Remember Aldus PageMaker . . . or Desktop Publishing

Remember Aldus PageMaker
or
Desktop Publishing

Excel might have put the Mac on everyone’s radar, but PageMaker put the Mac on everyone’s DESK!! SPOILER ALERT – I once went to a demo by Microsoft unveiling a new product …. EXCEL 1.0 ON THE MAC!

FULL Disclosure: My first thought on using Excel was for keeping track of … HOCKEY POOLS!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: And the first PageMaker project I worked on … was for Musical Scores! And I can’t carry a tune in a bag .. but I could print out the concert songs!

Desktop Publishing was THE hot concept in the 1980s! But I was doing the “yet to be named”, Desktop Publishing, even BEFORE it became a buzzword application! Yes, I formally declare that I now claim to have invented Desktop Publishing! But I chose to release it into the free range, organic wild and thus everyone benefits to Infinity … AND BEYOND!

My first teaching job after graduating was quite unique – I helped to run a small computer classroom of VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computers, teaching a module of Computer Literacy for adult students. There were minimal course requirements, other than .. computer literacy! I was literally designing courses, teaching them and re-designing them ON THE FLY! I was doing this during the day at my regular job and then doing it AGAIN AT NIGHT for what was very similar to what Continuing Studies is now at UVIC! It was absolutely thrilling and terrifying … AT THE SAME TIME! Good times … good times!

So, faced with NO curriculum, NO textbook, NO workbook and … NO INTERNET – I had to improvise on a daily basis … actually more of an HOURLY BASIS! Once I found out I could DESIGN AND ‘PUBLISH’ my own resources in-house – Desktop Publishing was born!

Over the course of the next 2 years or so, I wrote numerous manuals, guides, workbooks, handbooks and even a manual for SpeedScript, a free word processor for the C-64! Hint: That might even be a future Bog Blog post!

They were all tailored for the academic units I worked for! I literally used cut and paste OLD SCHOOL with scissors and tape, cutting out cartoons, printing text on dot matrix printers and handing a final mock-up version to the Printing Department in the basement! Then and only then I could exercise final creative editorial decisions such as .. colour of the front cover and colour of the magic coils to bind them all! The magic of double-sided tape is severely under-rated!

A few titles are below and you can click on each one to get a larger image in a new tab. But come back here!

Business Education Computer Literacy Instructor’s Course Handbook

Hotel and Restaurant Computer Literacy Student Handbook

Fast Forward a few years to working at UVic in the relatively new CALL Facility and Desktop Publishing has a brand new KILLER APP – ALDUS PAGEMAKER! And then it became ADOBE PAGEMAKER! Nothing like re-branding a product after it is bought out!

And how did I get involved in even MORE ‘Adventures in Desktop Publishing’? I was the only one who knew how to use a Macintosh at the time – a screaming fast Mac II!

And how did I actually LEARN how to use PageMaker at the time? I had a Secret Plan which I will now share with you! I was given about 42 academic papers to be published. And they literally came in on paper, floppies (Mac/WIN), 5.25″ floppy and in every possible format at the time – text, Word, WordPerfect, email, etc. My only recourse, which proved successful, was to pre-select which paper to work on FIRST!

I ranked all the papers from what I thought was EASIEST to HARDEST and jumped into the deep end of the Apple Laserwrite Toner Pool! AND IT WORKED!

I taught myself one new technique, one new feature, one new .. SOMETHING with each and every new submission that required special editing! Image placement, borders, indents, importing, saving, data recovery and the single most important feature I already knew – BACKUP! BACKUP! BACKUP!

It may seem trivial now in the age of 128G USB thumbdrives, but I only had a single CD-ROM burner to make backups on CD! And so it would take about an hour to prepare a weekly, or sometimes daily, backup to make sure nothing was ever lost!

I produced a series of Conference Programmes, booklets and proceedings over the next 3 years as The CALL Facility became a focus of literally, world wide attention – thanks to the efforts of Mary Sanseverino and Dr. Peter Liddell. Yup, using their names here, as they deserve all the credit for pulling this off!!! And that includes INVENTING THE CALL FACILITY TOO!

TRIPLE Full Disclosure: Mary hired me way back in the Fall of 1989 and Peter had hired Mary only a few months earlier too! And the rest is history!

If you were to go up to a current generation of digitally saavy and internet trained students from birth, I bet they would not have even HEARD of the concept of ‘Desktop Publishing’! But OH, do they know everything about social media, Insta-everything, searching and RELYING on the internet for education, training and careers! And that is a VERY GOOD THING!

Students can whip up an absolutely jaw-dropping webpage with so many applications (computer, phone, tablet) that I won’t even bother listing them. There are websites that help you make websites! And companies that specialize in publishing with free software! You can design and print your own book in a fraction of the time it took me!

Absolutely astonishing! It took me 6 months the first time I put together the CCALL2 proceedings. And about half that time, the SECOND proceedings! I am definitely ‘Old School’ – digitally!

And the usual assortment of recently searched interesting links, videos and other cool stuff – but beware, you will probably never ever use PageMaker …. but you never know!

Enjoy!

