It's all about evolution, baby. Years of change, from BBS, to IRC, VRML (remember that?), AOL, AIM, I've done it all the past 10+ years. I was talking to a friend last night, and I realized I'd been chatting away for the better part of 10 years. Ten...long...years. I'm old.

Darn sexy, if I do say so my own self.

While I was chatting with her, I realized I'd gone through several phases. When Windows 95 came out, I finally got my first computer, when people were ditching their old 486 boxes to get those hip-now-with-it Pentiums. Your loss is my gain, if you will. Back in those days, you just didn't have this pesky thing we can't get along without today: the internet. Seeing as how you could, in 1995, get at most 5 free hours of internet from AOL, it just wasn't something people messed with on a regular basis. College types, sure, but that's because they had this funny concept called "always on internet," where you could get onto the college server whenever you wanted. It wasn't until 1996, when the amount of people who wanted "the Internet" and "the E-Mail" and "The World Wide Web" and "The Pornography" that we started to see unlimited hours per month on internet plans. That's when the internet took off, and when I stopped being so interested in the system functions of my 12-megabyte-of-RAM having laptop, and the wonders the internet had to show. It was the first time the focus changed for me, but I didn't really notice. It just seemed a natural extension of computers, but it didn't register as such. The internet was, to me, a part of Windows 95, even if I didn't spent all day hacking the registry anymore. In 1997, my focus changed again, this time to Macs. It was the Power Mac 9600, with more power and speed than any human could possible comprehend. 233 megahertz of raw, unadulterated computing demagoguery. There was nothing that could hold me back (other than the $200 a month bill for the beast). That's when my focus became all Apple, all the time. VersionTracker didn't help much, either. For about six years, it was a constant stream of new programs and operating systems. The OS was the big deal, and what you could do with it. I didn't realize it for a while, but something changes when I got back to the US. I enjoyed my summer camp in the Iraqi desert, but it was when I got back, started up MacStansbury.com, and never thought about how it was going to change my focus again. It was trying to find an easier way to post my thoughts on Britney Spears and how I was such a Mac-tool, I first installed Mambo, then Textpattern, MT, and now WordPress. With the advent of the CMS, I've moved again. When I was setting up this site in its current configuration, I didn't really have a defined idea of what I wanted. It was going to have the links, that was for sure, I just didn't have a real good grasp of what I wanted to put in here. As I began to write about the trials and tricks of putting this site together, I noticed a trend of talking about things that didn't involve an operating system or big-name companies. If you go through the archives, you'll see precious little I talk about, over the past year, of how Apple produces content for this site. I use WordPress on a browser made by Apple, but I could use any browser. I could use Windows, and you'd never tell; the platform doesn't matter. Since I'm not focused on what tools I use to craft this site, I focus on the site, and the content - as it should be. Strangely, I do care about my operating system. I'm still a loyal Mac user, even though it's not as pronounced as before. I still get people who think I'm just an Irish guy (which is only sorta true). It was working on my RSS feeds that I noticed how all this has happened. I added the MacFixIt feed, just to keep abreast of any new developments on my computer breaking down, and I noticed all I had in my RSS Feedreader of Legendâ„¢ was one, huge folder, filled with dozens of tech blogs. I have one for WordPress, one for pro-blogging, one for business blogs, but not one for Mac-related blogs. It took me back for a minute. I added a new folder, and realized just how little I pay attention to those things. So now, I have a Mac stuff folder. It's got a few feeds in it, but it's not something I wait for with baited breath, as I did in the 90s. I've actually seen enough over the past decade to remind me that I've seen quite enough, and I can skip a day or two and live without catching every little detail. Back in the day, I had to know every little thing, and now I realize - I've forgotten more about useless, trivial, technology-related stuff that doesn't matter anymore than some people will ever know. I guess that's what happens when you get old. UPDATE: And, you know, about how to spell 'messages.'

status: published
lastmod: '2006-10-06T16:44:22.000Z'
author: John Stansbury
cms: wordpress
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