularly interested in people finding my photos and prints for which I do occasionally receive some money.    Actually many of my readers come to me from Google searches. Thinking of Google brings me to why I believe writing about my interests is of value in a world where millions of others are doing the same thing.

It’s not that most of us new online writers are bringing particularly brilliant commentary to the web on critical issues.  More likely than not, we are providing a more personal look at many very ordinary things.  In a larger sense what we are doing is filling in the web of local connections that have somehow been broken by the modern world.

We have become such a mobile and wired society that the default source of information is the web and Google, not your neighbor.  Google by indexing content like mine is providing very important glue for our increasingly impersonal and fractured world.

I have had people moving to the areas that I call home write me and offer thanks for all the local information that I provide.  We have called some restaurants that I have reviewed to be told that we can have our choice of reservations since my posts have sent them so many customers.  There are dangers.  Once a host at a restaurant recognized me and brought me a free deep fried Oreo for dessert.  I would have rather passed on that.

The interaction with small businesses and local people brings a degree of responsibility with it.  I try really hard to be right about what I say so that I do not become just another local booster who can see no wrong.  After all my credibility is at stake.  I have found it is better to say nothing at all, than write a post that will not stand the test of time.

My free writing has given me a new identity along with lots of new friends, who live in places around the world that I will likely never visit except through their written words.

Now that my Fortune 500 business card is gone, it is also nice to have an identity on which to fall back.  The good thing is that my web presence is really me, and not just an adjunct to a carefully controlled corporate image.  I am up there on the web for everyone to see and to try to pick apart if they so choose.

Just surviving that trial by fire has made me a better writer, hopefully a stronger person, and something of an authority in my chosen areas.  If you type a Google search of “Travel Guide, Swansboro, NC,” or “Travel Guide, Beaufort, NC,” you see that I’m top ranked.  If enough of you do a search on “Dippy Egg” and click on my link, Google just might move me ahead of Wikipedia to the number one spot.  I don’t suppose anyone is interested in my article on “The Menhaden saga and limits to growth?”  It’s nice being the authority on something even if it is somewhat obscure.

Trying to write something really enjoyable, insightful, on target, and coherent on a regular basis is something of a challenge.  I have done posts that I have pulled because they did not make any sense.  Sometimes I have even been pleased with a computer glitch would eat a post, and I would have to start over.

Yesterday I struggled somewhat with an Applepeels on innovation.  I published it anyway because I thought it had some valid points, and I knew that I would be too busy to spend much more time on it.  Probably what it needed was a good editor to kick it back to me for rewriting.  Yet after a thousand people have read a post, rewriting it usually does not make a lot of sense.

My theory has been that readers will question me enough in the comments to get me to respond with what I really meant in the first place.  That happened today, I think the comment that I made at 9:27 pm tonight  on Applepeels might have made more sense than the original post.  It gave me a line of thought that I might expand on the next time I have a free moment or two.

I think the fact that readers help you think through your logic is one of the great things about writing for the web.  Yet there are times I would like that second set of eyes before I post a piece of writing that might not be a closely reasoned as I would like.

So don't be shy in making me defend my position.  You might actually be doing me a favor.

My brain might be so filled with the intricacies of agency in real estate that my thoughts could have lost their coherence.  I am studying for my real estate broker post licensing courses, and it isn't exactly exciting material,  but there's nothing like the shock of a good tough comment to kick the brain into gear.

I read an article, "Lost and forsaken in Canada," in today's Toronto Star.  It was about an immigrant to Canada who in despair had jumped to his death from a bridge into Highway 401 traffic.  The Toronto paper described him in this manner.

Jiang Guobing was well-educated. He had a doctorate in nuclear engineering from a prestigious U.S. university but apparently that was not enough for Canadian employers.

Having immigrated to Canada from Honduras as a child, I understood his despair. Coming to this country with very well-educated parents and watching them struggle and never achieving their dreams was very hard...

I think that's what happened to Jiang Guobing. He lost his way. He felt like a failure, not only to himself but to his family.

Having lost a job in corporate American myself, I find it easy to guess some of Jiang's feelings.  I'm sure being highly educated and probably successful, he felt very frustrated not being able to work in his chosen field. 

I am one of those high tech people, who no matter what the company said, really got rid of me because I was too old and expensive.   I was also a little too ethical for their tastes, complaining loudly when they mistreated people working on my team or when they played around with the financial results.