Desktop Publishing – Wikipedia
Adobe PageMaker – Wikipedia
Aldus – Wikipedia
Aldus Pagemaker 1985
30 Years Ago, Aldus PageMaker Changed Life on Planet Earth
Aldus PageMaker 5.x
Aldus PageMaker 1
Aldus PageMaker: The First Widely-Used Desktop Publishing Program
Aldus Pagemaker: The Mac’s Savior?
Aldus PageMaker Introduced
Aldus Pagemaker
Four reasons the LaserWriter mattered
Apple Laserwriter – Wikipedia
List of Apple printers – Wikipedia

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

“If you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”

72 Short Cut Key
Adobe PageMaker

History of Desktop Publishing

History of Desktop Publishing (DTP)

The Computer Chronicles
Desktop Publishing Part I (1986)

The Computer Chronicles
Desktop Publishing Part II (1986)

The Dawn of Desktop Publishing
Computerphile

The Apple IIC and Imagewriter II
Desktop Publishing in the 1980s

The Font Wars
Postscript, TrueType, the Mac
and the Success of Desktop Publishing

“Your son carved his initials in his wooden classroom desk and argued he was doing desktop publishing.”

Terrific Tuesday and and More Favourite Posters and Cartoons

Terrific Tuesday
and More Favourite
Posters and Cartoons!

Another very busy day this morning! I started with a different OAC Bog Blog Post about Desktop Publishing!

But soon, we were TEAMing more test scripts for Adam! I am testing scripts in Mail using macOS Catalina So the Desktop Publishing Bog Blog will be tomorrow … unless more stuff comes up! And a full CHD Training Session after lunch too! AWESOME!

And just a peek at a Desktop Publishing cartoon too! And, so true … so very, very true!

So some fun posters and cartoons over the past few years to round out the day and keep my daily OAC Bog Blog post going!

Sometimes the image has to be reduced in visible size, to meet the installed theme here. Just click on the images and a bigger, original sized graphic will appear in a new tab.

Throwback Thursday and Some Favourite Posters and Cartoons

Throwback Thursday
Some Favourite
Posters and Cartoons!

A really long day, intensive TEAMS work testing out Mail scripts and TOTES THANKS to all my TEAMS-mates for helping out!

So some fun posters and cartoons over the past few years to round out the day and keep my daily OAC Bog Blog post going!

Shall We Play a Game . . . or Fictional Computers

Shall We Play a Game
or
Fictional Computers

None of these computers actually exist except in the imaginations of the authors! SPOILER ALERT – hard to distinguish between fictional computers and Artificial Intelligence – so …. no critics and besides …. my blog!

Full Disclosure: I have collected and read science fiction for most of my life and consider The Matrix to be a documentary, not a movie! LOL!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: As far as these OAC Bog Blog posts go …. ‘I’ll be back’!

So I WILL mix media here, including movies, television and literature!

One of my favourite movie computers is WOPR (pronounced ‘WHOPPER’ in WarGames from 1983! Think about it – a movie BEFORE Apple invented … THE MACINTOSH!

A teenage hacker finds the backdoor password to a Top Secret computer designed to run scenarios of ‘games’ including ‘Global Thermonuclear Warfare’, except … they aren’t GAMES! His hardware – a modem and smarts to figure out what the backdoor password is! There are SO many memes about this movie and it is a hoot to watch. And the ending is actually very good! I highly recommend it!

Even ‘The Avengers’ has made a sly reference to it from Black Widow and Captain America!

Shall we play a game?

In the scene where the Black Widow boots up SHIELD’s supercomputer from a bygone era, she asks Captain America, “Shall we play a game?”, with Captain America replying, “Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?” This is a reference to a line from WarGames, a 1983 Cold War sci-fi film

So as to destroy ANY sense of mystery or surprises, my favourite science fiction computer is named ‘Obie’ from Jack L. Chalker’s ‘Well World‘ series.

Obie is one of the rare fictional computers that actually are at times, more human than humans. Obie is kind, smart, confused and self-aware. SPOILER – he was ‘killed’, then came back and then …. one of the best parts of this series! Check it out!

Yeah, not many of you have probably heard of these books, but they are absolutely amazing! Simply put, Obie is designed by an ancient race called Markovians … to manipulate the basic fabric of the universe. Imagine the monthly updates with Obie!

Chalker was a PROLIFIC author, but the first book in the series, ‘Midnight at the Well of Souls‘ then you will be hooked for life on ALL of his books! AND THERE ARE MANY!

Another helpful computer is HOLMES IV (Mike), in Robert A. Heinlein’s ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress‘.

Okay sure, he helped a lunar revolution but he has a wicked sense of humour and becomes friends with Mannie! And for why HOLMES IV is referred to as ‘Mike’, well let’s just say it was part of Heinlein’s wicked sense of humour!

The most well known computers in film include HAL-9000 (2001), ‘The Matrix’, the Holodeck and Data (Star Trek), Cerebro (X-Men), Skynet (Terminator), Arnim Zola (Captain America), Jarvis/Ultron/Vision (Iron Man(s)+), Mother (Alien) and Deep Thought (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and there are so many more in the popular genre, both recently and for many years. Here is a List of Fictional Computers , that is also at the bottom of this post.

