My mission to buy a desktop PC started out simple: I wanted a powerful work computer with support for three monitors. Getting a PC within my budget seemed reasonable.

But then, temptation set in. With a slightly better processor and graphics card, this desktop could play the latest video games. And with a solid state drive instead of hard disk storage, everyday work performance would be breezier. Of course, boosting those specs at any configure-your-own PC site made the final price skyrocket. After days of searching for a powerhouse PC under $1,000, I admitted the truth to myself: If I wanted it, I’d have to build it.

Today, I write to you from my homemade, high-powered rig, built last Thursday. It has a 3.3 GHz Intel Core i5 2500K processor, an AMD Radeon 6870 graphics card, 8 GB of RAM, a 120GB solid state drive and a basic DVD burner. The total cost, after taxes and rebates, was about $920. (I got parts from MicroCenter, an electronics retailer, which meant paying sales taxes but getting everything immediately.)

Building my first desktop PC wasn’t just a means to an end, it was also a learning experience. If you’ve ever thought of building your own PC, here are some things to consider.

1. It’s Not as Daunting As It Sounds

Conventional wisdom on Internet message boards says that if you want the best desktop PC for cheap, you need to build it yourself. I always figured that wasn’t so much advice as it was a way for geeks to boast about their engineering talents. But as someone who lacks said talent, I was surprised by how simple setting up a PC can be. I used a recent how-to from The Verge for general guidelines, and consulted my manuals–mainly for the desktop case and the motherboard–when I needed more detailed explanations. In most components, everything’s labelled well enough to be self-explanatory, and the only tool you need is a Phillips-head screwdriver.

2. Picking Your Parts is the Hardest Part

If you’re building a PC for the first time, the real daunting part is the initial commitment, in which you decide not to buy a pre-made rig and start trying to figure out what parts you need. I spent a lot of time trawling through message boards for suggested builds. Hours were lost obsessing over the balance between power and prices. And after deciding on specs, I still had to pick decent parts, which meant scanning through countless user reviews on Newegg to make sure my power supply and RAM wouldn’t crap out on day one. By the time I’d lined up all my components, the building process didn’t seem so scary.

3. Needed: A New Kind of CPU and GPU Review

I have immense respect for sites like AnandTech and Tom’s Hardware, which churn out exhaustive reviews of graphics cards and processors. But those reviews cater to a highly technical audience, which is to say not me. When picking a processor for a gaming PC, I only need two questions answered: What’s the newest game I can play at the highest settings, and what do I gain by spending $30 more on the next model up? Of course, lots of other variables affect the answer, but I’d love to see more short, sweet graphics card and processor reviews that explain what an extra 0.3 GHz gets you in the real world, not in benchmarks.

4. The Mail-In Rebate is Alive and Well

My big electronics purchases of the last few years–phones, tablets, a laptop and a TV–have come without mail-in rebates, which makes me think that retailers and vendors are doing away with this noisome practice. But when buying individual PC components, mail-in rebates are everywhere–$10 here, $20 there. In total, I’ve got $90 in rebates across five vendors to deal with. My guess: component makers hope it’s enough of a headache that some people won’t bother.

5. There Are Parts You Don’t Think About (And They Add Up)

The specs I bragged about at the top of this story aren’t the only parts of the machine, off course. You also need a motherboard, a power supply, and a case. Depending on your setup, you might also want extra USB controllers, a built-in SD card reader, and a wireless network adapter. And don’t forget about a copy of Windows 7. (Most online retailers sell the OEM version for about $100, which is roughly half the price of a retail copy, but can’t be transferred to another computer.) This stuff can get expensive, quick.

6. Sage Advice: Don’t Force Things, and Build in the Buff

Before building, I asked folks on Twitter if they had any tips. I liked Brian Katz’s advice, which is common-sense but worth being reminded about:

@OneJaredNewman take your time. Everything fits. Don't force anything and have fun…plus ping if you have an issue—
Brian Katz (@bmkatz) January 19, 2012

Also, PCWorld’s Patrick Miller had an interesting recommendation:

@OneJaredNewman Strip down to your skivvies. Oddly enough, everyone I know, myself included, does this. cc: @pcwlabs @NateRalph—
Patrick Miller (@pattheflip) January 19, 2012

The Verge’s how-to also suggested stripping down if you don’t have an anti-static wrist wrap. I have no idea if these claims of static danger are overblown, but I didn’t take any chances. I assembled on my kitchen table–where there’s no carpeting around–in my underpants. It was a weird scene, especially with all the electronics strewn about, but at least nothing got fried.

7. You Are Your Own Tech Support

I wish I could say everything went smoothly. Unfortunately, my new PC showed a tendency to get choppy after waking from a few hours of sleep. I tried updating drivers, updating the BIOS, and fiddling with settings, but to no avail. Eventually I reinstalled Windows, which seems to have fixed the problem. Also, one of my fans was behaving sporadically, until I found the lose connection to blame. Calling up the PC manufacturer would have been nice, except in this case, the manufacturer was me. This may seem stupidly obvious, but if something goes wrong, you’re on your own.

On that note, good luck!

How things have changed. Apple’s revamped MacBook Air became a runaway hit while the rest of the PC market stagnated, and suddenly every computer maker wants to make thinner, lighter and prettier products. Intel calls these creations “Ultrabooks,” and provided PC makers with strict criteria for weight, thickness, battery life, processor power and pricing to qualify for the marketing jargon. This new wave of notebooks run the latest Intel Core processors, cost around $1,000, and go toe-to-toe with the MacBook Air in physical measurements.

Over the next few months, a bevy of these machines will strut their stuff for laptop shoppers. Here’s what we know about every Ultrabook or similar product that’s on the market or on the way.

Acer Aspire S3

Availability: Now

Price: $900

Specs: 13.3-inch display (1366-by-768 resolution), Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive and 20GB solid state, up to 6 hours advertised battery life

Dimensions: 0.51 inches to 0.68 inches thick, 2.98 pounds

Defining Features: Resumes from sleep in two seconds if napping for less than 30 minutes; lasts 50 days on standby power.

Reception: Critics weren’t thrilled. Laptop Magazine gave it 2.5 stars, and The Verge called it “an unfortunate first entry,” knocking its battery life, chintzy build materials, and flimsy keyboard.

Asus Zenbook UX21 and UX31

Availability: Now

Starting Price: $999 (11-inch), $1,099 (13-inch)

Base Specs: 11.6-inch (1366-by-768 resolution) or 13.3-inch (1600-by-900 resolution) display, Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB solid state drive, up to five hours advertised battery life for the smaller model, or seven hours for the larger.

Dimensions: 0.67 inches thick tapering to 0.11 inches, 2.43 pounds (11-inch model); 0.71 inches tapering to 0.11 inches, 2.86 pounds (13-inch model)

Defining Feature: Thanks to its tapered design and aluminum finish, the Zenbook looks almost exactly like a MacBook Air.

Reception: The Zenbook fared well in reviews, with Engadget calling it “the Ultrabook [competitors] need to beat.” But it apparently shipped with a wonky trackpad that may or may not be whipped into shape by software updates. Some models are also hard to find in stock right now.

Toshiba Portege Z835

Availability: Now

Starting Price: $900

Base Specs: 13.3-inch (1366-by-768 resolution) display, Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB solid state drive, up to 8 hours advertised battery life.

Dimensions: 0.33 inches to 0.63 inches thick, 2.47 pounds

Defining Feature: At Best Buy’s $800 asking price, it’s the cheapest Ultrabook yet.

Reception: I reviewed one for Techland, and liked it–especially the solid keyboard and smooth trackpad–although the vertical viewing angles are terrible. Probably the best lower-cost Ultrabook you’ll find for now.

Lenovo U300s

Available: November

Starting Price: $1050

Base Specs: 13.3-inch display with 1366-by-768 resolution, Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB solid state drive, 8 hours of advertised battery life.

Dimensions: 0.59 inches thick, 2.9 pounds

Defining Features: Has “Clementine Orange” color option, RapidCharge restores half the battery in 30 minutes

Reception: Engadget praised the keyboard and trackpad, and The Verge said the U300s “proves you don’t have to copy Apple to make a beautiful laptop,” but the lack of an SD card slot could be a dealbreaker for photographers.

