About your host
Welcome
to my home page! As this illustration* from from my old Web site
suggests, I spent a long and checkered career as newspaperman, and
indeed, I'm old enough to remember when reporters actually said
stuff like "Get me rewrite!"
In fact, I was “rewrite” back in the days when we published with
typewriters and hot metal instead of computers and electrons. But
times change -- not always for the better in the industry I loved so
long -- and suddenly, here we are on the Web, the planet's
do-it-yourself publishing house.
For those who don’t know me, I spent 38 years in the newspaper
business, but only because it beat working for a living. My longtime
home was The Baltimore
Sun, where I wrote a weekly technology column for a couple
of decades while managing a variety of day jobs (most recently
Medical and Science Editor). With the paper doing some heavy
downsizing this summer, I decided it was time to turn in my last
column and start the second half of my career -- whatever that may
be.
Since I couldn't give up what I've enjoyed so much, I’ve designed
this site for for my longtime newspaper audience -- and hopefull a
new one: folks who need help unraveling the mysteries of the digital
age, or just want some straight talk at technological issues.
You’ll find advice and information I've accumulated over the years
at The Sun and other publications. I'll also be posting on a regular
tech blog.
I've tried to keep this site as clean and uncluttered as I can. One of my main gripes is Web sites (and newspapers) so overdesigned and full of visual gimmicks that they're unintelligible. Just remember that this will always be one of those “under construction” projects. If you have comments, criticisms or suggestions, just send me a message.
*This iconic image of the reporter we all wanted to be came from a poster designed for the 1975 A.J. Liebling Counter-Convention in New York City, a gathering of counterculture journalists sponsored by the late, lamented [MORE] magazine.The signature on the piece is "M. Norman," but I've never been able to track down more information about the artist or the poster. The inspiration for the image appears to be Clark Gable in Frank Capra's 1934 classic, It Happened One Night. I actually inherited a fedora from my grandfather that that looked just like this one, but it disappeared during my college years.