But I want to point out a few obscure computers, such as:

KITT (Knight Rider) in Knight Rider – Elon Musk has NOTHING on this vehicle! Snarky, sarcastic AND can catch criminals too! Basically the Love Child of a Cylon and a TESLA! I will buy the first vehicle from TESLA that can do this! (Batmobile aside…..)

Colossus in Colossus! This computer was Skynet before Skynet! It ws the first of a trilogy and was one of the first science fiction books I read AND collected as a kid! It was even turned into a movie, Colossus: The Forbin Project! One of those ‘so bad it is good!’ kind of movies – if only for the technology!

And perhaps one of the most obscure computers comes from the first ever release by, of all people, George Lucas!

Yes, THAT George Lucas famous for that Star thing series! OMM in THX1138 by George Lucas! It was basically his thesis from USC and I remember GOING to this movie in 1971 and coming out thinking this was the weirdest movie I had ever seen! But, he ended up making a few more lesser know movies too! LOL!

THX 1138 OMM – On the other hand, maybe too much benevolence is a bad thing, too. Before “Star Wars,” even before “American Graffiti,” George Lucas created this highly experimental and hallucinatory filmed dystopia, all the more striking for being done on a small budget (exactly $777,777.77) with mostly found locations. His sterile and drug-controlled future world has one spiritual dimension, a sort of cybernetic father-confessor figure named OMM, with whom one communes in a chapel that resembles a phone booth. The feedback one received from OMM was reminiscent of the old AI program ELIZA, where soothing generalities and “but what about you?”-style questions sufficed to convince some people an actual human being was at the other end.

And one last one that you might never have heard of from the SEQUEL to 2001! Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2010: Odyssey Two and it was turned into a movie as well, with SAL-9000 the ‘upgrade’ to HAL-9000 who had terrible social skills. But was always willing to go on a ‘bicycle built for two‘ – perhaps the first ever Smart Car technology?

And the usual assortment of recently searched interesting links, videos and other cool stuff – but beware, most of the computers are .. bad, very bad!

Enjoy!

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

Shall We Play a Game?

That Scene from WarGames

HAL Sings Daisy
(Bicycle Built for Two)

Chris Noessel: Lessons of Science Fiction
Computer Interfaces

I’m Sorry Dave
I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That

Data on the Holodeck
Star Trek: TNG

The Well of Souls
by Jack L. Chalker

Top 13 Quotes
of Jack L. Chalker

Open the Pod Bay Door HAL. . . or Computers I Have Owned or Worked With

Open the Pod Bay Door HAL
or
Computers I Have
Owned or Worked With!

Not exactly comforting assistance from a computer/AI blend there, Stanley! SPOILER ALERT – I might give away some movie endings! (Psssssst… did you know there was a sequel to 2001?)

Full Disclosure:Every single computer listed below, with the exception of HAL, really existed!!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: I have owned and still own, most of these computers, oh, except for HAL! Yeah, I am a real packrat as far as computers go! And most still work too!

HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Dave: What’s the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave: I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.

Perhaps the most famous computer in all of film history – the HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey! But this post is not about how computers or AI go awry! That will be a future post! This post is about all the computers that I have worked and/or owned since the first day I actually SAW A COMPUTER! Yup, life changing moment and it involved … GOLF!

The first computer I ever ‘saw’ was on a trip to a Life Insurance company through the youth program at my church. We were in this huge room and a giant golden tube was behind glass. The ‘terminal’ was a teletype style typewriter and … we played GOLF on it by simply typing a number!

‘1’ was a 1-Wood and you hit ‘Return’ and it typed out something like ‘200 yards. Straight down fairway’. And that absolutely fascinated me!

The first computer I ever OWNED was a kit from Science Fair named ‘SF-5000 Electronic Digital Computer‘! I spent HOURS cutting wire, measuring it to fit the distance between connections and then I was rewarded with a ‘2 + 2 = 4’ on the ‘monitor’ across the top of the kit! And then I would do it all over again on a different project! I don’t have the computer anymore, but somewhere in my basement, is the Owner’s Manual! I will have to dig it out and look at it soon! MADE IN CANADA TOO!

Then in High School, Grade 10, I became the proud owner of a Texas Instrument SR-51A with a ‘Pod Bay Door’ to put in dedicated chips! I was on top of the computing world! I still have it! It doesn’t work. But I still have it!

Then on to the University of Calgary and using the Mainframes there! I don’t remember what KIND of mainframe, only that I had to present my stack of punched cards to the ‘Elders of Data’, they would present my offering to the Oracle (card reader!) and I would then lovingly be handed back my offering. Then wait 15 minutes for the printout and find I had a spelling mistake in my FORTRAN code! Then fix the ONE punched card and … repeat!

But then, I entered the Faculty of Education and was hired as a TA for a grad course ‘Computers in Education’ and had access to a PDP 1170 and my own teletype! It was Nerd Heaven for me! My very own (almost a..) mainframe computer!

