I am not a journalist. Or am I? Keep that question in mind as you read through this.

Dave attended BlogWorld Expo this year, and one of the things he noted is that Leo Laporte stated in so many words that new media will be the new standard in journalism soon enough.

"New Media" is a very overhyped term, but is the only one that accurately defines the difference between traditional news outlets and the newer ways of getting news and events. In other words, it’s the difference between print (old) and internet (new).

As a writer for PCMech, I make my best effort to follow the tenets of traditional journalism. In that vein, reports are to be as factually accurate as possible, opinions (editorials) are to foster meaningful discussion, humor is to be inoffensive to the reading audience, and so on.

A journalist in strict definition is, "a writer for newspapers and magazines." I don’t think that definition accurately applies any longer. It should be changed to, "a writer for media outlets", meaning print and/or internet. If a traditional journalist has an online column or authors one exclusively but used to have a print column, does that mean a journalist doesn’t classify as one any longer? I don’t think so.

Definitions aside, something that I’ve always been aware of is that for whatever I write here, I’m responsible for it. This is another tenet of journalism. You, the reader, expect that whatever is written here is true, be it a report, documentation or otherwise. With the increased readership to PCMech as well as a ton of other web sites, that responsibility is something to be taken seriously.

Authors of blogs with wide readership understand this responsibility. We understand it to the tune of, "Wow, there’s a lot of people reading what I write, so I’d better not steer them wrong."

What makes New Media differ from Old Media the most?

1. Instant delivery.

You don’t go to the store and buy what you read here. It’s delivered instantly any time you want, for free, simply by typing in the web address.

2. Two-way communication.

Old Media has always hated this. The old way was the (in)famous "Letters to the Editor" section of whatever publication you were reading. Out of the hundreds of letters received, only a scant few would ever appear in print. The rest were all tossed and would never see the light of day.

New Media has reader discussion right on the article itself, and if you want to contribute, you can do so easily.

The reason I say Old Media hates two-way communication is because they’ve never been able to handle it properly. As most know, Old Media was pulled into the internet kicking and screaming all the way. They labeled it as simply a fad that would go away. It didn’t. Instead it steamrolled right over them and they were forced to go online. But they still don’t know how to handle two-way communication and struggle with it consistently. I don’t believe this is going to change any time soon.

3. Edge.

Traditional journalism is not edgy and is best described as sober – almost to a fault. It’s bland reading that has no bite whatsoever. In other words, boring.

Edge in this context is not meant to imply gimmicky, sell-your-soul type of garbage. Rather it means that the author has to be willing to (gasp!) have an opinion and stick by it. With Old Media this is almost nonexistent, hence the blandness.

New Media more or less dictates, "It’s OK to have an opinion. Do it."

4. A chance for others to write and contribute their voice.

Something that everybody takes for granted is the ability to link web pages. At any time, you could start up your own blog for free (Windows Live Spaces, LiveJournal, Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, etc.), write up your own article and link back to this one as a reference. Or maybe you want to post a rebuttal article against this one. Or whatever. It doesn’t matter what it is. What matters is that you can do it. You can’t do that with print because you don’t have the circulation. With internet, your circulation is the world.

Is Old Media scared?

Yes, and has been for a while now. Print media readership has been dropping like a brick. All of them missed the boat with internet, and even though they’re all online now, they’re still not doing it right. New Media continues on its path of ushering in a new era of journalism.

I want to make clear that I do not want print media to go away. Newspapers and magazine are established and well-respected sources of news and information. I do not wish even for a second that they vanish into obscurity, as it would be very sad if that happened.

What Old Media needs to do is to stop treating New Media as "something we deal with only because we have to." Instead of rowing against the stream they should simply go with it. Otherwise they will be stomped out. Yes, stomped.

Are internet-only writers journalists?

The only person qualified to answer this question is you.

Do you feel that you get the same level of news and information online as you do with print?

Do you consider online content to have inferior, on par, or superior quality compared to print?

Does personality (with edge mentioned above) in content matter to you, or just the facts and only the facts?

If we added a comics section and a daily crossword puzzle, would PCMech be a "tech newspaper?"