Also: A slightly thicker, heavier version of the U300s, dubbed the U300, will be available in November starting at $799

Lenovo U400

Available: Now

Starting Price: $849

Base Specs: 14-inch display with 1366-by-768 resolution, Intel Core i3 processor, 1 GB AMD Radeon HD graphics, 4GB of RAM, 50 GB hard drive, seven hours of advertised battery life, DVD drive

Dimensions: 4.36 pounds, 0.89 inches thick

Defining Feature: DVD drive, dedicated graphics

Reception: Although the U400 isn’t technically an Ultrabook–it’s much too thick and heavy to qualify–I’m including it here because it’s cut from the same cloth as the U300s, and manages to be pretty trim despite its optical drive and graphics card. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen any reviews yet.

HP Folio 13

Available: December 7

Starting Price: $900

Base Specs: 13.3-inch display, Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB solid state drive, 9.5 hours of advertised battery life

Dimensions: 0.71 inches thick, 3.3 pounds

Defining Feature: It doesn’t look like a MacBook Air

Reception: Harry seemed to appreciate HP’s practical approach as an alternative to ripping Apple off. Battery life would be killer if it held up in real-world tests.

Samsung Series 9

Available: Launched in March, still in stock in some places

Starting Price: Was $1,149 (11-inch) and $1,649 (13-inch), but now cheaper.

Base Specs: Core i3, 2GB of RAM and 64GB solid state drive for the 11-inch model; Core i5, 4GB of RAM and 128GB solid state for the 13-inch model; 7 hours of advertised battery life

Dimensions: 0.62 inches thick, 2.3 pounds for the smaller and 2.88 pounds for the larger.

Defining Features: Wakes from sleep mode in three seconds, and the duralumin enclosure is stronger and lighter than aluminum

Reception: It launched earlier this year, so it’s really a prototype Ultrabook (Protobook?) instead of the real thing. Walt Mossberg approved of the Series 9’s high-quality materials and performance, but its battery couldn’t keep up the MacBook Air, and its starting price is expensive compared to Apple’s machines. Prices haven’t come down enough to rival today’s Ultrabooks, either.

Sony Vaio Z

Available: Now

Starting Price: $1,750 and up

Base Specs: 13.1-inch display with 1600-by-900 resolution, Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB of RAM, 128 GB solid state drive, 7.5 hours of advertised battery life

Dimensions: 0.66 inches thick, 2.5 pounds

Defining Features: Not technically an Ultrabook, it’s the lightest machine on this list, and includes a docking station with a discrete graphics card and DVD drive (Blu-ray optional).

Reception: Wired raved about the Vaio Z’s display and performance, but panned its loud fan, disastrous touch pad and price “equivalent to feeding thousands of starving children for a month.”

Dell Thin-and-Light

Available: 2012

Price: Unknown

Specs: Intel’s next-gen Ivy Bridge processors, perhaps

What we know: This rumor comes from CNet’s Brooke Crothers, who says Dell may announce a MacBook Air rival at CES 2012. Dell tried this one before with the Adamo line and failed, but as Crothers notes, so did Apple. The difference is that Apple kept working at the design, performance and battery life, while Dell put the idea on ice.

Samsung Ultrabooks

Available: Late 2011, supposedly

Price, Specs and Defining Features: Unknown

What we know: The rumormongers at DigiTimes reported in September that Samsung is preparing two Ultrabooks, one of which will be outsourced to Quanta Computer. Given that we’ve heard nothing from Samsung since then, I’m thinking the company is holding off until 2012.

Sony Ultrabook

Available: Late 2011, supposedly

Price, Specs and Defining Features: Unknown

What we know: Sony hasn’t announced any Ultrabook plans, but that didn’t stop Intel CEO Paul Otellini from saying Sony would release a thin-and-light by the end of 2012. Unfortunately that’s all we know.

That accounts for most of the major laptop makers in the United States, showing just how serious Intel is about getting its partners on board. But if you’re eyeing an Ultrabook, consider this: Come mid-2012, a second wave of Ultrabooks will arrive, using Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors for much better battery life and performance. Some of them may even have touch screens to take advantage of Windows 8′s tablet interface–at least according to Intel’s plans. As with the iPad rivals of 2010, I can’t wait to see how the MacBook Air alternative market shakes out.

This article is Part II of a two-part series about how to record, encode, store, organize, and share via online and DVD a video of each day of your child’s life. The first part, over at Spark Minute, covers the basics of doing the recording and storing the video. This article covers the second part, which is the daunting process of organizing and sharing the videos.

A year ago I decided to take on a seemingly gargantuan task.

I began shooting a video of my son every single day of the first year of his life. As of today I’ve shot (with the help of my wife), produced, shared online, and printed on DVD over 400 one-minute videos (some days I produce more than one video).

When I tell people I’m doing this they can’t believe it, because they immediately think of how much work it must involve. But in actuality, given the tools we have, the cost of disk space, and just some good pre-planning and organizing (the most critical parts), it’s really not that difficult. You just have to commit to it, and do it. The trick is to not make it too difficult on yourself, so you can do it easily without it being a burden. If it’s too hard, you’ll just give up.

No matter how busy you are, there is a way to record  a video every day of your child’s life, and manage all that video. Just think how amazing it would be if your parents had recorded a video a day of you (heck, a video a year). Wouldn’t that be incredible? I’m hoping it’ll be the same for my son.

This two-part article explains how I’m doing it. It’s far from the only way, but it’s the system that I’ve come up with that works for me. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. I am constantly tweaking this model as new tools and tips become available.

The goal is to make the process simple, consistent, and easy to manage.

Make sure you read part I first as it goes over the basics of recording and storing.

File Management: Standard data labeling of all files and folders

I highly recommend creating a manual file labeling and organizing system than relying on some custom new “upload all your baby videos here” system or some piece of new fangled software that produces custom metatags for “organizing” and “archiving.”

Your children, and their memories, will definitely last longer than any software you choose. I guarantee it. Over the years I’ve used over a dozen image and video organization products that allow you to easily organize your media with their custom meta fields. The problem with all of those programs I tried is they’re all long gone and outdated. Not so with my collection of images and videos. Save yourself time and frustration and rely on yourself to manually label, organize, and store your videos. You want the file names alone to be descriptive enough for identifying the videos.

This is actually the core issue with taking on this project. Again, don’t rely on anybody selling you an online or software system as your core file management tool. These videos and images, and your child will last a lot longer than any of these applications. If you don’t create a good system from the onset, you’ll quickly become frustrated and abandon it. Do yourself and your child a favor and get your system straight today.

Label all videos with the 00-00-00 date format – Extremely important to do this. If your child’s name is Steve make all the videos steve_00-00-00.avi. The reason is that all the video names will be standardized, instantly sortable by date, and as a result, easy to find. That double digit for month and day is critical for the sorting. Don’t label your videos steve_1-1-11.avi for January 1st of this year. Using that technique will force your videos to be sorted January, October, November, December, February, March, etc. Instead stick with the 00-00-00 labeling system. Create folders for every year.

Save videos in folders by month – Once a month, use the Export function on FlipShare to make exact uncompressed copies of your videos on another drive. Use the same convention of 00-00 for month and year. Save all those videos in folders labeled by year. If you don’t, you’ll get all the videos sorted by month across all years. Once again, the point here is to easily sort your video collection chronologically.

A full year’s worth of uncompressed Flip videos used up 38 gigabytes of disk space. Assuming video compression doesn’t change (which it will) I can fit his first 26 years (through graduate school) of videos on a single terabyte drive that costs me less than $100 today (graduate school will cost more).

Save all your pictures in folders by month – Similarly, you’ll probably end up taking thousands of photos of your kids. Almost no one goes through the trouble of renaming the files. As a result you end up with endless photos in one folder with the name DSC#####.jpg. If you’re not going to rename your files, at bare minimum move them into folders labeled by month (00-00 format). An easy way to rename files is to batch rename all the files with the name of the event (e.g., steve_christmas_###.jpg). I recommend Faststone Photo Resizer for batch renaming (and resizing if you need it). You’ll need these photos when you’re making DVDs and slideshows.