And then in the early 1980’s I did some volunteer work and had access to an Apple computer that a high school had bought with the proceeds of a ‘Cake Sale’ Fundraiser and they did not know what to do with it!

Turns out, I used it in my student teaching practicum year and absolutely transfixed all the staff and students in the school I was a Student Teacher in! BEST.TEACHING.RESOURCE.EVER!

And then the dreaded INEVITABLE HAPPENED! I had taken TOO MANY COURSES, HAD PASSED THEM ALL and … they made me graduate from the University of Calgary! D’Oh!

And my first ‘real’ job was working with the finest (and cheapest!) home computing power that has ever been used in the history of computing – COMMODORE COMPUTERS! My first classroom had Commodore VIC-20 computers, then were upgraded to Commodore-64s and I was tech support for all the PET computers as well! Basically – I was The Computer Help Desk for an entire building! LOL! And we even had 3 Commodore PC computers running WordPerfect at the time!

Then I bought my first REAL computer – the Commodore SX-64! 25 POUNDS of ‘luggable’ computing power! And I still have it and it still works! I can play C-64 games on it and can hook it up to my 45″ tv! Still works! Grinds and clunks away and I brought it to our Systems Open House a few years ago!

Fast forward to moving to Victoria and buying my first Macintosh – the venerable Mac SE with TWO FLOPPY DRIVES AND 1 MB OF RAM! Awesome! What worlds would I conquer with this screaming hot computer! Turns out …. not too many! And again, and this sounds like an echo … echo … echo …. I STILL HAVE IT AND IT STILL RUNS!

And then a sequence of buying only Macintosh computers: Mac LC520, Graphite iMac G3 and 27″ iMac that is now TEN YEARS OLD! Yes, I am still using a TEN YEAR OLD COMPUTER – but as my media centre for Apple TV and other videos and stuff! And … insert echo here … IT STILL WORKS!

Fast Forward to working at home now! Thanks to Allison, Patrick, Adam and everyone AT CHD and I have a nice Dell Latitude laptop, my daughter’s old ‘Zelda ‘ quality monitor and enough computing power to … work from home!

If anything, working with computers through the years describes one undeniable fact about technology – there will ALWAYS be a faster and more powerful computer coming … soon. But make use of what you have, use your imagination and you can do amazing things!

You might not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but you can use old computers to do new tricks like YouTube, digital videos, webpages, audio, page layout and watch … The Avengers!

And the usual assortment of recently searched interesting links, videos and other walks down memory lane …. literally if the memory involves RAM chips!

PS: And I own an iPhone SE now … but it is 4 years old and ….
IT STILL WORKS! LOL!

Enjoy!

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

Open the Pod Bay Doors Hal

The Computer That Changed Everything
Altair 8800 – Computerphile

1977 Tandy Digital Computer

Commodore SX-64 Computer Review

1984 Apple’s Macintosh Commercial

“It’s a fantastic computer! It’s so old that none of today’s hackers know how to hack it!”

Is Your DOSsier Up To Date – Best Do a CHKDSK

Is Your DOS – sier
Up to Date?
Best Do a CHKDSK!

DOS is not exactly a buzzword, nor will it ever trend ever, ever again. SPOILER ALERT – this is REALLY OLD TECHNOLOGY!

Full Disclosure: I have even worked on OLDER technology (punched cards) that made DOS seem like sliced bread when it came out!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: The single greatest computer program ever used in The CALL Facility for languages … needed DOS! And …. IT IS STILL RUNNING!

Yes, the first ever computer program that was used in The CALL Facility was a package of 4 languages – French, German, Italian and Russian! And the operating system used was called MS-DOS – short for DISK OPERATING SYSTEM!

How can an operating system from the mid-1980’s, still be operating on MACINTOSH COMPUTERS, which did not even EXIT until 1984, and still be useful? It is technological MAGIC!

I really don’t know HOW they work, but they do! And this would have been the LAST summer for McBookmaster French with LMF! Our resident CHD Magician is Patrick F. and he knows all the special commands and magical chants to make it work on dual-boot iMac computers running Windows 10, running DOS Box! THANKS PATRICK!

And this computer record will never be broken – McMaster French has been running for over 30 YEARS and has never once crashed! NEVER! And it has served its’ purpose well – Beginner French, simple text correction, grammar rules and instant feedback! ALL STATE OF THE ART back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s!

Below are some sample screens of what was presented to a student. And this was WELL before any kind of security involving ANY kind of UVic credentials. You simply turned the computer on and selected from a menu of language programs. Good times, good times!

I always enjoyed introducing this software to French students as they would be ‘Time Travelling’ to a distant past where Bill Gates was only a MILLIONAIRE, when the only mouse in the room was a biologic, and that they really needed to know where the arrow keys, CTRL, ATL, DEL and ESC keys were on an ACTUAL CLICKY KEYBOARD!

And to actually exit the program, you had to hit a sequence of keys, then get to the command line and actually type: exit … or logoff … or quit …. I CAN’T REMEMBER! LOL!

And there were no keyboard shortucuts either! Raw computing power harnessed for the good of education! Good times, good times!

