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Before we take a look at what may happen in 2003, let's enjoy a blast from the past, and take a look at past predictions for the year 1998. As the Dog said, Hey, going out on a limb is for cats! Now you can see why.

Woof!

1. 1998 will see the Justice Department's case against Microsoft thrown out by an Appeals Court, criticizing Justice for doing such a bad job making their case.
2. Apple Computer's share will stay well below 5 percent for the year overall, and possibly spike down to 1 percent as over-300 MHz Intel chips meet and beat the G3 in performance.
3. Full-featured systems at $799 (with monitor) and below make Fall and Christmas 1998 a PC-system buying frenzy that will be remembered well into the next millenium.
4. Someone will make a color Windows CE machine with a real keyboard that will spell End of the Road for half the laptop market.
5. DRAM manufacturers will make the transition to 64Meg chips, setting the stage for a 1999 in which 256M desktop systems become quite common.
6. Windows NT sales will boom as NT5 becomes available and people realize what it can do with the extra RAM.
7. Windows 98 sales will run neck and neck with set-top boxes.Customers will be equally satisfied with their respective purchases. Both satisfaction and sales volume will be exaggerated by the manufacturers, and overreported by the computer trade press.
8. Corel will be acquired, possibly by Computer Associates, possibly by a Dutch information conglomerate.
9. Reasonably priced recordable DVD-RAM devices will appear early in the year. This will force Syquest and Iomega to drop their prices by 20 percent by the end of the year.

How did the old dog do? Not so well.

Prediction 1) Noo. The lawsuit finally dragged to a close, and Microsoft lost. 2) Yes/No. Apple's share stayed low but the G3 wasn't rubbed out by Intel until just last year. Not bad, Apple!

Prediction 3) Yes, but later. Full-featured systems sold like crazy but not until '99 as corporations got ready for the millennium disaster. 3)Not hardly. And Windows CE didn't rub out the laptop market, because displays cost too much to waste on a CE machine. People went crazy for cheaper Palms. Maybe in 2003? Maybe not.

5 and 6) Sure yeah right. Finally, 256M computers are common, but only because Windows XP demands a lot. Certainly it's not because everyone needs that much RAM. So prediction number 6 is pretty much a bust, too. Number 7 wasn't really a prediction, just an obscure way to be nasty about both 98 and set-tops, and 8) Corel still soldiers on, un-acquired by Reed-Elsevier or anyone else.

And finally, 9) Finally! DVD writers are appearing in PCs after about a year in Macs, with Syquest and Iomega having been rubbed out long since by the ascendancy of writable CDs and external firewire drives which were MUCH more reliable than their own devices. pools=XML, Blog, Ruby

A sculpture exhibit at The Getty Center reminded me yesterday that the simplest tools can work best.

The tool in question was a single-point chisel used in marble sculpture. The exhibit asserted that a sculptor may wear out as many as a dozen of those while creating a marble bust

It's a good thing "bits" don't wear out: I can't imagine how many copies of my software tools I would have worn out on the world wide web.

However, software tools not only don't wear out, they actually may propagate, duplicating where you need them. For example, even though there's nothing wrong with it, it looks like I'll have to take my Mac in to be "repaired" in order to upgrade to OS X 10.2. In the meantime, I want to write every day, but I only have one Mac.

Fortunately RubyJournal, my weblog toolkit, is written in open- source programming language Ruby. But would it work on....Windows?

Quickly I visited the RubyJournal home page and just 2 links later found myself downloading the Ruby Windows installer at sourceforge.net

I ran the Ruby windows installer, moved various source and template files over from the Mac, ran ruby draft.rb and then with some trepidation ruby publish.rb and the results are as you see them here. So, I was able to create this "orangebutton" posting with yet another worn-out software tool. Groady old Notepad.

pools=XML, Blog, Ruby

I tried twice to install Apple's new operating system, OS X 10.2 Jaguar, as an update to OS X 10.1.5, which had been working just fine. Silly me! Although OS X 10.2 claimed to install successfully both times, the Mac failed to reboot into the new Apple OS. This was not too impressive.