Sharing and storing your videos

Backup all your videos – You shouldn’t have to think about this if you use a software system that simply mirrors everything you put on your computer to an external or even better, offsite drive. All the major external hard drive manufacturers sell their drives with software that will do automated backup. I use a Seagate FreeAgent drive with Memeo, which is a good system, but not that great. For offsite automated backup, get a solution such as Carbonite or Mozy.

Share online – You’ll want to upload your videos to a video hosting site and share privately with your family and close friends. Avoid a situation where family members have to download the videos to watch them. They should be able to watch them streaming or progressive download online. I’ve bounced around with a bunch of different solutions, but I’ve found the best solution for sharing family videos privately to be a Tumblr private blog.

You can choose YouTube, but it doesn’t have nearly as nice a presentation as Tumblr does, which is a blog. Since YouTube isn’t a blog, it also doesn’t allow you to bring in pictures or write blog posts about your child.

YouTube is also difficult to manage if you want to give people access to see and find the videos. You either set videos to private and invite people by their YouTube IDs (Does everyone have one? Probably not grandma). You could also give everyone your account information, but that requires them to jump through multiple steps to find and watch the videos. Conversely, with Tumblr, you give out one web address and a password, and then everything – text, pictures, and videos – appear chronologically in one stream.

Remember, the people who will be looking at the videos don’t want to and can’t jump through any online hoops. You need to make access and viewing simple and private. With all my searching, the best and simplest solution that’s free and will be around for a while (hopefully) is Tumblr.

The major downside of Tumblr is it only allows you to upload five minutes of video a day, and it doesn’t allow for batch uploading of videos. YouTube’s time limits are far more lenient and you can batch upload. But Tumblr’s limitations are easily manageable if you’re only shooting a one minute video every day.

NOTE: For some odd reason Tumblr doesn’t let you set your first core blog to private. You’ll need to create a second blog within your Tumblr account which you can then make private. Just leave the first core blog blank.

Whatever video hosting site you choose, you’ll want the following criteria: can handle FlipShare’s video encoding, streaming or progressive download, private videos, and password protected. Both Tumblr and YouTube satisfy all these criteria.

Make highlight videos – You, your spouse, and your mothers are probably going to be the only ones that watch the daily videos you make of your child. For everyone else, you need to make compilation or highlight videos. At predetermined times (e.g., first month, first six months, first year), set aside one day to make a highlight video. It will take you an entire day to do this…when you get good at it. At the beginning it could take you even longer.

FlipShare’s editing is extremely limited. I don’t recommend it. Any other reasonably full featured video editing system will do you fine, like Final Cut Pro or Express, Vegas Video, or Adobe Premiere Pro, which is what I use. The trick to making a great highlight video is picking a song, and then just editing clips together to match that song. As you look through your video, look for clips that have “action points” and edit on them. With a baby that doesn’t do much, the action points could be simply a look, a smile, or just a wave of a hand.

For music, pick something that’s appropriate for your child, not the speed metal group you really like. I recommend music without words that’s upbeat, like jazz. Since the video is for private home use you don’t have to worry about licensing issues. You can pick a video from your collection or use a song from iTunes (they’re DRM free now). Personally, I’ve enjoyed using music by Django Reinhardt.

Also, highlight videos are usually the best ones to post online to Facebook for all your friends to see. When you post, make sure to set the viewing settings to only your friends. Your friends of friends don’t need to see videos of your child. Here’s a highlight video I made of my son (“Jack Levi’s first 7 months in 2 1/2 minutes”).

That’s all changing–first, with the introduction of netbooks, and now even more so with the iPad. Apple’s tablet brings appliance-like simplicity to light computing needs, and brought my mother, who is in her early 60s and had never used a computer before, onto the Web. I’ve documented her fresh perspective on the iPad in this interview.

–David Worthington

David: What was your expectation of what using a computer or iPad would be like before you used it, and has your opinion changed now that you’ve used one?

Mom: I was intrigued listening to people talking about what you can do with one. Now that I’ve used one, I’m still intrigued–being that I’m still a novice–with all of the information that you can get and what’s out there. My expectation is high –in a good way.

David: Would you suggest the iPad to other people who may be intimidated by using a computer?

Mom: Yes, I would, because I was. Once you get onto it, it’s pretty easy.

David: Has your experience made you more eager to delve into it and learn more?

Mom: Yeah. I’m doing more and more of that lately. I’m learning from my mistakes, and beginning to use Google.

David: What do you like about it?

Mom: That I have an e-mail address – you know. ‘Cause that’s the first thing [people] ask you: ‘What’s your e-mail address?’ So now, that makes me feel that I’m part of something–and then I feel that I can see and do more things now than I did before, because I didn’t have it a computer.

David: How about the iPad itself? Are there any particular apps you like or anything about it or how it works?

Mom: Well, I like it when I can go just push the e-mail, and then it goes to it real fast. I don’t know if a computer does that or not ’cause I don’t have anything to compare it to.

The Facebook [app], you know, I go to it, but I mean I don’t really use it. But now I can see that it doesn’t give you everything that you get when you’re online or whatever.

David: Compared to the Web site?

Mom: Yeah. To the website. You don’t get everything on [the app]. I didn’t realize that at first. But now that I have it that I can go to the website I see more on the website. Not that I really care that much.

David: Do you like any of the other apps?

Mom: The weather is good.

David: Have you tried to find more apps in the App Store?

Mom: I did by accident. It was like ‘what is that?’ Three [update notifications] were on the screen. I thought – what are they? The App Store?

So, I was able to go it, and one of [the updates] was for CNN, and then the other was for the Weather Channel.

David: Oh, to update them.

(David notes: I had installed several third-party apps onto the iPad while setting it up for her including CNN news, Facebook, and the Weather Channel.)

David: So you’re getting the newest versions of the apps, and you don’t need to do anything. ‘It just comes up.’

Mom: It comes up, and it says if you want to [update one] or if you want all three of them. Then the other day one was YouTube or something. I had to tap that I had read this thing, which I don’t do.

David: A [software] license disclosure.

Have you been able to locate apps that you would like through that same feature–when you hit App Store? Is there anything that interested you?

Mom: I haven’t really looked.

David: So, you’re just using what’s preloaded on there.

Mom: Yeah.

David: Okay. Is there anything about how the iPad works? Say, the home button for instance. Do you think that button makes it easier or more difficult to operate?

Mom: Well — it’s easy for me, but I have nothing to compare it to. If I get myself into a situation that I can’t get out of pushing the [app’s] buttons, I just push the home button and then turn it off.

David: What — if anything–is still confusing to you, or you think could work better?

Mom: Well, it’s too touchy. Even though I’m better with it now… if you happen just to move your hand or something, you know, then all of a sudden you’re out of what you’re in. That’s bad I think.

David: Like how you accidentally Liked Suzanne Somers on Facebook.

Mom: Yes. I don’t even know how I did that.

David: Okay. Out of these particular apps, the browser, or e-mail, is there anything about those that you think could be better? Or is it a matter of learning to use them and your experience level?

Mom: It’s just learning to use them for me. It’s because I don’t have any experience with a computer. So, it’s it’s as if I had a computer in front of me. I have to learn what’s in front of me and go with that.

David: What could have Apple have done better to help you understand how to use this?

Mom: I really don’t know because I’m getting it from looking at the [interface] things and all. I don’t know, because I sort of pick up on things fast.

David: You do. You were using it yourself on the first day and sending e-mails.

Mom: Yeah. I need hands on more so than reading. You know, I can listen to somebody, but it’s hands on with me. When I froze up that time I was able to [reboot] it over the phone.

David: Facebook froze up, and it caused a problem.

Mom: Yeah. It freezes up on here. That’s frozen on me about three or four times with no particular reason.

David: What we did was to tap the home button twice so you would have multi-tasking and kill the application.

Mom: I had to reboot it, too.

David: Yes, you did that.

Mom: Two more times–after I talked to you.

David: So, it’s the apps that are causing you the most problems.

Mom: Yeah.

David: Facebook in particular.

Mom: The e-mail is fine. I haven’t had a problem with that, but it’s the Facebook one that freezes all the time.

David: Okay. Do you have any last thoughts?