To type the answer, the EXACT ANSWER FROM START TO FINISH, required using combinations of keys that often resulted in a sprained wrist, especially for RUSSIAN!

I remember Mary S., the CALL ‘expert’ at the time, fussing and fuming about fonts, .exe, .bat and .cnf files and making sure our ‘network’ of computers were all working! AND THEY DID! Mary did back then, what Patrick does no! LOL!

The Continuing Studies French Summer Immersion La Maison Française, relied on this software for MANY years after it was no longer “de rigueur” by any other Instructors. But alas, technology has surpassed even the oldest of computer programs. The last time I spoke with the Instructors using McBookMaster, they were ‘okay’ with not using it anymore, if it could not be installed on pending new hardware/software and operating systems!

The software worked REALLY WELL! And it served its’ purpose and can now go enter as the first member of ‘The CALL Facility Software Hall of Fame‘!

ALLONS – Y!

And at the time, we did have other MS-DOS based programs for other languages. We even had an Apple IIe with dual floppy disks to run LATIN PROGRAMS! Sadly, we removed this hardware years ago. Too bad, it would have fit really well with our Systems Open House a few years ago!

What happened after MS-DOS? Not many people remember but the first ever version of WINDOWS in CALL was actually written FOR MS-DOS and was really just a cosmetic version of MS-DOS itself!

Once you booted to DOS, you than would ‘run’ WINDOWS as an executable file! WOW! And then, the rest is history!

And the usual assortment of recently searched interesting links, videos and other walks down memory lane …. literally if the memory involves RAM chips!

Enjoy!

DOS – Wikipedia
Timeline of DOS operating systems – Wikipedia
MS-DOS – Encyclopedia Britannica
MS-DOS: The Operating System You Loved To Hate
50 Underrated DOS Games
MS-DOS Commands
HUMOUR for DOS USERS
MS-DOS Characteristics
What is DOS?
DOS (Disk Operating System)
Operating Systems (DOS/WINDOWS)
U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Floppy Disks

A master was explaining the nature of the Tao to one of his novices,
“The Tao is embodied in all software — regardless of how insignificant,”
said the master.
“Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?” asked the novice.
“It is,” came the reply.
“Is the Tao in a video game?” continued the novice.
“It is even in a video game,” said the master.
“And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?“
The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. “The lesson is
over for today,” he said.
— Geoffrey James, “The Tao of Programming”

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

All Versions of MS-DOS
1.0 – 8.0

How to Run DOS Games
on a Mac

MS-DOS 6.22
Best OS . . . Ever?

Basic DOS Commands

How to Pick the Best
Gaming Laptop for MS-DOS Games

The Computer Chronicles
MS-DOS 6.2 (1993)

Working From Home . . . What Could Go Wrong?

Working From Home . . .
What Could Go Wrong?!

DEFINITELY NOT my most productive morning since working from home!

Full Disclosure: Having a relatively frustrating morning, with, you guessed it … my computer! So, probably a short post today.

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: Taking a Tea Time Out, breathing and … over it now!

FIRST AND FOREMOST – amazing colleagues! I can’t say enough about everyone I work with at the Computer Help Desk! Thanks everyone! And they are doing the same for Students, Staff and Faculty with knowledge, humour and steadfast patience!

My laptop went wonky this morning! Still a bit wonky, but still doing what it does best – allow me to work from home during these interesting times! Everyone was quick to help, offer suggestions and give advice and I am back doing my morning OAC post!

The only downside, would seem to be my bookmarks/Favourites in Edge have gone rogue! And if THAT is the worst thing that has happened on ‘Yet Another Manic Monday‘, then I am good to go with that! I spent the better part of the morning finding and re-setting my bookmarks and access to them. NAILED IT! Well, maybe … THUMBTACKED IT!

I had to take my own advice and just … let it go! I can easily, slowly, rebuild my Favorites and just keep on working at home! A few things that I always try to remember and put into perspective:

PERSPECTIVE! Yup, just how important is it.
Tea! Better than coffee for stress reduction
Meditation – just letting things go. Thanks to Henri at UVic’s Multifaith!
1. Breathing … kind of a sub-category, at least for me!

Not too much more. Those work for me and me alone. Yes, a big bag of oversimplification, but, it works for me.

So, a perspective story! My lawnmower started on the second try this weekend! YAY! But the rip cord to start it .. RIPPED OUT! So, standing there, lawnmower RUNNING and no way to start it again … Command Line Decision – just start cutting and don’t stop! Just like in Finding Nemo – “Just keep swimming!”, except … mowing the lawn!

I even emptied the catch bag – WHILE IT WAS RUNNING – and kept on mowing! Whew, finished frontyard, lane, alleyway and backyard in about 50 minutes while on FULL THROTTLE!

Makes a good story and then the best part – there are kits to replace the staring cable for under $10!

In hindsight,it was not as stressful as at the moment! But … I decided to …. just keep mowing, just keep mowing and it relieved my stress! Thanks Dori!

I also did a previous post on “Relieving Stress . . . International Words and Self-Care Trends”

And I leave you with some great UVic and other sites on stress including BC and Canadian government sites.