When you've been very successful all your life and have been in same company for twenty years, losing your seat at the whim of new under forty manager who was also your fifth manager in two years is a little galling, but it is a regular occurrence in corporate American.  If you are over fifty and in the technology business, you're probably an endangered species.  It doesn't matter how successful you are, likely you are considered a dinosaur even if you are very technical.  If that isn't the case, consider yourself very lucky to be working in an enlightened company.  I can assure you Apple wasn't and probably hasn't changed.

Leaving Apple wasn't the end for me.  It has been the beginning.  Though not everything has been perfect or worked out as planned, I can say that in spite of the many challenges, 28 months after leaving Apple, I continue to put bread on the table, and the future is very bright.

I have learned a tremendous amount since I left Apple.  I actually can talk from experience about Linux, Windows XP, lambda speed networking, and how to market products through the web.  I continue to believe that my sales techniques can be of great value to companies, and I recently provided some sales help to a telecommunications company.  I even manage to sell a few of my own  high quality prints by the web.  Now I am just finishing up some last courses in real estate so I can take advantage of the broker's license that I got by passing the North Carolina state exam in September.  Going back to school, while intimidating, hasn't slowed me down.  I think it has accelerated the changes brought about by my developing web presence.

In fact I would have to say that beyond my close friends and family, the family I developed from friendships on the web has been key to keeping me from being lost and forsaken at 57.

My writing for the web allowed me to develop a new identity to replace the one that I lost when I left Apple.  It kept me from becoming just another anonymous old guy who got replaced at tech company.

I've written lots and been written about enough to drive my numbers to the point that I'm very excited about my web stats.  On Feedburner, I have 1,385 subscribers to my two main blogs.  Just this week, Typepad has recorded over 22,000 visitors to my two main sites, and the numbers seem to be increasing rapidly.

Writing for no monetary compensation has given me something to fall back on whenever I was between jobs.  It's been a great way to get my thoughts sorted out and to find a great support group of people who believe in the intrinsic value of communicating through the web.

I don't pretend to have any great secrets or wisdom to share with the world through my blog.  I do hope that my observations help others enjoy another perspective. Usually it has some pretty neat pictures of the mountains or ocean attached.

Filling in the blanks of knowledge that have been created by our increasingly mobile and fractured society is one of things that I believe blogs do best.  We've become a society where Google is the local authority.  I think blogs to it better if you can find the right one.  The conversations I've had on the web have been good ones that would be hard to duplicate if I were limited to just the people in the this geographic area.

I fill more connected because of my web presence.  That along with absolutely stellar family, friends, and business associates has helped smooth my transition from the dysfunctional world of Apple to a new life where I can't wait to get up every morning and see the sunrise, whether it is over the mountains or the water.

I wish Dr. Guobing had been as lucky.

On another note, this is post 1,001.  I made it over the top.

I read an article, "Lost and forsaken in Canada," in today's Toronto Star.  It was about an immigrant to Canada who in despair had jumped to his death from a bridge into Highway 401 traffic.  The Toronto paper described him in this manner.

Jiang Guobing was well-educated. He had a doctorate in nuclear engineering from a prestigious U.S. university but apparently that was not enough for Canadian employers.

Having immigrated to Canada from Honduras as a child, I understood his despair. Coming to this country with very well-educated parents and watching them struggle and never achieving their dreams was very hard...

I think that's what happened to Jiang Guobing. He lost his way. He felt like a failure, not only to himself but to his family.

Having lost a job in corporate American myself, I find it easy to guess some of Jiang's feelings.  I'm sure being highly educated and probably successful, he felt very frustrated not being able to work in his chosen field. 

I am one of those high tech people, who no matter what the company said, really got rid of me because I was too old and expensive.   I was also a little too ethical for their tastes, complaining loudly when they mistreated people working on my team or when they played around with the financial results.

When you've been very successful all your life and have been in same company for twenty years, losing your seat at the whim of new under forty manager who was also your fifth manager in two years is a little galling, but it is a regular occurrence in corporate American.  If you are over fifty and in the technology business, you're probably an endangered species.  It doesn't matter how successful you are, likely you are considered a dinosaur even if you are very technical.  If that isn't the case, consider yourself very lucky to be working in an enlightened company.  I can assure you Apple wasn't and probably hasn't changed.

Leaving Apple wasn't the end for me.  It has been the beginning.  Though not everything has been perfect or worked out as planned, I can say that in spite of the many challenges, 28 months after leaving Apple, I continue to put bread on the table, and the future is very bright.

