Once upon a time, in a west coastal city in The Great White North, this old guy walked past a used computer store, and got curious about it. He had never before actually considered owning one, and he was then of the tender age of 72.
The two Oriental sharpies operating that store took this naive Old Coot straight to the cleaners, for an old Dell Optiplex with Windows 98SE on it. The only good thing about the deal was that it included a discounted deal on Internet service from a guy over on Vancouver Island. So, the Old Coot got someone's discarded old computer, with Win-98SE, and a hot deal on cheap Internet for a year. That was the best part of it.
Being a total 'newbie', I knew nothing about recovery from the inevitable 'crashes', so when I had one, I picked up the phone, and called Bob at the ISP. And Bob, over at Arrowsmith Electronics, in Coombs, B.C., is too nice a guy to say "Call your local serviceman, Ray, and don't bother me, because that's not my job." Instead, Bob said, "Sit down at your computer, and tell me what you see on the screen." I did, and then he said, "Now, do this, and this, and this, and tell me what you see..." And away we went.... And Bob taught me everything I needed to know to keep this rig working. And I wouldn't be telling you this today if Bob hadn't made all this possible. The people at Telus, from whom Bob rents a local outlet to distribute his own Internet service, have asked "Why don't you get your service from us, like you do your phone, because it's us that have to maintain it." And I said, "I wouldn't dream of doing that, after the help Bob has given me while I've been learning about all this. Your deal with Bob for his portal over here on the mainland with which to service guys like me is entirely between your people and Bob, and I'm not involved in that at all, and that's how it stays. And I'm not that big a fan of Telus anyway. You guys have a history of five-dollaring customers to death with needless extras that put our bills into the stratosphere every month, and shame on you! (I haven't had any more solicitations from Telus lately, nor do I miss them.)
Shortly after I got good enough to surf the web without having my heart in my mouth worrying about crashes or infections, I discovered a local community blog site here, being run experimentally by some young guys who were using an Open-Source master program from Drupal. Drupal is still alive and well, but that community blog, where we all could add our thoughts under the one main program, is long gone. I used it so much, people began to wonder if it was mine, and of course it wasn't. I began calling myself "The Oldest Living Blogger" until one day, someone pointed out that there were a few older ones doing their own thing in the USA. And when that whole thing withered on the vine and eventually died, I switched over to Google's Blogger, and I've never looked back. And at this point in time, I've been blogging since before it reached its peak and then began to slide downhill toward Obscurity. I've been blogging since 2005, and loving it.
Why? Because..... (Because Why, Ray?).... Because Google's 'Blogger' has editing tools and themes and style sheets and formatting choices and help files and support people and an organization that literally kicks the shit out of its other competitors, that's why! - Any questions?
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