Enjoy!

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

Most Insane Lawnmowers

Kopi and Kaffee and Café and Kafés and … COFFEE in Different Languages

Kopi and Kaffee
Café and Kafés
and
Coffee in Different Languages!

I install JAVA every single morning! And I tend to update it again within hours! And you probably know where I am going with this – COFFEE!!!!

Full Disclosure: I am drinking coffee right now, as in … RIGHT NOW!!!! And the rumours are true … I have a coffee mug shaped like … The TARDIS!

Ah, that morning nectar, that brown liquid ambrosia, that chocolate wine, that beige magic … and … enough with Thesaurus.com!

And below are just a few of the many words for coffee in other languages!

Chinese: 咖啡 (Kāfēi)
Malay: Kopi
French: Café
German: Kaffee
Japanese: コーヒー (Kōhī)
Korean: 커피 (Keopi)
Portuguese: Café
Russian: Кофе (Kofe)
Spanish: Café
Afrikaans: Koffie
Dutch: Koffie
Finnish: Kahvi
Greek: Καφές (Kafés)
Hindi: कॉफ़ी (Kofee)
Icelandic: Kaffi
Romanian: Cafea
Swedish: Kaffe

Did you know that coffee dates back to 800 A.D.? And that in Arabic, it literally translates into ‘wine’! Cool! There are multiple links below, as always, and you can try a few out and find out even MORE interesting facts about the World’s Most Popular Beverage, by far – if you don’t count … TEA!

And what about coffee here in Victoria! You basically practice some Italian every time you go into a Starbucks – Grande, Venti, And Trenta. But what about some great coffee locations here in Victoria!

Full Disclosure – I like ALL the coffee shops in town! They are all amazing! But the best part of coffee is always … the conversation and companionship with coffee buddies! Check out CoffeeCrew.com for a list of all the great LOCAL coffee shops here in town, updated to April of this year! Nope, I don’t get anything from this at all. It is just a great site for finding local coffee! And you probably already know who runs the site!

And, the whole idea of the topic of this blog, originated in yesterdays’ blog about Made Up Languages in movies. Specifically, the Heptapod B language!

Why? Because it was described at one site as a ‘Coffee Stain‘ language! What a great segue, eh! Oh and one more cool site about Arrival and Linguistics!

And I leave you with some great coffee sites to peruse on your next Java Break!

Enjoy!

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

Coffee Facts

The Basics
About Coffee

WEIRDEST Facts
About Coffee

7 Facts About Coffee
That You Probably Didn’t Know

How to Order a Coffee in Italy

How to Order a Coffee in Greece

How to Order a Coffee in Russia

How to Order a Coffee in Japan

pe’vIl mu’qaDmey . . . or Curse Well in Klingon . . . or Made Up Movie Languages

pe’vIl mu’qaDmey
or . . .
Curse Well in Klingon
or . . .
Made Up Movie Languages!

Now you know how to gracefully exit yet another Klingon late night gaming party! You never know when learning Klingon will save your life!

Full Disclosure: Contrary to many rumours, I do not speak Klingon. I just like to have the Netflix Closed Caption on for any Science Fiction movie that has … space languages!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: Early disclosure but my favourite made up language is from the movie ‘Arrival‘. Not only is it a fabulous movie, but they managed to add something new to a language that is CRITICAL to the storyline! WARNING!:- spoilers below about what that is!

The most popular and well known ‘Alien’ language is without a doubt, Klingon! Star Trek has become part of our Pop Culture ever since Spock first said ‘Illogical’. For many years, I would imbed an ‘Easter Egg’ in my CALL Facility demos that had Klingon as one of the many courses taught at UVic. And then … IT REALLY HAPPENED!

And of course, one of the biggest blockbusters of all time, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and prequel The Hobbit, contain MANY made up languages by J.R.R. Tolkien! And another UVic course was offered as well, but treating Middle Earth more as a history course than a Linguistics course!

And even more blockbuster movies contained made up languages: Avatar (Na’vi), Arrival (Heptapod B), Despicable Me (Minion), Serenity (The Galactic Language), Harry Potter (Parseltongue), Cloud Atlas (Old Georgie) and one not for the faint of heart in A Clockwork Orange (Nadsat).

SPOILER ALERT!: And my favourite of them all, that would be top of my own list to learn would be ….. HEPTAPOD B! This is a language that is quite literally … FLUID or maybe SMOKE or maybe SENTIENT INK! And it allows for Time Travel! There simply is no other cooler language than Heptapod B! I will be the first to register when it is offered at UVic!

And if Heptapod B ever IS offered at UVic, since it is a Time Travel kind of language, you would never have to do any homework because … you would have already learned it! That is my kind of course!

Imagine ordering Take Out in …. Heptapod B! They would already know when and what you wanted and it would arrive … INSTANTLY! So many benefits!

And I leave you with the best Elvish script from The Lord of the Ring:

Enjoy!

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

ENJOY! TTFN!