Interesting questions, to be sure.

October marks the 4th quarter of ‘09 and that’s not too far away from now. This year more than others we’ve seen a good amount of tech yelled quite loudly in our direction, "THIS IS THE WAY IT’S GONNA BE!" Well.. not really.

Here’s a few examples.

Cloud Computing

This is a concept of computing that has been around for a very long time. Where it happened originally was in enterprise environments several years before what we know now as the internet existed.

The idea is sound with cloud computing. What isn’t sound is nobody knows how to deploy it in a cost effective way that actually works. That’s always been the problem and always will be.

Oddly enough, where the cloud works best is with home internet users. But in enterprise.. not so much.

E-Book Readers

This technology has not exactly caught on like gangbusters. But there were those who said it would earlier this year. It hasn’t.

E-Book tech at present is not mature enough for everybody to have an e-book reader as they would an iPod and/or cell phone, that much is clear.

Also the fact that you need a subscription and batteries just to read something doesn’t exactly fly over well with people.

"Green" I.T. Department

One of the huge buzzwords of ‘09 has been green. Green, green and more green. However you simply cannot walk into a production IT environment and say, "Guess what, everybody? We’re ditching the mainframe to save a few kilowatt hours!"

Anybody who would say that would be shown the door in short order.

The idea of a "green" IT environment has about the same chance of working as, say, a paperless environment.

Those who work in IT will get that joke.

Internet TV

We heard earlier in the year that providers like Hulu were going to change television forever. They didn’t. Nobody threw out their television sets. Nobody cancelled their cable or satellite subscriptions.

Like e-books, this technology cannot be shoved down people’s throats. It has to mature for a few years before people are willing to drop the cable company. And that time certainly isn’t now.

What tech do you think is "immature"?

Feel free to weigh in your opinion by posting a comment or two.

ReadWriteWeb posted their 2009 Web Predictions back in December 2008. We’re almost half-way thru 2009 at this point. Here’s a few from that list that were and weren’t (so far) true.

Yahoo sells to a big media company, but it won’t be Microsoft.

Status: Didn’t happen (yet – and that’s a big ‘yet’ because it might occur).

But Microsoft and Yahoo may develop a search and advertising partnership.

Facebook will continue to surprise

Status: Happening.

Unfortunately not in the way as expected. Facebook seems to have a new phishing problem every other week.

Twitter announces they have a plan to make money. They do.

Status: Happening.

There were itty bitty ads on profiles and Twitter is sure to be experimenting with other monetization techniques.

Google Reader gets themes.

Status: Didn’t happen.

I wish it would. It’s a good idea because the existing interface is about as pleasing as looking at a stack of envelopes.

Netbooks stay hot…get lighter, faster, thinner, but thanks to variable pricing from manufacturers, line between notebooks and netbooks blurs.

Status: Happened big time.

The netbook is the new laptop now, and the only thing really separating the old school from the new school is size – and price.

Digg still won’t be bought.

Status: Happened (and will most likely stay happened).

Nobody seems to be interested in picking up Digg at all and this hasn’t changed – especially after Google walked in 2008.

Twitter is the new Digg. Get used to it.

Facebook has one security incident too many, leading to a decline in popularity.

Status: Happened. Again, and again and again.

Can you say phishing?

Microsoft will launch a competing platform with Apple’s App Store. The reaction from the market will be underwhelming.

Status: Happened somewhat.

It’s called Windows Marketplace for Mobile, or Windows Mobile Catalog, or whatever they’re deciding to call it this week. Microsoft is just bad at names I guess. Microsoft is trying to be very nice to developers by offering a more open system compared to Apple. Is the market responding favorably? Too soon to tell.

The browser wars will further heat up, with Google throwing marketing dollars and distribution deals behind Chrome.

Status: Didn’t happen (yet).

However Google Chrome just released version 2.0. And Linux folks don’t exactly like it.

You can see more of the predictions here. 2009 is far from over yet..

Yahoo’s free web page service, Geocities, will be closing it’s doors before the end of 2009. Many of you would read this and say, "Yeah, so? Geocities sucks. Good riddance." And you would be correct with that judgment.