I have learned a tremendous amount since I left Apple.  I actually can talk from experience about Linux, Windows XP, lambda speed networking, and how to market products through the web.  I continue to believe that my sales techniques can be of great value to companies, and I recently provided some sales help to a telecommunications company.  I even manage to sell a few of my own  high quality prints by the web.  Now I am just finishing up some last courses in real estate so I can take advantage of the broker's license that I got by passing the North Carolina state exam in September.  Going back to school, while intimidating, hasn't slowed me down.  I think it has accelerated the changes brought about by my developing web presence.

In fact I would have to say that beyond my close friends and family, the family I developed from friendships on the web has been key to keeping me from being lost and forsaken at 57.

My writing for the web allowed me to develop a new identity to replace the one that I lost when I left Apple.  It kept me from becoming just another anonymous old guy who got replaced at tech company.

I've written lots and been written about enough to drive my numbers to the point that I'm very excited about my web stats.  On Feedburner, I have 1,385 subscribers to my two main blogs.  Just this week, Typepad has recorded over 22,000 visitors to my two main sites, and the numbers seem to be increasing rapidly.

Writing for no monetary compensation has given me something to fall back on whenever I was between jobs.  It's been a great way to get my thoughts sorted out and to find a great support group of people who believe in the intrinsic value of communicating through the web.

I don't pretend to have any great secrets or wisdom to share with the world through my blog.  I do hope that my observations help others enjoy another perspective. Usually it has some pretty neat pictures of the mountains or ocean attached.

Filling in the blanks of knowledge that have been created by our increasingly mobile and fractured society is one of things that I believe blogs do best.  We've become a society where Google is the local authority.  I think blogs to it better if you can find the right one.  The conversations I've had on the web have been good ones that would be hard to duplicate if I were limited to just the people in the this geographic area.

I fill more connected because of my web presence.  That along with absolutely stellar family, friends, and business associates has helped smooth my transition from the dysfunctional world of Apple to a new life where I can't wait to get up every morning and see the sunrise, whether it is over the mountains or the water.

I wish Dr. Guobing had been as lucky.

On another note, this is post 1,001.  I made it over the top.

I read an article, "Lost and forsaken in Canada," in today's Toronto Star.  It was about an immigrant to Canada who in despair had jumped to his death from a bridge into Highway 401 traffic.  The Toronto paper described him in this manner.

Jiang Guobing was well-educated. He had a doctorate in nuclear engineering from a prestigious U.S. university but apparently that was not enough for Canadian employers.

Having immigrated to Canada from Honduras as a child, I understood his despair. Coming to this country with very well-educated parents and watching them struggle and never achieving their dreams was very hard...

I think that's what happened to Jiang Guobing. He lost his way. He felt like a failure, not only to himself but to his family.

Having lost a job in corporate American myself, I find it easy to guess some of Jiang's feelings.  I'm sure being highly educated and probably successful, he felt very frustrated not being able to work in his chosen field. 

I am one of those high tech people, who no matter what the company said, really got rid of me because I was too old and expensive.   I was also a little too ethical for their tastes, complaining loudly when they mistreated people working on my team or when they played around with the financial results.

When you've been very successful all your life and have been in same company for twenty years, losing your seat at the whim of new under forty manager who was also your fifth manager in two years is a little galling, but it is a regular occurrence in corporate American.  If you are over fifty and in the technology business, you're probably an endangered species.  It doesn't matter how successful you are, likely you are considered a dinosaur even if you are very technical.  If that isn't the case, consider yourself very lucky to be working in an enlightened company.  I can assure you Apple wasn't and probably hasn't changed.

Leaving Apple wasn't the end for me.  It has been the beginning.  Though not everything has been perfect or worked out as planned, I can say that in spite of the many challenges, 28 months after leaving Apple, I continue to put bread on the table, and the future is very bright.

I have learned a tremendous amount since I left Apple.  I actually can talk from experience about Linux, Windows XP, lambda speed networking, and how to market products through the web.  I continue to believe that my sales techniques can be of great value to companies, and I recently provided some sales help to a telecommunications company.  I even manage to sell a few of my own  high quality prints by the web.  Now I am just finishing up some last courses in real estate so I can take advantage of the broker's license that I got by passing the North Carolina state exam in September.  Going back to school, while intimidating, hasn't slowed me down.  I think it has accelerated the changes brought about by my developing web presence.

In fact I would have to say that beyond my close friends and family, the family I developed from friendships on the web has been key to keeping me from being lost and forsaken at 57.