Mom: I like it. It’s small. It’s fast. I’m learning. I’m out there, you know, in the world now, more so than I was before. It’s a good tool, but as I said I don’t know…from what I hear from other people, they prefer the computer to this. I can’t compare. But, you know, I do like it.

David: Okay, that’s it. Thank you, mom.

Whenever I write about the pros and cons of Windows PCs and Macs–as I did recently for TIME.com–I make at least brief mention of the fact that I’m a happy user of both. But I’m not sure if I’ve ever outlined just why I buy and use both flavors of computer rather than settling on one or the other. Here are some quick thoughts on that subject.

First, a review of my life as a user of operating systems might be in order. For most of it, I was a single-OS user–sometimes ardently so…

1978-1982: I was a Radio Shack TRS-80 snob (thinking back, that sounds like an oxymoron, but trust me–I was one).

1982-1984 or thereabouts: I had and liked an Atari 400, but I don’t recall being passionate about it. I also backslid and did a fair percentage of my college work on…typewriters.

1984-1986: I went through an odd period during which I temporarily lost interest in computers, except for word processing.

1987-1991: I dabbled on a borrowed Mac, but I also bought a Commodore Amiga and became a–I try to avoid this word, but it’s the only one that fits–fanboy.

1991-2004: I got a job at a computer magazine that covered only Windows (and, at first, DOS) PCs. I used almost nothing else for the next thirteen years, but don’t become a Windows partisan–even after I become the editor of a magazine called PC World.

2004-present: Shopping for a new laptop at CompUSA–and wanting a smallish model–I take a wrong turn and end up in the tiny, isolated Mac section. I have an epiphany: Why not buy a 12″ PowerBook? What was stopping me? I ended up buying one, and have purchased Windows PCs and Macs in roughly equal measure ever since.

(At first, all my Windows systems were desktops and all my Macs were laptops–which meant that I was a Windows person when I was at my desk, and a Mac one when I was anywhere else. But I’ve stopped buying desktop computers, so that distinction has vanished.)

Ongoing exposure to both operating systems has left me an operating-system agnostic. I see good (and bad) in both Windows and Macs and recommend them both to different people in different situations.

(I’ve also gone through periods when I’ve used Linux as well, incidentally–though not as much recently, due more to a lack of time than disinterest.)

So why do I use both Windows PCs and Macs?

• It’s the best of both worlds. I like Windows 7, but believe that Apple’s OS X remains the best, least hassle-prone operating system. I like Apple’s Macs, but know that the Windows world offers far greater variety when it comes to models. After having lived a biplatform life for so long, restricting myself to one OS would feel like depriving myself of the benefits of the other.
• It makes me feel smarter. If you know only Windows or know only the Mac, your perspective on the world of computing is constricted. (Strangely enough, the folks with the most well-informed takes on the whole PC-vs.-Mac question are those who have plenty of hands-on experience with both.)
• It’s emotionally healthy. Operating systems are just bits and bytes, people–identifying too closely with one of them over another is a tad odd. Especially if you start to believe that people who opt for a different one are members of some distasteful cult. Using both OSes has given me a zen-like serenity about the whole subject–it’s probably lowered my blood pressure.
• Hey, a Mac is a PC. I may be the last person left who (usually) stubbornly refers to PCs that run Windows as “Windows PCs” rather than just “PCs.” That’s because Macs are personal computers, too. And a Windows PC and a Mac have more in common than, say, a Chevrolet Corvette and a Toyota Prius.
• There’s no reason not to. Sticking to one platform may have made sense when outfitting a computer required investing a ton of money in software and peripherals that were incompatible with the other one. Today, though, I spend much of my time using the Web, which doesn’t care if you’re on Windows or a PC. Most of the software I run is available for both OSes, much of it is free, and almost all important file formats are as platform-agnostic as I am. And printers, cameras, networking gear, and most of the other gear I use works fine with Windows and Macs.
• I like to try new stuff. Did I say above that I hadn’t used Linux much lately? Well, I forgot that I’m using Linux right now: I’m typing this newsletter on Google’s Cr-48 notebook, which runs the Linux variant known as Chrome OS. If you declare yourself to be a Windows Person or a Mac Person, you’re depriving yourself of the opportunity to try out interesting new devices as they come along.

Back when I bought that 12″ PowerBook and started using both it and Windows machines, I was keenly aware that I was making a decision to become a two-platform person. (And if I ever forgot it, someone came along to point it out–when you edit a magazine called PC World and are seen in public with a Mac, it’s a conversation-starter.) Today, I don’t give it much thought. I sit down at a computer, and my brain helpfully adjusts itself to the OS I’m using, helping my fingers to find the right keys and features without any conscious effort. I’m not saying everyone should use both OSes–we agnostics aren’t missionaries–but I know it’s made me a happier computer user.

Instead, we’d have Kellogg’s C-KR1200 and General Mills’ Third-Generation CheerZero. (The futuristic-sounding Crispix might still exist). People would still devour these products as part of a balanced breakfast, but I doubt they’d understand why they had the names they had. They might not even be able to remember them.

In tech, we tolerate the names of our beloved gadgets no matter how indecipherable or convoluted. We can be happy with our laptops, digital cameras and GPS devices even if we struggle to recall them by name. I’d love to recommend my Sharp HDTV, but I couldn’t help you find the same model without consulting my purchase records. (Okay fine, it’s an LC40E77U.)

How do tech products get such wacky names? What’s the process that leads to an obscure model number or imaginary word? Come along, and we’ll explore the bizarre, confusing, and frustrating christenings of tech products famous and obscure.

The Unmemorables

Model numbers represent a sort of entropy in the tech world. Broken down, every combination of letters and numbers is simple enough. When you see “BD” as part of a product name for Sharp or LG, it’s clearly referring to a Blu-ray player. You might even guess that “DMP” stands for “Digital Media Player” in Panasonic’s naming schemes.

But over time, chaos grows as manufacturers tack on more letters and numbers to signify new variations on their products. My laptop, for instance, is an Asus UL80Vt-A1, which I think includes references to its ultra-light build (UL), low-voltage processor (V) and “Turbo33” overclocking feature. Though I’m happy with the product and can recall its name from memory, I won’t bother mentioning it to anyone else. Unfortunately, all Asus laptops, and most laptops in general, suffer from the same mind-numbing nomenclature. Even the dead-simple Eee PC netbook line comes with suffixes — 1005PE, 1201PN, to name a couple — that are easily forgotten.

Sometimes, the relationship between model numbers is also mysterious. Nikon, for example, sells an entry-level DSLR dubbed the D3000. Better and slightly more advanced cameras are called the D5000 and the D7000. But the D90 is a higher-end model, and the D3 is fancier still. Bigger is not always better.

Nikon’s D3000 touches on another common practice in tech naming: the inflated model number. Back in the earliest days of personal computing, both Apple and Radio Shack declared that their first PC was model I, and then followed it up with a II, and then a III. But as far as I know, Research in Motion has produced far fewer than 9,800 portable devices, and yet the Blackberry Torch carries this number at the end of its name. We shouldn’t be surprised, given that RIM’s very first product was a two-way pager called the 850, but I’m worried about what will happen in a year or two, when the model numbers have nowhere to go but quintuple digits. With any luck, RIM will dial the Blackberry odometer back to one or abandon the numbering scheme altogether, just in time for the company to ditch its existing operating system for QNX.

Alex Goldfayn, a technology marketing consultant who is writing a book on tech evangelism, is convinced that number soup prevents gadgets from becoming popular. An indecipherable model number hurts discussion in the press, in turn affecting how many people know about the product, thereby bringing down sales and preventing word of mouth, he said in an interview.

“If you make it impossible for people to talk about, think about and communicate about your products, you make it impossible for them to buy it,” Goldfayn said.

Trouble starts in engineering, he said, where an obsession with tech specs leads to longer model numbers because the product makers want to show off the improvements they’ve made. “The problem is, the only people who know anything about these products are the people who name them,” Goldfayn said.