However something that most people don’t realize is that Geocities in its present form serves an archive of how the internet used to be.

With a few search terms it’s easy to find web pages in there that are over 10 years old. I’ll instruct how to search Geocities in just a bit.

How many web sites do you know of that aren’t billed as archives (like Internet Archive) that have user created content in its original untouched form that old? Probably not too many. The only ones you could probably think of are forums. One I can cite as an example is the phpBB2 Forum Archive. The 2.0.x Support Forum has 1.4 million posts in it, spanning 5,726 pages and post dates go all the way back to 2001. That’s a lot of content.

But as for user created web page content sites with user content as old as Geocities, there aren’t too many.

A short history of why people used Geocities in the first place

Getting a web page of your own during the late 1990s was rather difficult.

If you wanted your own dot-com/net/org, this usually cost you at least $30 yearly for registrar fees, not including web hosting costs on top of that. For most people that was way too expensive considering they already spent at least $20 monthly or more for dial-up internet access alone. In addition to that, it took as long as two weeks for a newly registered domain to propagate itself thru the internet so people could actually load it (whereas in modern day it usually takes less than 24 hours).

People wanted something free that could be activated instantly with little fuss. The two largest contenders of the day were Angelfire (which also still exists) and Geocities. Geocities was the better of the two. It was easier to use and didn’t have as many restrictions as to what you could put on there. It also loaded faster compared to the competition.

Geocities was also an early innovator in the respect they had a somewhat decent in-browser WYSIWYG HTML editor. So in case you didn’t know HyperText Markup Language, you could still make your pages.

You can consider Geocities the MySpace/Facebook of the late 1990s. Everybody had one and it was "cool" to have.

What made Geocities suck?

There were several things about the Geocities service that made it horrible.

First, you couldn’t connect it to anything. Each account was an island unto itself in the way that Yahoo controlled it. Prior to Yahoo’s acquisition there were "neighborhoods" of web pages, and could be considered  a very early version of social networking – but Yahoo stopped using that. That was a mistake.

It was such a mistake that it make the title of the service meaningless. The "cities" part was originally to indicate groups of users in said neighborhoods of the system. Yahoo completely killed that off, taking away all community aspect of the site.

Second, even though it was less restrictive compared to its competition, Geocities still had too many rules, and this bothered users to no end.

Third, it was static. You had to manually link pages and know how to do it. This proved to be very irritating in short order; it took a long time to update your own pages.

The thrill of having your own web page lost its luster quickly with the above three factors combined; it’s why most people abandoned Geocities altogether.

Is Geocities worth saving?

As a service, no, it’s not worth saving. The service does nothing but put a hole in Yahoo’s wallet and nobody uses it anymore.

But as an archive, yes it is. It’s a huge archive of people’s opinions, thoughts and quite a bit of instructional and historical documentation.

How to search Geocities for stuff

Using the site Google operator, go to Google and search like this:

site:geocities.com [search term here]

Example 1: site:geocities.com linux

Example 2: site:geocities.com ti-99

Example 3: site:geocities.com radio shack

Example 4: site:geocities.com "windows 95"

Example 5: site:geocities.com ASCII art

I’m betting you’ll find some useful information once you conduct a few searches. Or maybe just some interesting stuff. Who knows?

How to save Geocities web pages (or any web page for that matter)

You may have your own Geocities page(s) you want to archive for yourself. Or maybe archive some others.

There are three easy ways you can do it.

1. File / Save As – All modern web browsers have this function, however it separates out the images which can be a pain to deal with.
2. PDF Creator – Creates a virtual printer driver in Windows for making PDF files. When you "print" from the web browser, it creates a PDF of the web page you’re currently viewing. Works great and usually keeps all the formatting in check.
3. ScreenGrab for Firefox – An addon that has the ability to "save complete page" which includes what you see and also all the stuff when you scroll down as one image. Much easier than ALT+PrintScreen. Saves as PNG or JPEG images. I suggest setting it to JPEG so the files aren’t so huge (especially for really long web pages).

