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TidBITS was initially Tonya’s idea. In April of 1990, I was doing Mac consulting in Ithaca, and Tonya was working for Cornell Information Technologies, helping members of the Cornell community evaluate and purchase Macs, PCs, NeXT machines, and a wide variety of peripherals. Some of her colleagues had been there for a while and didn’t seem excited about recent innovations in technology, like affordable printers that provided the WYG in WYSIWYG or NeXT computers with their unusual mix of power and graphics. So Tonya came up with the idea of writing a weekly newsletter for her coworkers that would summarize...

Have We Entered a Post-Literate Technological Age? by Adam C. Engst Not long ago, Google produced a video that's making the rounds [1] on the Internet. In it, a Google employee asks people in Times Square in New York City a series of questions, such as "What is a browser?", "What browser do you use?", and "Have you heard of Google Chrome?" (Chrome [2] is Google's new Web browser; it's available for Windows and in pre-release test versions for the Mac.) Among the geek set, the video has gotten a lot of play because most of the people in the...

A Personal Statement on War in Iraq   by Adam C. Engst I'm angry. I'm worried. And I'm sad. I've refrained from voicing my opinions on this matter until now, but because I've always kept TidBITS personal and despite my reluctance to allow such matters into these pages, I can refrain no longer. Regardless of my utter lack of influence in international politics, to remain silent would be to join those of our leaders whose silent acquiescence I find despicable. Also, although this article reflects my personal frustrations, worries, and fears, other members of the TidBITS staff - Tonya, Matt, Jeff,...