My writing for the web allowed me to develop a new identity to replace the one that I lost when I left Apple.  It kept me from becoming just another anonymous old guy who got replaced at tech company.

I've written lots and been written about enough to drive my numbers to the point that I'm very excited about my web stats.  On Feedburner, I have 1,385 subscribers to my two main blogs.  Just this week, Typepad has recorded over 22,000 visitors to my two main sites, and the numbers seem to be increasing rapidly.

Writing for no monetary compensation has given me something to fall back on whenever I was between jobs.  It's been a great way to get my thoughts sorted out and to find a great support group of people who believe in the intrinsic value of communicating through the web.

I don't pretend to have any great secrets or wisdom to share with the world through my blog.  I do hope that my observations help others enjoy another perspective. Usually it has some pretty neat pictures of the mountains or ocean attached.

Filling in the blanks of knowledge that have been created by our increasingly mobile and fractured society is one of things that I believe blogs do best.  We've become a society where Google is the local authority.  I think blogs to it better if you can find the right one.  The conversations I've had on the web have been good ones that would be hard to duplicate if I were limited to just the people in the this geographic area.

I fill more connected because of my web presence.  That along with absolutely stellar family, friends, and business associates has helped smooth my transition from the dysfunctional world of Apple to a new life where I can't wait to get up every morning and see the sunrise, whether it is over the mountains or the water.

I wish Dr. Guobing had been as lucky.

On another note, this is post 1,001.  I made it over the top.

Living a life without trust would be a huge challenge.  I don't think even the most wired and connected individual can survive without trusting a few real people. 

Still finding a real person to trust is a lot harder now that families are scattered around the world.  I've never thought of trust as a national trend, but Sebastian Mallaby's article, "The Decline Of Trust," in today's  Washington Post makes some interesting points about the decline of trust in today society, in both business and government.

And the absence of trust can feed on itself. Leaders function under stifling oversight; this causes them to perform sluggishly, so trust continues to stagnate. But occasionally there is a chance to escape this trap: A shock causes trust to rise, leaders have a chance to lead and there's an opportunity to boost trust still further.

We've recently had a double opportunity. The boom of the 1990s boosted trust in business; the 2001 terrorist attacks boosted trust in government. But CEOs and politicians abused these gifts with scandals and incompetence. Such is the cost of corporate malfeasance and the Iraq war: Precious social capital is destroyed by leaders' avarice and hubris.

I often found it strange that my former employer, Apple Computer, would bring in high level management people from outside the company and trust their opinion far more than employees who had been working for the company.    I don't know if the  steadily declining trust that Apple showed it employees is mirrored at other companies, but I am sure that the lack of trust hindered productivity in Apple field teams.

Mallaby also talks about the Internet encouraging "acerbic negativity."  On the one hand Mallaby might be right if you let yourself listen to only certain parts of the Internet.

However, I would make the argument that new communication techniques arising from the Internet actually encourage building new webs of trust.  While there are parts of the Internet, like anncoulter.com, that I'll likely avoid, there are lots of other communities where I can find kindred spirits.

As someone who doesn't like large government, but believes that if we are going to have government it should be good government, there aren't any political parties locally where I really feel at home.  Yet through contact established from my Internet presences, I've met a number of people with similar beliefs.

Most of us who regularly post have communities of readers who have self selected to the point that  our audience cares about many of the same things that we do.  I trust  the opinions of many of my regular blog friends more than I do any politician.  I value their opinions as highly as I do some well known pundits.

So while Sebastian Mallaby might be right to indict part of the modern world, there are many on line communities where modern technologies are driving new levels of trust and cooperation.  Besides blogs, you cannot  discount the social changes happening through instant messaging and on line communities.

Technology hasn't created a virtual southern village yet, but I have a confidence in new ways of communicating that will bring us closer together rather than drive us farther apart. 

I don't believe we'll end up a nation of people listening only to their individual iPods or screaming at the rest of the world from our blogs.

Living a life without trust would be a huge challenge.  I don't think even the most wired and connected individual can survive without trusting a few real people. 

Still finding a real person to trust is a lot harder now that families are scattered around the world.  I've never thought of trust as a national trend, but Sebastian Mallaby's article, "The Decline Of Trust," in today's  Washington Post makes some interesting points about the decline of trust in today society, in both business and government.

And the absence of trust can feed on itself. Leaders function under stifling oversight; this causes them to perform sluggishly, so trust continues to stagnate. But occasionally there is a chance to escape this trap: A shock causes trust to rise, leaders have a chance to lead and there's an opportunity to boost trust still further.