Why saving old internet stuff matters

Geocities has stuff that goes back beyond ten years (some stuff as old as 13), and there are opinions, information and otherwise you will find on that site and nowhere else. It is worth your time to spend at least a few minutes to see if there’s anything in there you want to archive, because once it’s gone it’s probably never coming back.

And yes, most of the content is total crap, but that’s how user generated internet content works. Geocities was the crap back then. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube is the crap of today. And we’ll have more crap in the future to be sure.

But our crap makes up the internet as a whole – and it should be archived.

Happy ‘09, everyone. Hope yours is a good one.

It is tradition in the United States that people make what’s called their "New Year’s Resolutions", i.e. a  to-do list of things they want to get done. This can be things such as losing a few pounds, paying off a few debts, getting some housework done, etc.

These are my tech resolutions. Will they happen? Maybe.

1. Switch to 64-bit computing.

This is all dependent on whether Windows 7 gets released this year or not. The cost to go 64-bit is roughly the same as 32-bit. Granted, I could go 64 now with Linux or Mac OS X (both have 64-bit releases), but what can I say… I’m a Windows guy.

(Edit: Yes I know there’s 64-bit Vista but I want 7 specifically.)

2. Get better at that whole social media thing.

Social media works. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo, YouTube, Flickr or whatever you use, it does work if you put effort into it. And when I say "effort" I mean creating relationships OTI that translate into IRL. You can have as many OTIs as you can muster but it matters more when human contact is achieved.

3. Host more PCMech Live shows.

There hasn’t been a live show for the past 2 weeks because of the holiday stuff. In addition to getting back into the swing of every Wednesday 8-10pm EST there will also be other shows added in there.

This isn’t a "maybe" on this list. It will happen.

4. Get a netbook.

The netbook is a super-small factor laptop with an 8 or 10-inch screen. These are the ultimate in portability, I really like them and their cheap. I haven’t bought one yet because the specs are not up to par in my opinion. If I’m going to get one it has to have at least a 256GB hard drive on board, 10 to 12-inch screen and a few other things – of which they don’t have yet.

But maybe by 2009 year’s end they will? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

For those that ask why I’m so hot on netbooks, it’s because they encompass what portable computers are all about, that being portable. Not "desktop replacements", not "chuck everything in there under the sun" and so on. Laptops are supposed to be small, light and portable, and nothing does it better than a netbook.

For those that say "iPhone!", you can take your touch-based scrunched keyboard and shove it. No thanks. I want a real computer with a real keyboard and trackpad that DOESN’T REQUIRE ME TO SUBSCRIBE TO A SERVICE just to use, thank you very much.

5. Backup more.

I do backup now but I really should backup more.

I will have to invest is some more USB sticks. Particularly 4GB ones. I’d rather use those over optical media any day because they’re far more reliable.

How about you?

Do you have a tech to-do for 2009?

In a few short months it’s going to be 2009, and a ton of stuff has changed in the world of computing over the past almost-ten years. Some of the modern advancements have proven to be a notable improvement while others still produce the same crapola they did nearly ten years ago.

In this installment we’ll be taking a look at blogging. The history of blogs has been a rollercoaster of ups and downs, authored by those of every age, race, creed, color, nationality, religion and whatever else you want to throw in the list. All emotions pour out in blogs and they are – said very simply – the best reading there is on the internet.

Where did “blog” come from?

Blog comes from weblog which is a shortened web log. This word originated to define a written series of web events, journal style. For example, some of the early web logs were simply internet technical journals outlining the progress on projects. These journals had more of a a personal touch and were easy-to-read compared to a manual (which was the whole point). In addition they could be updated at whim, and people genuinely appreciated this.

Web log turned into weblog and then simply blog for whatever reason. It is unknown when this happened or even why it did, but the word stuck like glue once it became blog.

Blog used to be only a noun, meaning “the journal itself”. But now it is also used as a verb where it literally means “to write on my online weblog”. So if you said “I’m going to blog that”, people know exactly what you mean.

Let’s take a look at how blogs have changed over the years.

