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Apple Cores

Windows XP on a Compaq Presario 5300

For fun, I’m going to power up my one remaining Windows XP system. It was purchased on the day that XP was released, October 25, 2001. The end of support for Windows XP didn’t bother me. It gave me a reason to buy a 64-bit computer.

Support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, and that bothers me. In addition to my Windows 11 laptop computer, I have two desktop and two laptop systems running Windows 10. They aren’t very fast, especially the three running on mechanical hard drives, but they continue to be useful. None of them meet the TPM hardware requirement for Windows 11. Dave Plummer explains.

Microsoft’s historical pattern is to release new features, often of dubious value, that are easily exploited and then have to be patched after being discovered in the field. Do I believe that TPM will provide essential, lasting additional security? Nah, the hackers will find ways around it. The protection is immaterial anyway, as the real threats aren’t from weak security on home PCs, but hacked data centers. Remember the Solarwinds event?

https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/SolarWinds-hack-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know

I don’t plan to abandon my Windows 10 systems when support ends, but at some point I will need to replace my primary desktop system, a Dell tower with an Intel i5 and 8 GB of memory. What will I get?

I have never owned an Apple product. I was kept away by the cost and the lack of hardware options resulting from Apple being a closed system.

My first desktop system was a no-name white box with an AMD 40 MHz processor, 4 MB of memory and a 160 MB hard drive. It came with DOS and Windows 3.1 on floppy disks that I had to install myself, which was my preference. I bought it with the intention of opening the case. An Apple system would have cost twice as much and opening the case would have voided the warranty.

Having first bought a cellphone thirty years ago, when Windows 95 was new and mobile phone service was analog, I delayed getting a smartphone for as long as possible. After so many years of eschewing Apple computers, I wasn’t interested in embracing its phone ecosystem. So I went with Android, but I did that by following Apple’s integrated system lead and buying Google Pixel phones.

I’m very tired of updating and restarting Windows, so in a weird way I’m looking forward to October 14. Although I’m always looking for a good deal, cost is less of a concern than it was. Perhaps I will finally consider going with Apple. Dave explains some of the technology that makes their latest systems so wicked fast.

Girly Girls

I’ve been watching Pee-Wee as Himself on HBO Max. Paul Reubens explaining the influence that Fifties TV had on him brings to mind its lasting impressions on my young self.

While I am only three years younger than he was, that’s enough of a difference for me to have few if any memories of watching TV before the Sixties, although I was exposed to plenty of Fifties reruns. Reubens loved watching I Love Lucy, a show that I have spent my entire life actively avoiding. My appreciation of Lucille Ball extends only to Star Trek originally being a Desilu production.

My favorite TV series that launched in the Fifties, and was successful enough to continue into the Sixties, is Leave it to Beaver. The interplay between the characters has some of the best sitcom writing of its day.

Another show I liked, for a very specific reason, is The Donna Reed Show. That specific reason is named Shelley Fabares (pronounced “fab-ray”). Shelley set the standard for my definition of femininity. She was the perfect girl. Along with Shelley, there are a couple of other ladies in my “Ultimate Girls Next Door” list, all safely older than myself.

Shelley’s BFF was Annette who, as popular as she was, wasn’t my type.

As I have pointed out in past years, my favorite member of The Mickey Mouse Club was Cheryl Holdridge. Teenage Cheryl was quite a flirt as Julie in Leave it to Beaver.

The Disney Girls: Cheryl, Shelley, Annette, Doreen Tracey

As I got older, I became more aware of Carol Lynley and Tuesday Weld. I later learned what explained my — ahem! — growing interest in seeing them on TV. Carol and Tuesday were called something unique to the era. They were “sex kittens.”

Ann-Margret, only a year older than Carol and two years older than Tuesday, was leader of the sex kitten pack, but she seemed more adult and intimidating. Maybe because she’s Swedish? 😉

Marvelous Joltin’ Joe

June 25 will mark five years since the passing of Joe Sinnott. I was fourteen when I first read an interview with Joe. It was conducted by Mark Evanier and Tony Isabella (now preferring to be called Jenny Blake), and published in Marvelmania No. 4.



Here’s the original published format, suitable for widescreen viewing.

An brief bio is in the same issue, with Joe sharing space with bad boy Sci-Fi writer Harlan Ellison.