I’ll let you be the judge with one more example. Samsung was kind enough to send along some notes on cracking the code to its television model numbers, which are the only way to identify specific products. Here’s how the UN55C7000 gets its name:

• “UN” stands for LED (It does?)
• “55” is the screen size
• “C” is the model year for 2010. “D” will represent televisions made in 2011.
• “7000” is the Series number, which signifies ultra-slim design, 1080p, 240Hz

Now all we need is for Best Buy to administer pop quizzes as customers exit the store.

The Unpronounceables

Even if tech manufacturers eradicated model numbers from public view, we’d still have plenty of other headaches and hangups to deal with.

A string of letters and numbers might be a mouthful, but at least you can articulate them in conversation if they’re short enough. As an alternative, sometimes product makers will saddle us with a name whose pronunciation is difficult to determine, expecting the tech press to break it down for everyone to understand.

My favorite example? Sony’s CLIÉ, which stood for “Communication, Link, Information and Entertainment” and was the name of Sony’s Palm OS-based personal digital assistants. Thanks to its mischievous accent — we’ll get more into arbitrary characters later — CLIÉ is pronounced “clee-ay,” though journalists tended to skip the accent, and I’m sure that a significant number of people assumed the product was pronounced “cly” or “clee.”

Other tech products are unpronounceable even without the help of foreign characters. When I see a mention of Intel’s Viiv, my head thinks “Viv” even though it’s supposed to rhyme with “Live.” Incidentally, that was the name of AMD’s competing home theater PC platform. And Intel knew the name was trouble when it launched it: It released a marketing deck to partners pointing out that consumers would have trouble figuring out how to say it.

More egregious examples abound when you move beyond the major brands. Tivoli Audio’s iYiYi gets mocked despite being a decent set of speakers. I understand that it’s “clearly a play on the iPod brand and the Spanish interjection “ay, ay, ay,” as some have guessed, but that doesn’t make the name any easier to look at. OQO, the ill-fated line of mini-computers by the company of the same name, is probably pronounced like “Yoko,” but the use of capital letters leaves open the possibility of a cumbersome acronym. [Editor's note: The OQO execs I met with pronounced it "O.Q.O," but I don't know if it stood for anything.]

One other fun fact: A pronounceable name in English doesn’t always translate around the world. That could explain why Google, whose name is reportedly problematic for Chinese tongues, never took hold against native competitor Baidu.

The Just Plain Eccentrics

Capitalization and punctuation trickery strikes me as the easy way out. When all else fails, give an average word some funky formatting and you’re all set.

Some products, like TiVo and Verizon’s FiOS, slipped by without too much ribbing. TiVo’s capitalization makes sense, emphasizing TV (although, apparently, the name itself is “just a fun word we made up”). But FiOS? Without a lowercase “S,” the “i” just seems arbitrary, and now the whole thing kind of looks like anticipatory mockery of Apple’s iOS, which is pronounced differently.

In less successful cases of weird punctuation, the tech press might never let it go. Consider, for instance, Sony’s insistence that the Playstation 3 be written as PLAYSTATION 3, apparently because the company got tired of telling people to write PlayStation as two conjoined words. And so we have Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft begrudgingly capitalizing the console name until it started looking foolish.

Then, there’s the enTourage eDGe, a dual-screen e-reader with E-Ink on one side and LCD on the other. The capital “DG” stands for “Digital Generation,” a phrase that could apply to any portable computing device. As for the company name, a spokesman told me that the capitalized “T” in enTourage is “simply stylistic.” I would’ve capitalized the “U,” but that’s why I blog for a living.

Some companies go way deeper than capitalization. Along the lines of the aforementioned CLIÉ is the Cisco ūmi, a telepresence tool for televisions that makes sense when pronounced correctly (“You, Me”), but honestly, how many people are up to speed on their diacritics?

Pentax appeared to be halfway towards creating a product name when it gave us the *ist line of cameras, officially pronounced like “issed.” I get it. You’re supposed to fill in the blank for whatever kind of *ist you are. (Here’s one Pentax fan site’s really long blog post in defense of the name.)

None of these products, however, trump the Casio G’zOne, a rugged phone that combines random capitalization and arbitrary punctuation into a beautiful mess. And for bonus points, it’s tricky to pronounce. The proper way to say it, according to Nicole Lee at CNet, is letter “G,” letter “Z” and number “One,” like an ancestor of Young Jeezy. But thanks to Pizza Hut, I’ll forever associate this product with the P’Zone, an excessively greasy pizza folded over itself and baked into a loose calzone interpretation. At least that name makes sense.

I can tell you when I bought my first computer. (1982–it was an Atari 400 with a tape drive, which I bought at a Service Merchandise in New Hampshire.) I can tell you when I got my first VCR (1985–a cheesy Sharp model with a wired remote; I think I bought it at the late, lamented Boston electronics retailer Lechmere). Same thing for cell phones (a Nokia I still miss), MP3 players, and sorts of other gadgets.

Countless technology products have meant a lot to me. Few have meant a lot for more than a few years, though–they tend to either break or be rendered obsolete by something even more exciting. And even entire classes of products which I thought I couldn’t live without eventually become dispensable.

Herewith, a few categories of gear I’ve owned, and my best guess as to whether I’m done with them yet.

Laptops. I suppose the day may come when I use some seventh-generation iPad or Android tablet as my only general-purpose computing device. In the short term, though, I expect to continue on buying MacBooks and Windows notebooks as my primary machines.

Desktop PCs. I bought my last one right before Windows Vista came out. Unless I unexpectedly take a job that requires me to sit in one place all day long, I don’t expect to buy a desktop computer ever again–it would be sort of like buying a bicycle without any wheels.

Computer monitors. I have a perfectly pleasant 23″ Samsung widescreen display, but it sits unused; I’ve just gotten used to computing anywhere and everywhere rather than at a desk. (I do assume that I’ll eventually buy multipurpose “displays” that are both TV sets and computer monitors in one handy-dandy device.)

Mice. On the rare occasion when I’m seated at a desktop, I like using a trackball. But it’s been years since I’ve bought one, and even longer since I’ve bought a mouse. These days, when I close my eyes and think “pointing device,” what I see is a touchpad.

Printers. I have an HP all-in-one (the first and only all-in-one I’ve ever owned). I’m in no rush to replace it, but I assume I will at some point. Less clear: Will I still want to print out stuff on dead trees in, say, twenty years?

Networking routers. I have a two-year-old Wireless-N one sitting next to my cable modem. It’s likely to keep on being perfectly useful for several years to come, but I expect that some technical development will eventually lead me to upgrade.

HDTVs. I’ve owned a flatscreen for three years, and while I hope to keep on watching it for years to come–I consider it more like a car than a PC–I’m sure it’s not my last TV set.

Cell phones. I expect to purchase many of them–too many, probably–over the next few decades–I’m having trouble coming up with any scenario which would render them obsolete.

MP3 players. I owned and loved a bunch of them over the years, from the original Rio PMP300 to the Creative Nomad Jukebox to too many iPods to count. But with the possible exception of devices I might purchase to review, I’m pretty confident I’ll never buy another MP3 player that isn’t also a smartphone.

Digital cameras. It’s possible my new Canon PowerShot S95 is the last point-and-shoot I’ll ever buy, but I don’t think it’s likely, unless some unexpected technological breakthrough leads to spectacular smartphone cameras.

Video cameras. I bought a Flip a couple of years ago–after having owned various other video cameras dating back to the days of 8mm tapes–but wouldn’t do it again. For me, video capture is a feature built into phones and still cameras, not a product category.

DVD players. I last bought a standalone one a couple of years ago–a midget-sized unit that fit into my bulging entertainment center. I only see myself buying another if this one conks out and I still have DVDs I want to watch. But I bet I’ll acquire more devices with DVD drives or burners built in–they’re kind of like floppy drives.

VCRs. I picked up one just recently! It’s a combo unit that lets me burn stuff from VHS onto DVD. In other words, it’s designed to help me leave the world of tape behind. If I find the time to dupe my tapes, this might be my last VCR, after a quarter-century of owning them.

Audio cassette decks. Can’t tell you when I last bought one; don’t have one in the house; can’t imagine why I’d buy another, except maybe to digitize a unique tape or two. (I interviewed the Car Talk guys years ago, and the tape is around here somewhere…)

LP turntables. I bought one of those ION USB turntables last year, but haven’t had time to play with it much. I will, though: In fact, I still buy the occasional collectible LP. But I’d only buy another turntable if this one croaked–and maybe not even then.