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In a few short months it’s going to be 2009, and a ton of stuff has changed in the world of computing over the past almost-ten years. Some of the modern advancements have proven to be a notable improvement while others still produce the same crapola they did nearly ten years ago.

In this installment we’ll be taking a look at something called netiquette. This is the word etiquette with an n on the front to symbolize internet etiquette.

Netiquette is a word that’s been around a very long time. It is known to those that understand how to be polite and courteous, and that excludes the vast majority of the internet populous worldwide.

Let’s take a look at how netiquette has and hasn’t changed.

~ ~ ~

Etiquette is easy enough to understand; the word is literally defined as “Rules governing socially acceptable behavior”. However as far as your online behavior is concerned there are “rules” so-to-speak that only apply to the internet.

These rules I speak of aren’t technically rules. Netiquette is not like written law where you must obey it else you will be penalized. Rather it’s a set of online social guidelines. These guidelines change periodically as online technology changes.

The best way to exemplify netiquette is from what’s happened with text communication (particularly e-mail) over the years.

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In a few short months it’s going to be 2009, and a ton of stuff has changed in the world of computing over the past almost-ten years. Some of the modern advancements have proven to be a notable improvement while others still produce the same crapola they did nearly ten years ago.

In this installment we’ll be taking a look at something you’re using right now – the ISP. Where did it originate from and who really holds the “keys” to internet connectivity as we know it? You’ll find all this out in this article.

~ ~ ~

Anything that gets big over time always starts out small. A classic example of this is the Internet Service Provider, commonly referred to as the ISP.

Bear in mind that the ISP always starts (and usually ends) at the electric company. This may leave you scratching your head thinking, “How can the electric company be the beginning and end of all internet connectivity as we know it?”

Here’s how it all works:

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In a few short months it’s going to be 2009, and a ton of stuff has changed in the world of computing over the past almost-ten years. Some of the modern advancements have proven to be a notable improvement while others still produce the same crapola they did nearly ten years ago.

In this installment we’ll be taking a look at fixed disk drives (which you know as the hard disk drive or just hard drive).

~ ~ ~

In 1999 a “really big” hard drive (in reference to how much data capacity it could hold) was 20GB. An HDD of that size was prohibitively expensive and most people didn’t have anything that large. Remember, this was a few years before Microsoft Windows XP came into existence so most people used a 1GB and 2GB drive for a variety of reasons.

The first reason was volume limitations.

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Mandriva Linux 2009 now available

Back in 1998 (a long time before many people ever heard of that thing called "Linux"), Mandrakelinux (sometimes just called "Mandrake") was released. People liked it. A lot. Well here we are ten years later and Mandrake, now under the name Mandriva, has a new release.

It’s packed with GNOME v2.24, OpenOffice 3, Firefox 3, kernel 2.6.27 and a bunch more stuff. Read more about it (and by all means, download and try it out for yourself).

Google will (finally) get RSS for web search results

With just about any Google service you can get an RSS feed for it. That is everything except the one thing they do best – web search.

In about a month or less you will finally be able to get search results as RSS feeds. This is great for those of us who use RSS often (such as yours truly). Read more about it.

YouTube puts in audio preview feature for comment posting

As many people are aware, YouTube has the absolute worst web "community" on the face of the internet. It’s horrible. Actually, scratch that – it’s beyond horrible. So horrible there is absolutely no possible way it could ever be fixed.

However, YouTube (owned by the GOOG) continues to try to make sense out of that mess and has put in a new button when you go to post a comment called "Audio Preview". It’s exactly what you think it is. Write a comment, hit the button and the site speaks back what you typed.

And no it will not pronounce "OMG WTF THIS IS SO STOOPID GIVE ME MY 2 MINUTES BACK" correctly. Read more about it here (or go try it out for yourself).

The Woz says iPod is a dead horse

Do you know who Steve Wozniak is? If you’re an Apple fan you do.

Well anyway, he basically more or less said the iPod is dead. Yep. Woz also thinks the iPhone is going to live a very short life also. Read more about it here. (Be sure to read the part about how Apple’s stock is completely in the toilet too.)

