Walt at Random

So what have I been doing during this two-week break? Not writing those five meaty posts on my list, for sure–but some of those may turn into C&I essays in any case.

In addition to clearing out some mental cobwebs and tossing away old regrets, and of course writing for the next C&I and working on the Academic Library Blogs book (if it ever happens), I’ve been seeing how a future schedule might work and make sense. Here’s what I see so far.

• Given that the new position is explicitly part-time, I’m aiming for a total of 40 to 45 hours a week for professional activity, both “work” and writing. That would be a significant reduction from the 60 to 65 hours I’ve been averaging, and leave time to get back to reading more books, getting a little more sleep, and thinking about some of the writing a little more. (Since another very-part-time gig may yet turn up, I’m actually aiming for 35 to 40 hours total at the moment. We shall see.)
• I’d picked up a cheap pedometer (unfortunately, way too easy to reset inadvertently) about six weeks ago and started checking out what I’d need to add to my daily routine to reach 10,000 steps a day (roughly five miles). Turned out adding a daily walk of roughly a mile did it–and given the lovely scenery out at the old workplace, it’s a shame I didn’t start doing that years ago. (Key factor: I’d been doing at least 1.25-1.5 miles a day on the treadmill.) But…
• Working at home could be a whole lot more sedentary. That’s a danger. So I’m taking preventive action, and I hope to keep it up. Two parts to that. First, I’m replacing the 40 to 60 minutes a day I used to spend driving (to and from work and to and from lunch) with something like 1.4 to 2 miles a day of extra walking–either walking to a nearby strip mall to buy a sandwich, or walking to the same mall to mail letters, or just walking. That takes 18 to 30 minutes, since I walk at around 4mph on a level surface. And I’m upping the average treadmill time, from 18-25 minutes to 25-30 minutes (watching old movies in fewer but longer segments–currently, two segments each for more of the old one-hour oaters). Those walks also make good, effective breaks, getting out of the house as well as off the computer. I expect to live for a good while longer; I’ve always been a fast walker who enjoyed walking; I’m hoping that doing it long and often will help assure that I can keep doing it. (And, to be sure, keep my weight down.)
• Yes, I’m sleeping in a little later, but I’m still a morning person–but morning now starts around 6:15 instead of 5:30. So I sit down at the computer somewhere between 7:20 and 8:00, instead of the old 6:55 to 7:15.
• Right now, a “typical” schedule of 7:30 to 11ish, long lunch/walk/errands break, 12:30-1ish to 3-4ish, then exercise, shower, and *maybe* a short computer session roughly 5 to 6:15, will work nicely. That’s actually more than enough time, but it looks like a workable overall schedule, particularly if I skip the late-afternoon session many days to read or dream instead. And, to be sure, the computer almost never goes on after dinner: That’s been true for a while, and I intend to keep it that way. Added note: That leaves out weekends, of course…which used to amount for maybe 8 of those 65 hours. I’m trying to keep that down to 6, and to use it as overflow as needed.

Changing work habits so substantially is a slight shock to the system. I’m sure these patterns will vary over the next months and years (and, of course, will be wildly disrupted before and after conferences and vacation trips). But I think the general parameters make sense–for me, for now. More walking, a little less working, and maybe a little more focus.

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About the apology. On this post at Information wants to be free, I added a comment that overgeneralized what Dorothea Salo was saying. I conflated several different posts (not all from her) and got it at least a little wrong.I attempted to add a comment today at that post, apologizing to Dorothea. Apparently my comments are being trapped as spam. So I’ll do it here. I still think there’s too much “exclusion of the middle” in the field, but in this case Dorothea was not saying what I heard. That happens. Sorry.Oh, and I certainly agree that librarians must be willing to take some initiatives in trying out new things, at least some new things, at least some of the time. Stagnation helps nobody.

It’s really past time for me to do some “regular” posts–posts that have nothing to do with job searches and new books. I’ve got a list of candidates; maybe I’ll get to them as time goes on. Meanwhile, here’s a few random thoughts that don’t deserve individual posts. One bit of context: This is the second week of a two-week period of deliberate unemployment, intended to clear my head and refresh my energies so that I can do a great job for PALINET. So far, I think it’s working.