We've recently had a double opportunity. The boom of the 1990s boosted trust in business; the 2001 terrorist attacks boosted trust in government. But CEOs and politicians abused these gifts with scandals and incompetence. Such is the cost of corporate malfeasance and the Iraq war: Precious social capital is destroyed by leaders' avarice and hubris.

I often found it strange that my former employer, Apple Computer, would bring in high level management people from outside the company and trust their opinion far more than employees who had been working for the company.    I don't know if the  steadily declining trust that Apple showed it employees is mirrored at other companies, but I am sure that the lack of trust hindered productivity in Apple field teams.

Mallaby also talks about the Internet encouraging "acerbic negativity."  On the one hand Mallaby might be right if you let yourself listen to only certain parts of the Internet.

However, I would make the argument that new communication techniques arising from the Internet actually encourage building new webs of trust.  While there are parts of the Internet, like anncoulter.com, that I'll likely avoid, there are lots of other communities where I can find kindred spirits.

As someone who doesn't like large government, but believes that if we are going to have government it should be good government, there aren't any political parties locally where I really feel at home.  Yet through contact established from my Internet presences, I've met a number of people with similar beliefs.

Most of us who regularly post have communities of readers who have self selected to the point that  our audience cares about many of the same things that we do.  I trust  the opinions of many of my regular blog friends more than I do any politician.  I value their opinions as highly as I do some well known pundits.

So while Sebastian Mallaby might be right to indict part of the modern world, there are many on line communities where modern technologies are driving new levels of trust and cooperation.  Besides blogs, you cannot  discount the social changes happening through instant messaging and on line communities.

Technology hasn't created a virtual southern village yet, but I have a confidence in new ways of communicating that will bring us closer together rather than drive us farther apart. 

I don't believe we'll end up a nation of people listening only to their individual iPods or screaming at the rest of the world from our blogs.

Living a life without trust would be a huge challenge.  I don't think even the most wired and connected individual can survive without trusting a few real people. 

Still finding a real person to trust is a lot harder now that families are scattered around the world.  I've never thought of trust as a national trend, but Sebastian Mallaby's article, "The Decline Of Trust," in today's  Washington Post makes some interesting points about the decline of trust in today society, in both business and government.

And the absence of trust can feed on itself. Leaders function under stifling oversight; this causes them to perform sluggishly, so trust continues to stagnate. But occasionally there is a chance to escape this trap: A shock causes trust to rise, leaders have a chance to lead and there's an opportunity to boost trust still further.

We've recently had a double opportunity. The boom of the 1990s boosted trust in business; the 2001 terrorist attacks boosted trust in government. But CEOs and politicians abused these gifts with scandals and incompetence. Such is the cost of corporate malfeasance and the Iraq war: Precious social capital is destroyed by leaders' avarice and hubris.

I often found it strange that my former employer, Apple Computer, would bring in high level management people from outside the company and trust their opinion far more than employees who had been working for the company.    I don't know if the  steadily declining trust that Apple showed it employees is mirrored at other companies, but I am sure that the lack of trust hindered productivity in Apple field teams.

Mallaby also talks about the Internet encouraging "acerbic negativity."  On the one hand Mallaby might be right if you let yourself listen to only certain parts of the Internet.

However, I would make the argument that new communication techniques arising from the Internet actually encourage building new webs of trust.  While there are parts of the Internet, like anncoulter.com, that I'll likely avoid, there are lots of other communities where I can find kindred spirits.

As someone who doesn't like large government, but believes that if we are going to have government it should be good government, there aren't any political parties locally where I really feel at home.  Yet through contact established from my Internet presences, I've met a number of people with similar beliefs.

Most of us who regularly post have communities of readers who have self selected to the point that  our audience cares about many of the same things that we do.  I trust  the opinions of many of my regular blog friends more than I do any politician.  I value their opinions as highly as I do some well known pundits.

So while Sebastian Mallaby might be right to indict part of the modern world, there are many on line communities where modern technologies are driving new levels of trust and cooperation.  Besides blogs, you cannot  discount the social changes happening through instant messaging and on line communities.

Technology hasn't created a virtual southern village yet, but I have a confidence in new ways of communicating that will bring us closer together rather than drive us farther apart. 

I don't believe we'll end up a nation of people listening only to their individual iPods or screaming at the rest of the world from our blogs.