And it certainly was not as much fun as I had last night, when I rode a Segway Human Transporter around a second-floor lecture room at the Sofitel Hotel in Beverly Hills.

You know, I'm really getting so I can tell the difference between evolutionary and revolutionary.

Fortunately I was still able to boot my Mac back into the older OS, and in spite of Apple Computer, theDailyChannel.com can still appear daily. pools=XML, Blog, Ruby

I got my "Ticket to Ride" in the email today. Later this week, time permitting, I'll be taking a ride on a Segway Human Transporter.

I saw one at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago this past summer, displayed along with the first train to exceed 100 mph, and the last car to break the land speed record. The Segway Human Transporter buy at amazon.com will be a lot slower.

Of course, I'll let you know how it turns out

pools=XML, Blog, Ruby

Browsing around on a rainy day, I found the research questions of "grumpy girl". She says "here are where my research questions are at".

Questions from Invisible Shoebox, observations in italic, from thedailychannel.

1. In what ways can the unique model offered by the weblog format assist the web-writer in producing narratives designed principally for electronic delivery?

• Style sheets provide varying renditions for readers with varied requirements.
• The immediacy of review means many drafts can be produced, presumably improving in quality from one draft to the next.

2. Can the weblog be used by the online researcher as a tool for shaping and progressing their research?

• Yes. When people read your weblog and respond, the research becomes more collaborative; if not fully collaborative, then "advised" or "informed".
• In the case of RubyJournal, the weblog toolkit I use, it's possible to tag each entry with a category which causes it to be archived separately, creating an ongoing thematic archive. Other weblog toolkits may have similar capabilities.

3. In what ways does the online environment and the process of broadcasting globally, impact on the web writer's process? For example, how are the author's voice, style or content affected?

• I pay more attention to how using idioms of place or locality may make what I'm saying less accessible to people who, as an example, may not use the same units of measurement.
• It's my belief that people reading online don't want to do a huge amount of reading. So in that spirit, I omit needless words.

pools=XML, Blog, Ruby

Getting ready for the trip, I ordered an extra battery and large memory card for my digital camera. I packed some extra batteries for the palm pilot, too. But what to do about recharging?

I called Samy's Camera, where I got the camera in the first place, and the guy said "Just get a two-prong adapter. It'll work fine. You can get one when you get to France."

Sorry, Samy's guy. What do you take me for? I called my local travel and map supplier, California Map and Travel, where I had obtained the indispensable Michelin Green Guide and Map of Paris. Do you havean ungrounded two-prong France adapter in stock? Yes. I parted with only three dollars and ten cents, and best of all, I got a good walk in during the lunch hour.

I don't know why I thought it would melt or blow up, but when my battery ran down what did I have to lose? It worked like a charm. (I used the adapter to plug in the iPod recharger to get ready for the 11-hour flight to Los Angeles too.) In the meantime, I took hundreds of photos, like this snapshot of men unloading a pallet of Berthillon creme fraiche and trundling it into Berthillon on Ile St Louis, where it was used to make the best ice cream in the world, later that day.

I forgave the Samy's guy, though. He gave me a better-than-internet price when I called to order the card and replacement battery. pools=XML, Blog, Ruby

There's nothing like a good long airplane flight to change your perspective on the world. Nothing, that is, unless it's TWO good long airplane flights! Today, if all goes according to plan, I'll be taking the second flight, back to Los Angeles after a week in Paris.

Indeed, if all goes according to plan, I'm in the air right now, somewhere over Goose Bay, Labrador. I've always liked that name, Goose Bay.

Was Paris great in November, in spite of the rain? You know it was. Did we make it there and back? I sure hope so. Drop by later on this evening (Los Angeles time) and find out.

pools=XML, Blog, Ruby