FM radios. I picked up a nice Boston Acoustics clock radio around three years ago–but rarely use it these days. If it turns out it’s the last FM radio I ever buy–not counting ones that come with automobiles wrapped around them–I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

Analog wristwatches. The one I wear every day is older than I am–and it still looks good and keeps excellent time. But I’m sure I haven’t bought my last one; I’ll probably still wear a good old fashioned watch long after I’ve lost interest in neatly every type of gizmo that’s a big deal at the moment.

What major technology products do you think have reached the end of the line–at least for you?

But that era existed. The best books about computers were enormously successful, and many of them were really good. They deserve to be celebrated.

When I sought out tomes for this list, my goal was to identify ones that were interesting, influential, and of lasting significance. (Two thirds of the ones I ended up picking are still in print, including at least a couple that are theoretically obsolete.) I relied on my own excessive library and solicited advice from my Twitter pals, who both confirmed some of my choices and reminded me of contenders I’d forgotten about. Along the way, I decided not to include works of fiction (someone should write “The Ten Greatest Computer-Related Novels,” but that someone isn’t me).

The earliest book here came out in 1968; the newest one was first published in 1999. I didn’t set out to exclude works published in recent years–it just worked out that way, and even though I’m not arguing that new computer books are obsolete in the 21st century, I think the focus on the past makes sense. (Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail is a very good book, but we’ll know it’s a great one if it’s still in print and still being talked about in, say, 2027.)

The works that follow are listed in chronological order. As in “The 25 Most Notable Quotes in Tech History,” I’ve also listed each book’s Googleosity–the number of references to it on the Web, as determined by a Google search. It’s an imprecise but telling indicator of each work’s lasting impact.

The Art of Computer Programming

Author: Donald Knuth

Published: 1968 (first edition of first volume)

Still in print? Yes

Googleosity: 254,000

Why it matters: The Art of Computer Programming isn’t exactly Programming for Dummies. For one thing, all examples are presented in MIX, an assembly-language-like programming language of author Knuth’s own devising; to understand this multi-volume work, you’ve got to learn a new programming language which you’re not going to use in the real world. For another, it runs to more than 3000 pages even in its current, incomplete form. But its essential usefulness is reflected in the fact that people still care about it more than four decades after the first release of its first volume. It’s a little as if a car repair manual that originated in the Model T era was still widely read and respected–and was still a work in progress.

And you don’t have to actually read TAOCP–or, for that matter, be a computer programmer–to be fascinated by it. Knuth’s Web site is a treasure trove of intriguing stuff, including his explanation of why he stopped using e-mail twenty years ago, information about his offer of a $2.56 bounty for errors found in his books (and why it’s now paid as a deposit into a fictional bank in an imaginary country), and much more.

TAOCP also led to the creation of an important piece of software. In 1977, unhappy with the quality of the typography in the proofs of the second edition of its second volume, Knuth created TeX, a sophisticated digital typesetting system that continues to be used to this day, particularly for technical publications and those full of mathematical formulas.

Bill Gates once said that anyone who had actually read all of The Art of Computer Programming should send him his or her résumé. But nobody’s yet read it in its entirety, because it isn’t done yet. Three complete volumes have been published to date: volumes one, two, and three in 1968, 1969, and 1973, respectively. All have been released in updated editions, and five fascicles (sections) of volume four have been published in recent years. Knuth says he’s working nearly full-time on volume four these days, has started work on volume five, and may write volumes six and seven. Long may the series–and its author–wave.

Basic Computer Games

Author: David H. Ahl

Published: 1973 (as 101 BASIC Computer Games)

Still in print? After many years of unavailability, it’s back! It was just republished as an e-book

Googleosity: 11,000

Why it matters: If you used computers in the 1970s, chances were high that you wrote much of your own software in BASIC. Much of the software you didn’t write, you typed in from listings in magazines and books. And no source of BASIC programs was more important than BASIC Computer Games, which was edited by Creative Computing founder David Ahl and was the first computer book to sell a million copies.

The first version was published by Ahl’s then-employer, Digital Equipment Corporation, and the games it contained were designed to run on the company’s minicomputers. The 1978 Microcomputer Edition was beloved by owners of Apple IIs, Radio Shack TRS-80s, Commodore PETs, and other early machines–who not only had to type in the games and stomp out any typos, but also tweak the code as they went to conform to their particular microcomputer’s flavor of BASIC. (TRS-80 owners eventually got a custom version of the book, published by Radio Shack itself; there was also a sequel, which came in both Microcomputer and TRS-80 editions.)

What sort of games did the book include? The classics! Such as Nim, Hammurabi, Mugwump, and–with permission from Paramount–Super Star Trek. (I misremembered the legendary Hunt the Wumpus as being in there as well, but it was actually part of More BASIC Computer Games.) None of them had graphics, unless you count pictures composed of alphanumeric characters, and all were pretty, well, basic. But if you weren’t there, trust me: they were a blast.

Computer Lib/Dream Machines

Author: Ted Nelson

Published: 1974

Still in print? No, sadly (but you can download a PDF of an extended chunk of it here)

Googleosity: 24,300

Why it matters: Theodor Holm Nelson is most famous as the creator of Xanadu–the original hypertext/hypermedia system, which he’s been working on for fifty years–and for having coined the words “hypertext” and hypermedia” along the way. Xanadu remains unfinished, and, though it rankles Nelson, seems to have been preempted by the existence of the Web.

Computer Lib/Dream Machines, on the other hand, was completed more than thirty-five years ago, and it exudes evidence that it sprung from the same endlessly creative brain as Xanadu. It’s two books in one: Flip Computer Lib (an introduction to computers, with the subtitle “You Can and Must Understand Computers NOW”) around, and it becomes Dream Machines (an overview of computer graphics and hypermedia). Together, they make up a manifesto about the user of computers for creative means that’s still inspiring.

Both “books” consist of brief essays, in a variety of typefaces with handwritten annotations and doodled illustrations. They’re opinionated, full of invented words such as stretchtext and fantics, and remarkably prescient given that Nelson wrote them shortly before the first rudimentary PCs appeared. It’s not just the discussion of hypermedia that’s visionary: He also discusses gesture-based input, virtual reality, undo features, and an array of other things that eventually came to pass, or surely will in the years to come.

Nelson’s book had become something of a historical artifact even when Microsoft Press released a new edition in 1987. Paradoxically, it’s also still a rewarding read for anyone who cares about the future of technology: Just last month, blogger Dave Winer bemoaned its unavailability and tried to jumpstart a new edition . And Nelson continues to write books. His recent Geeks Bearing Gifts, a history of the personal computer, has some of CL/DM‘s playful, poetic inventiveness.

The Soul of a New Machine

Author: Tracy Kidder

Published: 1981

Still in print? Yes

Googleosity: 143,000

Why it matters: This is probably the most highly-regarded computer-related book ever published–I mean, I love DOS for Dummies, but if it won a Pulitzer Prize or the American Book Award it’s news to me.

Kidder, one of the grand masters of the art of narrative journalism, tells the tale of a group of employees of minicomputer maker Data General and the birth of the company’s Eclipse MV/8000 machine. Soul was instantly acknowledged as a classic, and it’s held up extremely well, whether you consider it a business book or a story that reads like good fiction but happens to be true. If you want to give a behind-the-scenes book about the computer business–or any business–the highest praise, there’s still no bigger compliment than comparing it to The Soul of a New Machine.

At the time Kidder did his writing and reporting, the minicomputer business was booming and Data General was one if its leading lights. When the book was published, the microcomputer revolution was underway. And within a few years, the minicomputer business and nearly every company in it began to crumble. (Data General held on better than most, but it was acquired by EMC in 1999.) All of that brings a certain poignancy to the book when you read it today–but the characters and themes are as pertinent as ever even if the technology isn’t.