About two years ago, I started blogging.  My first post, "My Welcome to Windows," was November 23, 2004. 

Since then, there aren't many topics that I haven't touched.  I have written about our family in posts like, "In honor of mom, the grand lady of Pine Street."  It's been a lot of fun doing restaurant reviews like, "Goobers, another backroads restaurant" and "Dining along the coast, Riverside Steak & Seafood."

I've also done some humorous pieces like the "The dangerous pillowfication of America,"  Then there have been serious pieces like "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth," and  "North Carolina, Competition or a Partner."

Certainly technology has been a big part of my writing.  Posts like "The Breezy Badger comes to the rescue," have been a staple of View from the mountain, while posts like "So what was the best part about being at Apple," have been the mainstay of Applepeels.

My business experience has led me to write some management posts like "Integrity In Management."  Some of my favorite posts have been recipes like "Time For Clam Chowder" or movie reviews such as "Cars- A great movie."  Once in a while someone has gotten under my skin and got a tough post like "High tech car, low tech dealer" or "Repudiating our founding ideas."

I also haven't been shy about dispensing advice in posts like "Some Advice To My Kids."  I have had posts that have been controversial like many of the ones at Applepeels.  The pressure at Applepeels has not stopped me from creating feel good ones such as "The freedom to be interdependent."  There have fortunately been only a couple posts that interested few people other than me  and a number which have been read by thousands of people around the world.

I enjoyed more than anything else writing the travel articles like, "Swansboro, NC Travel Guide" and "A Summer Excursion Through New Brunswick, PEI, & Nova Scotia."  Now if I could just figure out how to get paid for doing that.

I have no fixed list of topics as I plan what to write for the next posts.  As usual I will write about what interests me and hope that it finds a receptive audience.  A love of writing as a craft is what keeps me going.  I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

Yet with nine hundred ninety posts at View from the Mountain and Applepeels, I'm looking forward to passing the one thousand post milestone before November.   Actually if I wanted to get technical about it, I'm already over one thousand posts if you count the ones that I have done at Radio, Blogger, Bubbler, Dot Mac, and Live Journal where I've explored other blogging software.

Later today I hope to do a couple more posts, so let the countdown to one thousand begin.  After doing 990 posts, the next ten should be very easy.

About two years ago, I started blogging.  My first post, "My Welcome to Windows," was November 23, 2004. 

Since then, there aren't many topics that I haven't touched.  I have written about our family in posts like, "In honor of mom, the grand lady of Pine Street."  It's been a lot of fun doing restaurant reviews like, "Goobers, another backroads restaurant" and "Dining along the coast, Riverside Steak & Seafood."

I've also done some humorous pieces like the "The dangerous pillowfication of America,"  Then there have been serious pieces like "The Menhaden saga and limits to growth," and  "North Carolina, Competition or a Partner."

Certainly technology has been a big part of my writing.  Posts like "The Breezy Badger comes to the rescue," have been a staple of View from the mountain, while posts like "So what was the best part about being at Apple," have been the mainstay of Applepeels.

My business experience has led me to write some management posts like "Integrity In Management."  Some of my favorite posts have been recipes like "Time For Clam Chowder" or movie reviews such as "Cars- A great movie."  Once in a while someone has gotten under my skin and got a tough post like "High tech car, low tech dealer" or "Repudiating our founding ideas."

I also haven't been shy about dispensing advice in posts like "Some Advice To My Kids."  I have had posts that have been controversial like many of the ones at Applepeels.  The pressure at Applepeels has not stopped me from creating feel good ones such as "The freedom to be interdependent."  There have fortunately been only a couple posts that interested few people other than me  and a number which have been read by thousands of people around the world.

I enjoyed more than anything else writing the travel articles like, "Swansboro, NC Travel Guide" and "A Summer Excursion Through New Brunswick, PEI, & Nova Scotia."  Now if I could just figure out how to get paid for doing that.

I have no fixed list of topics as I plan what to write for the next posts.  As usual I will write about what interests me and hope that it finds a receptive audience.  A love of writing as a craft is what keeps me going.  I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

Yet with nine hundred ninety posts at View from the Mountain and Applepeels, I'm looking forward to passing the one thousand post milestone before November.   Actually if I wanted to get technical about it, I'm already over one thousand posts if you count the ones that I have done at Radio, Blogger, Bubbler, Dot Mac, and Live Journal where I've explored other blogging software.

Later today I hope to do a couple more posts, so let the countdown to one thousand begin.  After doing 990 posts, the next ten should be very easy.