talkingDigital

Not sure what I did. I was working on one of my other sites and I think I did something bad.
I will get things back up over the weekend.

OK, It’s been two weeks since my laptops were stolen, but I still haven’t completely gotten over it. What makes it slightly worse, is that I had just setup a Mac to take over as my primary desktop computer.

The Mac didn’t actually make the problem worse, but in order to set up the Mac, I had to move my PC to another desk. I didn’t get rid of it altogether.

I was fully prepared to use my Mac for all of my day-to-day functions but turn to my laptop around the house for email, Internet and other projects. I didn’t realize how much I had depended on my laptop over the past few weeks until they weren’t there anymore.

I have have been putting most of my computer time into making my life universal and compatible with all formats. I use Zoho.com for my document creation, NVU for my web editor, Firefox as my browser, Gimp and Picasa for photos and Thunderbird for my Mac and Ubuntu email app. I still use Outlook on the PC but I can’t remember why.

In the past month as I have been using my Mac almost exclusively as my home computer, I have found that it is a habit forming device. Concepts that are difficult concepts on a PC, like keyboard shortcuts and file management, are almost intuitive on the Mac.

When I tell people that I am migrating away from Windows in my personal life, I always get the same response, “Why?” They ask the question with an almost betrayed tone in their voice as though I have told them that I am leaving my wife.

I explain how easy the transition was and how I don’t have to mess with antivirus, spyware. disk cleanup and other utility functions that almost exclusively belong to the PC.

Their next thought is, “Maybe I should do that.”

I am not on a mission to turn people to Mac, but when faced with the option of moving to Vista or moving to Mac, I can’t form much of an intelligent argument for going with Microsoft.

Very soon, the only Windows machine I will be using on a regular basis in my personal life will be a MacBook with Vista loaded as an alternate OS. I still need Windows for when I am teaching my Basic Computer classes via the projector. Other than that, I can’t see myself using Windows personally for any practical reasons.

I have becoming fluent in speaking the language of Windows, I would like to one day speak, just as fluently in Mac, Linux, Google and Windows Mobile. I still don’t want to speak geek, I just call it talking digital.

Election season is in full swing and nothing irritates me more than thinking about all of the voters who go to the polls armed only with the claims of their favorite candidate. I believe that we should be anxious to research all sides of every issue and never let one candidate’s claims dictate how we feel about the other candidates or themselves.

While I tend to lean ever so slightly right in my political views, I still read news and information from both sides of the aisle. Here are a few websites that will help. Some are essentially neutral while others are very slanted. No matter where you stand, I would encourage everyone who votes to vote informed and armed with the truth no matter who is telling it.

Mostly neutral sites –
FactCheck.org – this is a great site for looking up the facts and figures used by candidates to show both their own strengths and their opponents weaknesses.
FactCheckEd.org – Sister site of the above but designed more for teachers.
Politifact.com – a similar fact checking site, but Politifact has a cool feature called the Truth-o-meter that measures candidates claims on a scale from True to False.
Politico.com – does a reasonable job at trying to stay balanced although its left-slanting writers and polls are more often cited.

Left slanted news (mainstream news agencies have been omitted for space) –
DailyKos.com – A site that doesn’t even pretend to be balanced or unbiased. Their site description in Google is “Daily weblog with political analysis on US current events from a liberal perspective.”
TalkLeft.com – Describes itself as “The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news”
ThinkProgress.org – Pictures of the president and supporters always taken mid-blink while liberals are shown pointing fingers or in publicity shots.
Thedemocraticdaily.com – Perhaps the only liberal news site you need to know as it is a feed of all of the other liberal news sites and blogs.
MediaMatters.org – Organization that monitors right wing news and blogs.

Right slanted news (talk radio sites omitted for obvious reasons) –
Humanevents.com – website of the official conservative newspaper – Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly all contribute.
WorldNetDaily.com – poorly designed site, but one of the more cited sources for conservatives.
NewsBusters.org – Comparable to WorldNet in content, but much better design and more multimedia content.
Hotair.com – my personal favorite, lots of great stuff and a fun read with a good sense of humor.
NewsMax.com – written like a mainstream  news site, but uses obvious right slant.