I’ve just started reading doggdot (which I really like), and I read yesterday the news that Microsoft Windows has just turned 21 (20 Nov 2006).

Kind of scary, because it reminded me I was using Windows 1.0 in 1986 – almost from its birth. And I’m still using it now (mostly not by choice, though).

But, just now, using Windows XP, I was trying to copy a largish file (about 700MB), and I got an error which said “Invalid MS-DOS function”.

Huh? MS-DOS? I thought Microsoft said they had left all that behind in NT (New Technology, after all) and XP and all that…

(Fortunately my Mac had no problem copying the file – nice to know that *nix, even older than MS-DOS, is still going strong!)

One of the reasons I keep this blog is to keep up with – and try out – blogging technology. My earlier post about Flock is an example. This post is a test of a Firefox extension from Performancing, which allows you to blog directly from within Firefox. Very simple, works well, and great for those times when you are surfing and something worth blogging comes to mind.

Performancing also offer a blog site statistics tool, which is free and worth checking out.

Well, it’s not much of a name, and it is still pretty much alpha stage, but the new Flock browser looks very promising.

Based on mozilla, it seems to be trying to build itself around webservices, which means a more interactive way of using the web. I’m writing this post in the Flock editor now, and there is built-in support of services such as flickr and del.icio.us. Not that all that isn’t possible from, say, Firefox with a few extensions. It’s just a new, integrated approach which may make some web-based applications more immediately useable for a range of people.

One thing – writing and posting this was pretty quick and easy.

It will be interesting to watch.

I have read a number of articles on sleep (and getting more), which perhaps is an indication of how much I love to sleep! This article provides good information on our sleep mechanisms, as well as common sleep disorders – and the link between lack of sleep and depression. In terms of beating insomnia, the article suggests doing nothing, allowing the body’s natural rhythms to right themselves.

read the article | read the digg story

As electronic goods and appliances get cheaper, they also seem to fail faster. And while they might be cheaper to buy, there is a hidden cost: repairs are often not cost effective (because component-level repairs aren’t done anymore), and so we end up buying whole new items every two or three years.

More than the hit to the hip-pocket, what disturbs me is the environmental cost. Looking at the DVD player that no longer works and which is not worth repairing, I can’t help but see the manufacturing effort that went into making this unit, as well as the heavy metals and plastics that will most likely end up in landfill.