The Word Processing Book

Author: Peter McWilliams

Published: 1982

Still in print? No

Googleosity: 24,300

Why it matters: Eight months after he wrote and published The Word Processing Book, McWilliams produced a similar, even better-selling tome called The Personal Computing Book. But The Word Processing Book is the more fascinating artifact. It dates from a period when one of the most common questions people had about computers was “Why should I use one to write rather than sticking to my trusty typewriter?” McWilliams answered the question and recommended specific early-1980s models–from the Coleco ADAM to the Teleram T-3000–but he did so in a profoundly rambling, idiosyncratic style, rife with self-referential asides, jokes, woodcut illustrations, old ads, cartoons, and other supplemental material.

McWilliams wasn’t the first person to prove that how-to prose about computers could be lively and entertaining rather than dry and technical, but his self-published books hit bestseller lists, attracted attention from the mainstream press, and converted doubters such as William F, Buckley. They’re spiritual ancestors of the Dummies series, but with a much stranger, more personal feel. (It’s hard to imagine a large publisher having faith in his uninhibited style.)

For a while, McWilliams was a one-man industry devoted to books about word processing and other aspects of the burgeoning personal-technology industry: He wrote a special edition of The Word Processing Book for KayPro computers, Questions & Answers on Word Processing, and Word Processing on the IBM PC. He passed away in 2000, having moved on to write more general self-help bestsellers such as Life 101. (He also became a medical marijuana activist.) But if there was a McWilliams guide to Word 2010, it would be a good read for sure.

Inside the IBM PC

Author: Peter Norton

Published: 1983

Still in print? Yes, in a variant called Peter Norton’s New Inside the PC

Googleosity: 68,200

Why it matters: He no longer writes books or magazine articles. He’s not in the software business, either–and for the last few years, he hasn’t even posed for software boxes. But for a couple of decades, the image of a bespectacled, arms-crossed Peter Norton was synonymous with the fixing of busted PCs.

Norton’s first book was Inside the IBM PC (later known as Peter Norton’s Inside the PC). It was the definitive plain-English, nuts-and-bolts guide to motherboards, processors, disks, other components, and the software the PC used to make them all work together–an enormously valuable resource back in the day when typical PC users had to worry more about their machines’ innards. It went through nine editions and was followed by numerous other Norton books, most of which involved coauthors. (Judging from the experience of a friend of mine who cowrote one of them, writing a book with Peter Norton pretty much meant writing a book–one with a photo of Peter on the cover.)

Norton’s books were bestsellers, but he made his fortune with his software company. He sold it to Symantec way back in 1990, and gradually left geekdom behind for philanthropy, art collecting, and other worthy activities. Inside the PC was last updated in 2002, and while any book about computer hardware written close to a decade ago is by definition horrendously out-of-date, the basic concept remains powerful.

The company had announced the software in November of 1983, before most PC users had ever seen a graphical user interface or touched the input device known as a mouse. But by the time Windows finally shipped two years later, after a series of embarrassing delays, it had seemingly blown whatever first-mover advantage it might have had. At least four other major DOS add-ons that let users run multiple programs in “windows” had already arrived.

In a pattern that Microsoft would repeat with later products, though, it managed to make being late to the party work in its advantage. For one thing, Windows’ super-premature announcement left those four earlier packages competing with it even though it didn’t actually exist yet; many people sensibly postponed buying any “windowing” environment until it was clear how things would pan out.

For another, most of the developers of the earliest Windows rivals shot themselves in the foot, usually more than once: They released products that required cutting-edge machines which few people owned, or got ensnared in lawsuits, or failed to get third-party developers on board. Just as several of them were running out of steam, Windows arrived on the scene. And even though it didn’t gain traction for nearly another half a decade, that was okay; nothing else became a hit in the interim.

“Our approach is that there is only going to be one winner,” InfoWorld quoted Microsoft marketing honcho Steve “Bulmer” as saying in November of 1983, shortly after Windows was announced. The publication got his name wrong, but he couldn’t have been more right about the market.

For the purposes of this roundup of Windows rivals, I considered only environments which were designed to run on IBM-compatible PCs, and which (like pre-1995 versions of Windows) ran on top of DOS rather than replaced it. (That’s why the Mac OS and OS/2, for instance, aren’t here.) I also cover only products released in 1990 or before; once Windows 3.0 was released, Microsoft’s package became a juggernaut and attempts to compete with it largely ended.

That still leaves half-a-dozen significant Windows rivals. They may have failed to compete with Microsoft, but they were all interesting failures. And on Windows’ 25th anniversary, they deserve to be remembered.

Visi On

Publisher: VisiCorp

Debuted: December 1983, a year and eleven months before Windows

Why it was better than Windows, or at least different: If pure prescience and ambition could ensure a product’s success, Visi On would have been a blockbuster. The follow-up to VisiCalc–the first spreadsheet and the young industry’s biggest hit to date–Visi On was the first full-blown windowing environment for PCs. It had a mouse-driven (although text-based rather than graphical) interface. And VisiCorp supplied a full suite of integrated apps–required, since it didn’t run DOS apps–that included Visi On Word, Visi On Calc, and Visi On Graph. People who saw early demos were reportedly so blown away that some of them thought it was running on an artfully-concealed minicomputer rather than a PC.

What the critics said: “In summary, the VisiOn system is a milestone in personal computing software. Like many other milestones, it both points the way towards the future and falls far short of it.”–Thomas Bonoma, Softalk

The publisher called it: “a ‘boss’ who instructs the computer on how to deal with the specific applications you want to work with…Since all these applications work for the same boss, they all work the same way. Learn to use one, and you’ve essentially learned to use them all.”

What happened: What didn‘t happen? VisiCorp thought it would be able to get Visi On running on floppy-based PCs, but by the time it shipped it required 2.2MB of hard-disk space, in an era when a PC with two floppy drives was considered luxurious. Buying all the software and the mouse cost a stiff $1765. And at the same time the company was trying to get Visi On off the ground, it was beset with legal and financial woes–VisiCalc creator Software Arts was suing it, and Lotus 1-2-3 was rendering VisiCalc obsolete. Reviews of Visi On were mixed at best: InfoWorld was respectful, but pointed out that the spreadsheet was harder to use than VisiCalc and forty times slower at recalculating a large spreadsheet. In August of 1984, VisiCorp sold Visi On development rights to Control Data; three months later, it sold itself to a company called Paladin; by early 1986, weeks after Windows was released, Visi On was already effectively dead.

TopView

Publisher: IBM

Debuted: February 1985, ten months before Windows 1.0

Why it was better than Windows, or at least different: TopView began as an IBM research product around 1980–before the IBM PC had reached the market. It was announced in August of 1984 at the same time as IBM’s powerful PC AT, and was intended to leverage that machine’s potent technical capabilities. (It required 512KB of RAM and two floppy drives, fairly imposing specs at the time.)  Rather than requiring all-new graphical applications, TopView was designed to run DOS programs, but third-party developers could also write “TopView-aware” apps that took advantage of its advanced capabilities. Pundits wondered whether it was designed to eventually supplant DOS, making it harder for third-party PC manufacturers to compete with IBM.

What the critics said: “I was impressed by the concept and IBM’s demonstrations, but, after using the recently released product, I’m less enthusiastic.”–Larry Magid, Los Angeles Times

The publisher called it: “[a] new kind of software program that lets you run and ‘window’ several other programs at once.”

What happened: Like Windows, TopView was announced and hyped well before it was ready. Two months after it finally hit the market, InfoWorld’s John C. Dvorak was already comparing it to the PC Jr.; few developers bothered to write TopView-aware software, configuring stock DOS apps to run with the package was notoriously tricky, and IBM reportedly sold only a few hundred copies a month. In August of 1985, Big Blue signed a deal with Microsoft to develop operating systems together, and the tech press immediately began speculating that the agreement marked the end of the road for TopView. (The IBM-Microsoft arrangement eventually led to the creation of OS/2, which shipped in December of 1987.) TopView wasn’t officially discontinued until mid-1990, but by that point just about everyone who found the idea intriguing had switched to Quarterdeck’s DESQview.