In a few short months it’s going to be 2009, and a ton of stuff has changed in the world of computing over the past almost-ten years. Some of the modern advancements have proven to be a notable improvement while others still produce the same crapola they did nearly ten years ago.

In this installment we’ll be taking a look at e-mail.

~ ~ ~

The first experience I had with internet was in the late 1990s with web browsing. The second was e-mail.

E-Mail is one of those forms of communication that will exist as long as computers do. Through thick and thin, e-mail has survived the test of time and is still considered to be an absolute vital means of internet communications.

Electronic mail does predate the internet all the way back to 1966 when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wanted a means to send electronic messages from computer to computer – and did so successfully.

The internet as we know it today still uses e-mail widely and shows absolutely no signs of slowing down.

Let’s take a look at how e-mail has changed from 1999 to 2009.

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In a few short months it’s going to be 2009, and a ton of stuff has changed in the world of computing over the past almost-ten years. Some of the modern advancements have proven to be a notable improvement while others still produce the same crapola they did nearly ten years ago.

In this installment we’ll be taking a look at portable media.

Portable media

Everyone knows what a hard disk drive is, abbreviated HDD. However this is what’s termed as a “fixed disk”, i.e. one that stays within the computer that is not designed to be moved from place to place.

In the portable media arena there are four types that most people remember:

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Note: This is the short version. Last week on my personal blog I wrote a very long-winded article about the Garmin City Navigator North America NT Map Update 2009. And yes the title of the product is in fact that long. But anyway, if you want to read up on what I think Garmin needs to do in order to keep up with the times as far as map updating goes, read up if you wish.

If you have a Garmin StreetPilot c3xx, c5xx, the big units like the 2720/2730 or any nuvi series and live in North America, this update applies to you. No, it is not free and yes, that makes people upset they have to pay for it. However that’s the way things are at present with Garmin and map updates.

We’ll leave the pay factor aside for the time being and concentrate on how to make the map update process smooth and easy.

Step 1. Where to get it?

Register your Garmin GPS at the Garmin web site. All you need is the unit so you can enter in the serial number that’s physically printed on it.

Once registered you will have the option to purchase the update you need.

Step 2. DVD or download?

Get the DVD in the mail. The download takes way too long. Remember, it is a DVD’s worth of information we’re talking about.

Step 3. Install the latest Garmin USB drivers.

Grab those from here. It’s a fast install and painless. To note: Windows (and even OS X) will usually automatically install the drivers, but it’s better to get them manually just to be on the safe side.

Step 4. Plug in the GPS to your computer.

Step 5. CLOSE apps

This is the #1 reason why people have any problem with updating a Garmin GPS. They have a bunch of CRAP running, such as instant messengers, web browsers and so on. This does nothing but SLOW THE PROCESS DOWN. Whether your using Windows or OS X, close those frickin’ apps and KEEP them closed until the update is completed.

Step 6. Pop in the DVD and follow the instructions.

Step 7. Wait. A long time.

The update process takes 1 to 2 hours to complete.

For those wondering why it takes so unbelievably long to complete, remember once again we’re talking about a DVD’s worth of data here transferring over USB. Have you ever transferred over 4GB of data over USB? If you have then you know how long it takes.

There many be instances where the updating program appears to lock up. Trust me when I say it’s not. You just have to wait and be patient. It will complete.

I have performed map updates several times on several different Garmin GPS units. It always takes a long time. As long as you have no apps (or as little apps as possible) running and are patient, the update will complete successfully.

The 2009 update to date has been the easiest by far. The updater app did exactly what it was supposed to do and now I enjoy the latest-and-greatest map data set on my c580.

How to report map inaccuracies

If while driving you see a road that is marked incorrectly, or the intersection that is labeled wrong, or a business listed that is no longer there or the like, remember the following:

Garmin does not provide the map data.

NAVTEQ does.

If you want to report a map inaccuracy, head over to mapreporter.navteq.com. This is where you report inaccuracies. It’s free and stupidly easy to report map errors there.

So if you ever wondered how you can easily report map issues, there you go. No calling or e-mailing necessary.