On 9/17/09 this newsletter (#4) was published with the following introduction. It was promptly "banned" by the Constant Contact system for a "terms of service violation" and my account threatened with termination.

I am including the offending copy in this archive and I invite you to make up your own mind about the whole thing.  Here is the full copy re-submitted for your consideration.

Dear ComputeThisOnline Reader,                                                 09/17/2009

As a technology writer I have had many opportunities over the years to test and write about different technologies. Mainly computers, peripherals and internet stuff but occasionally I do look at other things that technology throws my way.

This week I thought I would write about the new "electronic cigarettes" that I recently got involved with. 

Now apparently these things have been around for a while but I only recently became aware of them. They are marketed as a "logical smoking alternative" by a company called inLife and they have caught my attention for a number of reasons. First of all I have been a smoker for decades so in a way I'm kind of an authority on it - I know what it feels like to smoke, what it costs and also what it feels like to run out of cigarettes. I know what the health risks are, I know about the yellow fingertips, the bad breath and yellow teeth, the burns on shirts and carpets, the nasty overloaded ashtrays and I know what it's like to stand outside of a restaurant in the rain to have a cigarette.

When I was shown this device, this "smoking simulator," for the first time it almost seemed too good to be true and, no matter how I look at it I can't find any significant down side to it.

There is no fire, no ignition and therefore no smoke, just water vapor that evaporates quickly after delivering a dose of tasty nicotine in about the same quantity and sensation that you would expect with a "real" cigarette. But, since there is no ignition, you have none of the by products that you get with a real cigarettes. You can also smoke these most places where smoking is prohibited.

Furthermore there is the cost; the device consists of 3 parts - a battery, an atomizer and a nicotine cartridge. Each nicotine cartridge is approximately the equivalent to a pack of cigarettes and when purchased in the convenient "4 pack" (4 eight pack cartons - 32 cartridges or a month supply), averages down to about $2.50 a "pack." Compare that to the $5.50 plus prices that are commonplace for traditional smokes.

The cigarette only "burns" when you draw on it so there is no burned out butt wasting away in the ash tray nor does the device annoy the people around you. The sensation when you use it is remarkable and I still chuckle when I see a smoker tentatively try one for the first time only to exclaim "oh my God, it's real!!"

To say that the company has an interesting marketing strategy is putting it lightly; everyone who purchases a device also has the option to become a distributor and receives a free replicable website at no extra cost. That means when people come up to you and ask a bunch of questions (or where they can get one), you can just give them your web address and let it answer any questions for you.

My inLife website is: www.myinlife.com/seanmccarthy and can also be gotten to by clicking any of the pictures above.

If you are a smoker (or if a loved one is a smoker) and you would like to learn a way to satisfy that craving without the over 4000 nasty chemicals found in regular smokes, turn your volume down a notch (trust me ;) and click on my inLife site and learn more.  Then, let me know what you think; I can't be the only one that thinks this is too good to be true!

Oh, and enjoy this weeks newsletter!



Cheers!

Sean McCarthy

Every time a new operating system gets released, we go through the same process, and the questions don't seem to change much. The most often asked question seems to be, "Should I upgrade now?"

My answer at this point is to wait.

In the mid 1990s, Microsoft went from Windows 3.1 (a graphical "shell" that sat on top of the real operating system at that time, DOS) to Windows 95, and people asked the same thing.

Then again, in the late 1990s, we went from Windows 95 to Windows 98 and got flooded with the same question.

Shortly after that we went from Windows 98 to Windows ME (remember that one?) and the pattern repeated itself.

Next came Windows 2000, Windows XP, Vista and now, finally, Windows 7 is set to release in October.

It seems people always want to jump on the band - wagon and upgrade as soon as a new operating system is released.

My answer is always the same...

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1. Double click a word to highlight it
2. You can enlarge or shrink the text on a website by pressing Ctrl + the plus key or Ctrl + the minus key
3. Press the space bar to jump down a page when looking at a website
4. Drag a websites icon out of the address bar and drop it on the desktop to create a quick shortcut
5. Having tons of pictures, emails or other files stored on your hard drive will not slow your computer down
6. More memory will speed your computer up. A larger hard drive won't
   
7. The antivirus that came pre-loaded on your is not necessarily the best
8. When filling out web page forms you can press "tab" to jump from field to field
9. "Right Click" things to see what commands are available
10. Upgrading to the latest version of any program the moment it comes out is not always the best thing to do
    

Of Google and Netbooks

It always amazes me how fast computers evolve.

I can remember quite clearly how things were in the 1990s, the hardware we had to work with, how expensive things were and (since we didn't have anything to compare it to) we liked it.

I remember buying my first 1-gigabyte hard drive for about $300, and having to figure out in my head that 1,024 megabytes was actually 1 gigabyte. I remember thinking, "I'll never use that much space."

Well, it's 2009 already, more than halfway through no less. The y2k crisis is a distant memory and the hardware we have to work with today (stuff that we take for granted) could be right out of the science fiction from the 80s and 90s.

Two-gigabyte USB thumb drives are commonly found in supermarkets for $10 to $20 and that amazes me. Supermarkets!

And let me say a few words about Google. It is true the general populace really takes for granted the technology we have at our fingertips today and Google is a perfect example.

To illustrate, I use the example of ancient cultures.

Way back when, in ancient times, they had "oracles" they would go to for answers. These were specially picked people who would hide behind a rock and people would walk for miles through snow, uphill, both ways, to ask them a question.

And whatever the answer was, that was that. Right or wrong, they would take the answer they got from the oracle back to their village and that answer would affect the lives of everyone.

Fast-forward to the present and walk into most households, and you will likely find one (or more) computers hooked up to the Internet and Google is just few keystrokes away.

Like the ancient oracles of old, Google is there to answer your questions. Ask it anything. Not just computer questions but anything.

Go ahead, give it a try...

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