GEM

Publisher: Digital Research

Debuted: February 1985, ten months before Windows 1.0

Why it was better than Windows, or at least different: By the mid-1980s, Digital Research was famous mostly as the company whose CP/M operating system was displaced in the market by Microsoft’s CP/M knockoff MS-DOS. But it got a chance to start fresh with GEM (Graphical Environment Manager). The package beat Windows to the market and looked far more like Apple’s groundbreaking Macintosh. The company also released an array of productivity apps for its environment, such as GEM WordChart; one very popular third-party app, Ventura Publisher, ran on top of a run-time edition of GEM. A modified version of GEM also served as the interface for Atari’s ST line of computers.

What the critics said: “…offers IBM PC users a Macintosh interface.”–Keith Thompson, InfoWorld

The publisher called it: “…not just software. It’s a movement.”

What happened: GEM ran into trouble almost immediately; shortly after its release, Apple sued over its Mac-like look, forcing Digital Research to release a new, less elegant edition. It never managed to give Windows serious competition, but it did muddle along into the 1990s, along with Digital Research’s MS-DOS workalike DR-DOS. Novell, which bought Digital Research in 1991, thought DR-DOS had potential but didn’t do much of anything with GEM. Still, the software was open-sourced in 1999 and continues to exist, at least sort of, as FreeGEM and OpenGEM.

Few people understand Microsoft better than Tandy Trower, who worked at the company from 1981-2009. Trower was the product manager who ultimately shipped Windows 1.0, an endeavor that some advised him was a path toward a ruined career. Four product managers had already tried and failed to ship Windows before him, and he initially thought that he was being assigned an impossible task. In this follow-up to yesterday’s story on the future of Windows, Trower recounts the inside story of his experience in transforming Windows from vaporware into a product that has left an unmistakable imprint on the world, 25 years after it was first released.

Thanks to GUIdebook for letting us borrow many of the Windows images in this story.

–David Worthington

Microsoft staffers talk MS-DOS 2.0 with the editors of PC World in late 1982 or early 1983. Windows 1.0 wouldn’t ship for almost another two years. From left: Microsoft’s Chris Larson, PC World’s Steve Cook, Bill Gates, Tandy Trower, and founding PC World editor Andrew Fluegelman.

In the late fall of 1984, I was just past three years in my employment with Microsoft. Considering the revolving doors in Silicon Valley at that time, I already had met or exceeded the typical time of employment with a high-tech company. Over that time I already had established a good track record, having started with product management of Microsoft’s flagship product, BASIC, and successfully introduced many versions including the so-called GW-BASIC which was licensed to PC clone vendors, various BASIC compilers, and a BASIC interpreter and compiler for the Apple Macintosh. As a result I had been given the overall responsibility for managingMicrosoft’s programming languages, which included FORTRAN, Pascal, COBOL, 8086 Macro Assembler, and its first C compiler for MS-DOS. It was at this point that things took a significant turn.

I had just gone through one of those infamous grueling project reviews with Bill Gates, who was known for his ability to cover all details related to product strategy, not only those on the technical side. Borland’s Turbo Pascal had just come out, seemed to be taking the market by storm, and looked like a possible competitor to Microsoft BASIC as the language that was shipped with every PC. While Microsoft had its own version of Pascal, it had been groomed as a professional developer’s tool, and in fact was the core language Microsoft wrote many of its own software products in before it was displaced by C.

At $50 for the Borland product vs. the Microsoft $400 compiler, it was a bit like comparing a VW to a Porsche. But while Turbo Pascal was lighter weight for serious development, it was almost as quick for programming and debugging as Microsoft’s BASIC interpreters. And Pascal was the programming language that most computer science students most typically studied. The new Borland product would require serious strategy revisions to the existing plans to port Microsoft Pascal to a new compiler architecture. But it also required thinking about how to address this with our BASIC products. Could a Turbo BASIC be on the horizon? In any case, Gates made it quite clear that he was not happy .

Returning to my office I was somewhat devastated. In the days that followed, as I tried to come up with a revised strategy, I was uncertain about whether I should even continue in this role. I had come to Microsoft from a consumer computer company where I had primarily managed a variety of entertainment and education software. Even in my early career at Microsoft I had managed its early PC games like Flight Simulator, Decathlon, and Typing Tutor. And I had loved managing BASIC, not just because it was the product the company was best known for, but because BASIC helped me get my own start in the PC business, and I believed it allowed a wide audience to tap into the power of PCs. Now my job had evolved to where I was managing a family of products mostly for a highly technical audience. So, I spoke with Steve Ballmer, then my direct manager and head of Microsoft’s product marketing group, and suggested that perhaps I was the wrong person for this job.

A couple of weeks later, Ballmer called me in and proposed that I transfer over to manage Windows. Sounds like a plum job right? Well, that wasn’t so obvious at the time. Windows had been announced the previous year with much fanfare and support from most of the existing PC vendors. However, by the time of my discussion with Steve, Windows still had not shipped within the promised timeframe and was starting to earn the reputation of being “vaporware.” In fact Ballmer had just returned from what we internally referred to as the “mea culpa” tour to personally apologize to analysts and press for the product not having shipped on time and to reinforce Microsoft’s definite plans to complete it soon.

Further, Microsoft’s strategy to get IBM to license Windows had failed. IBM had rejected Windows in favor of its own character-based DOS application windowing product called TopView. With IBM still the dominant PC seller, Microsoft would have to market Windows directly to IBM PC users. It would be the first time the company sold an OS level product directly to end-users (unless you count the Apple SoftCard, a hardware card that enabled Apple II users to run CPM-80 applications on their Apple IIs, which I had also previously managed). Since I had been the product manager that had the most experience with marketing technically oriented products through retail channels (rather licensed to PC vendors), Ballmer thought the job might be a good fit. In addition, he pointed out that since Windows was intended to expand the appeal of PC through its easier-to-use graphical user interface, it should appeal to my more end-user product experience and interests.

At that point Windows was no longer considered the company’s star project, as it had become a bit of an embarrassment. Even internally there were doubts among some in the company that Windows would ever ship. Also, because Ballmer had already burned though four product managers to try to get there–people who now had been either reassigned or were no longer at Microsoft–the product was developing a reputation for career death. Apparently prior to offering the job to me, Ballmer had tried to persuade Rob Glaser, already recognized as a bright, up-and coming talent, to take the position. But Glaser turned him down. When Glaser heard that I was offered the position, he even stopped by to counsel might that it would be a bad career move.

This made me think that perhaps the offer to me was a ploy by Gates and Ballmer to fire me because of their disappointment in dealing with Turbo Pascal and my suggestion that perhaps my assignment to managing programming languages was a poor choice on their part. It seemed clever: give me a task that no one else had succeeded with, let me fail as well, and they would have not only a scapegoat, but easy grounds to terminate me. So, I confronted Gates and Ballmer about my theory. After their somewhat raucous laughter they regained their composure and assured me that the offer was sincere and that they had confidence in my potential success.

So, in January of 1985 I transitioned over the Windows team, but even as I assumed my new role, I discovered that the Windows development architect and manager, Scott McGregor, a former Xerox PARC engineer, has just resigned. Ballmer himself took up McGregor’s role as the development lead in addition to his other responsibilities.

Shaping Up Windows

My first task was to assess of what was done and what was left to be done as well as come up with a marketing strategy of how to sell an OS add-on to end users, a task that was a significant challenge because no Windows applications existed at that time. How to sell a new application interface without any applications?

I discovered that while the three core functional components of Windows (Kernel–memory management, User–windowing and controls, and GDI–device rendering) were mostly in place there was still a substantial amount of work to be done, and Ballmer had given me only six months to finalize the product and get out the door. This didn’t bother too much since I had currently held the record for getting a product from definition to market in the shortest time.

There wasn’t much time to make changes. Ballmer was emphatic not to redefine what was already done, even though McGregor had changed Windows from its original overlapping windows design to a tiled windows model and every windowing system out there or under development featured overlapping windows. There also was not enough time to change the Windows system font displayed in title bars and control labels from a fixed width typeface to a proportional typeface, which made the overall look a bit clunky, especially in comparison to the newly announced Macintosh interface. Steve’s promise was that in the next release I would get creative freedom to make any significant changes to the product’s interface. I could add some functionality to make it more appealing to end-users, but overall the product needed to be finished, not further tweaked in any way that jeopardized getting it out that summer without further embarrassment.