Arrival’s Linguistic Relativity
and Time Perception

Top 10
Fictional Languages

Arrival
Embrace the Problem of Language

Arrival: Sabotaged
Diplomacy Scene

Accent Expert Breaks Down
6 Fictional Languages

4 Fictional Languages
You Can Learn

5 Fictional Languages
You Can Actually Learn

Artlang: A Compilation of
Movie and TV Clips

J.R.R. Tolkien Reads
A Poem in Elvish

Of Unconscious and Precocious Surveillance of Foudroyant Chrysanthemums . . or Hard to SPELL English Words

Of Unconscious and
Precocious Surveillance of
Foudroyant Chrysanthemums
or . . .
Hard to Spell
English Words!

Yet another sentence that you won’t find at Google. BUT, each word IS spelled correctly! And the reason being … SPELLCHECKERS!

Full Disclosure: Eye I am knot bad at spelling, but I am not grate at grammar! Bear with mee!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure: My Grade 1 teacher traumitized me when under constant threat of being whacked with her ruler, could not properly spell ‘cat’ in her presence! All that could come out of me when challenged by her was ….. ‘KAT’!

WAY back when, I took a computer science course at the University of Calgary. One ‘advanced’ assignment was to read in a random paragraph, generated by the Prof, then scan the paragraph and change some words to … OTHER words! They weren’t misspelled, but it was the pre-cursor to spellcheckers, grammar checkers and word processing! Oh, did I mention … we had to program in FORTRAN and … ON PUNCHED CARDS!!!! Good times, good times … KNOT!

Everyone probably has a few words that they consistently misspell, including the word, misspell!

It just doesn’t ‘look right’ with a double-s in the middle! Other words that always seem to throw me are: pronounce, pronunciation, comfortable, principle & principal, compatible & compatible, weird, catchup & ketchup, and of course … CAT! Some are context based confusion for me, some are just … they don’t look right!

So why do some people misspell words? Turns out, it can be a major cognitive challenge!

It turns out that misspelling in the brain (if it’s not being influenced by some kind of learning disorder, like dyslexia, which is another matter entirely) is a multi-layered problem involving diverse areas of brain tissue and multiple processes. Spelling, neurologically, isn’t as simple as rummaging in a brain-bin, finding a word, and reproducing it perfectly on paper. There are many stages where things can go slightly awry, and new science means we can pinpoint exactly where in the brain various processes are going wrong. Not much of a comfort when you’ve misspelt the main word in the title of your Powerpoint presentation, but there it is.

And one of my favourite words and that I often spell wrong is QUIXOTIC! It has a neat pronunciation and an imaginative, literary and historic background! Beauty and Chaos all in one word, including how to pronounce it!

What a wonderful word quixotic is! While it is most often used to mean equally impractical and idealistic, it also has the sense of romantic nobility. Its source is from the great Spanish novel “Don Quixote,” whose title character is given to unrealistic schemes and great chivalry. In the middle of a recession and high unemployment, it would be quixotic to imagine that you could quit your job and find another easily.

Spellcheckers are amazing … and annoying at the same time! If I recall, our lab computers have spellchecking turned on automatically for documents in Word/Office. And that causes a clear 50/50 split amongst students using Office! Literally half the students want it turned OFF when it is ON. And you can guess the other half! You can’t hope to win …. best you can hope for is a tie!

Personally, I just crank out the text, I try and catch my spelling mistakes, but I know that upon another read through, I will let Bill Gates decide what word I want to use. OOPS, forgot about that US vs Canadian spelling! And that might also be a future post too – different spellings for common words in US, Canada, UK, Australia, etc. and more curiouser and curiouser … WHY?

And nice to know that Word has spellcheckers in foreign languages too! That is always a ‘weight off my shoulders’ for First Year German students! LOL!

Remember Aldus PageMaker or Desktop Publishing

Enjoy!

ENJOY! TTFN!

“If you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, then you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”

72 Short Cut Key Adobe PageMaker

History of Desktop Publishing

History of Desktop Publishing (DTP)

The Computer Chronicles Desktop Publishing Part I (1986)

The Computer Chronicles Desktop Publishing Part II (1986)

The Dawn of Desktop Publishing Computerphile

The Apple IIC and Imagewriter II Desktop Publishing in the 1980s

The Font Wars Postscript, TrueType, the Mac and the Success of Desktop Publishing

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Terrific Tuesday and More Favourite Posters and Cartoons!

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Throwback Thursday Some Favourite Posters and Cartoons!

Share this:

Shall We Play a Game or Fictional Computers

Enjoy!

ENJOY! TTFN!

Shall We Play a Game?

That Scene from WarGames

HAL Sings Daisy (Bicycle Built for Two)

Chris Noessel: Lessons of Science Fiction Computer Interfaces

I’m Sorry Dave I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That

Data on the Holodeck Star Trek: TNG

The Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker

Top 13 Quotes of Jack L. Chalker

Share this:

Open the Pod Bay Door HAL or Computers I Have Owned or Worked With!

PS: And I own an iPhone SE now … but it is 4 years old and …. IT STILL WORKS! LOL!

Enjoy!

ENJOY! TTFN!

Open the Pod Bay Doors Hal

The Computer That Changed Everything Altair 8800 – Computerphile

1977 Tandy Digital Computer

Commodore SX-64 Computer Review

1984 Apple’s Macintosh Commercial

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Is Your DOS – sier Up to Date? Best Do a CHKDSK!

ALLONS – Y!

ENJOY! TTFN!

All Versions of MS-DOS 1.0 – 8.0

How to Run DOS Games on a Mac

MS-DOS 6.22 Best OS . . . Ever?

Basic DOS Commands

How to Pick the Best Gaming Laptop for MS-DOS Games

The Computer Chronicles MS-DOS 6.2 (1993)

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Working From Home . . . What Could Go Wrong?!

ENJOY! TTFN!

Most Insane Lawnmowers

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Kopi and Kaffee Café and Kafés and Coffee in Different Languages!

ENJOY! TTFN!

Coffee Facts

The Basics About Coffee

WEIRDEST Facts About Coffee

7 Facts About Coffee That You Probably Didn’t Know

How to Order a Coffee in Italy

How to Order a Coffee in Greece

How to Order a Coffee in Russia

How to Order a Coffee in Japan

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pe’vIl mu’qaDmey or . . . Curse Well in Klingon or . . . Made Up Movie Languages!

ENJOY! TTFN!

Arrival’s Linguistic Relativity and Time Perception

Top 10 Fictional Languages

Arrival Embrace the Problem of Language

Arrival: Sabotaged Diplomacy Scene

Accent Expert Breaks Down 6 Fictional Languages

4 Fictional Languages You Can Learn

5 Fictional Languages You Can Actually Learn

Artlang: A Compilation of Movie and TV Clips

J.R.R. Tolkien Reads A Poem in Elvish

Share this:

Of Unconscious and Precocious Surveillance of Foudroyant Chrysanthemums or . . . Hard to Spell English Words!

ENJOY! TTFN!

Top 20 Hardest English Words to Spell

7 Year Old Child Spells out the LONGEST English Word!

Remember Aldus PageMaker
or
Desktop Publishing

ENJOY!

TTFN!

72 Short Cut Key
Adobe PageMaker

The Computer Chronicles
Desktop Publishing Part I (1986)

The Computer Chronicles
Desktop Publishing Part II (1986)

The Dawn of Desktop Publishing
Computerphile

The Apple IIC and Imagewriter II
Desktop Publishing in the 1980s

The Font Wars
Postscript, TrueType, the Mac
and the Success of Desktop Publishing

Terrific Tuesday
and More Favourite
Posters and Cartoons!

Throwback Thursday
Some Favourite
Posters and Cartoons!

Shall We Play a Game
or
Fictional Computers

ENJOY!

TTFN!

HAL Sings Daisy
(Bicycle Built for Two)

Chris Noessel: Lessons of Science Fiction
Computer Interfaces

I’m Sorry Dave
I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That

Data on the Holodeck
Star Trek: TNG

The Well of Souls
by Jack L. Chalker

Top 13 Quotes
of Jack L. Chalker

Open the Pod Bay Door HAL
or
Computers I Have
Owned or Worked With!

PS: And I own an iPhone SE now … but it is 4 years old and ….
IT STILL WORKS! LOL!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

The Computer That Changed Everything
Altair 8800 – Computerphile

Is Your DOS – sier
Up to Date?
Best Do a CHKDSK!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

All Versions of MS-DOS
1.0 – 8.0

How to Run DOS Games
on a Mac

MS-DOS 6.22
Best OS . . . Ever?

How to Pick the Best
Gaming Laptop for MS-DOS Games

The Computer Chronicles
MS-DOS 6.2 (1993)

Working From Home . . .
What Could Go Wrong?!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

Kopi and Kaffee
Café and Kafés
and
Coffee in Different Languages!

ENJOY!

TTFN!

The Basics
About Coffee

WEIRDEST Facts
About Coffee

7 Facts About Coffee
That You Probably Didn’t Know

pe’vIl mu’qaDmey
or . . .
Curse Well in Klingon
or . . .
Made Up Movie Languages!

Arrival’s Linguistic Relativity
and Time Perception

Top 10
Fictional Languages

Arrival
Embrace the Problem of Language

Arrival: Sabotaged
Diplomacy Scene

Accent Expert Breaks Down
6 Fictional Languages

4 Fictional Languages
You Can Learn

5 Fictional Languages
You Can Actually Learn

Artlang: A Compilation of
Movie and TV Clips

J.R.R. Tolkien Reads
A Poem in Elvish

Of Unconscious and
Precocious Surveillance of
Foudroyant Chrysanthemums
or . . .
Hard to Spell
English Words!

Top 20 Hardest
English Words to Spell

7 Year Old Child Spells out
the LONGEST English Word!

8 Extremely Long Words
Everyone Must Learn in English

Top 20 Hardest English Words
to Spell! Guess the Right Word!

Top 10 Hardest Words
to Spell

10 Difficult
English Words to Spell

Can You Spell
These 10 Difficult Words?

How to Pronounce the
Longest Name in Canada

Home Simpson
I Am So Smart