• If you’re waiting to hear more about my departure from OCLC RLG Service Center, don’t hold your breath. I never planned to write memoirs (and have now discarded most of the papers that could go toward memoirs), for the perfectly sound reason that I’m not in the pantheon of celebrated people. If I ever do write memoirish things that are more than casual posts, they’ll almost entirely concern my non-work library life. I had 39 years in the library automation game, most of them good years. That life is over. I’m focused on the future.
• I’ve now realized just how odd it was to state publicly that I was leaving a position not because “it was a bad fit” or “to explore other opportunities” or whatever, but because the position was being terminated. That’s almost as bad as admitting that I stopped writing “The Crawford Files” in American Libraries not because “three years was long enough” or “it was time to explore other kinds of writing” or “I was running out of appropriate topics” (which is, indeed, the actual reason I stopped writing “PC Monitor” for ONLINE at the end of 2006), but because the column was dropped by the publication. Oops. I did that too, didn’t I? Clearly, I was raised badly, never learning that “honesty is the best policy” has a big escape clause “…except when it could make you look bad.”
• Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve come to the conclusion that when somebody writes a post noting various problems that they’re having–problems that legitimately deserve some sympathy or empathy–and says they don’t want a pity party…well, most of the time they do sort of want a little tiny pity party, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
• When someone says “Nobody ever said…” with regard to some statement currently viewed as extreme, what they usually mean is either “Nobody ever used that precise set of words, although some people definitely wrote things that reasonable people would interpret that way” or “You shouldn’t actually look at the history–nobody should be held accountable for what they said two years ago.”
• There’s a big difference between not picking up on every tool that comes along and being unwilling to use new tools when they make sense. To my mind, for many people (myself included) the former is a way to maintain some kind of balance–in fact, we do not all need to know X intimately, whatever X happens to be. (I don’t need to know how to modify a Second Life avatar. Neither do most other librarians.) But being unwilling to adopt a tool that makes sense for a real-world application you have because you’ve never used it before: That’s a sign of rigidity and impending retirement that I hope never to suffer from.
• What? You want a real-world example? I never created a wiki–because I had no problem for which a wiki seemed to be the best solution. My new job will make heavy use of a wiki–actually, the wiki is the fundamental medium. I knew that before I applied for the job, and it appears to be the right tool for the job. So I’ll become a whole lot more familiar with the intricacies of one kind of wiki software–because it’s the right tool for the job.

That’s six little items, more than enough for now. I do plan to do more substantive posts. There’s no question that PALINET knows about this blog and about Cites & Insights–after all, the press release on my hiring mentions both of them. There’s no question that PALINET assumes I’ll continue blogging and publishing C&I, does not intend to censor or guide the content of either one, and assumes I won’t violate internal confidences or otherwise violate unstated blogging guidelines.

I would say blogging might be irregular as I dive headlong into the new situation come next week–but when has blogging at this here blog ever been regular?

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering: Yes, I will be at Midwinter 2008. Annual, too. Always barring various disasters, to be sure.

I think it’s worth noting that the PALINET position discussed here didn’t just come to me–and I didn’t happen upon the job posting by scouring all available library jobsites.

A friend forwarded the job posting to me, with the thought that I might find it interesting.

Dr. Peggy Sullivan was ALA Executive Director when I was LITA President. A few years before that, she was ALA President. She was a pleasure to work with back then (when I was LITA President–when she was ALA President, I was a fledgling in the organization and exclusively associated with ISAD, the former name of LITA). She believes in what she does and believes in people. She’s had a distinguished career. I’m honored to call her a friend.

And, to be sure, as promised in a very early job-related posting, I’ll be sending her a complete autographed set of my books–past, present and future.

Monsoon, 1943, b&w, Edgar G. Ulmer (dir.), John Carradine, Gale Sondergaard, Sidney Toler, Frank Fenton, Veda Ann Borg, Rita Quickley, Rick Vallin. Original title: Isle of Forgotten Sins. 1:22 [1:16, same as National Film Museum print]

The sleeve description says “A young couple travel to India to a remote jungle village, to announce their betrothal to the bride’s parents…” and so on, and lists George Nader as the star. If the person preparing the sleeve copy checked IMDB or standard reference works, they no doubt based that on the 1952 flick Monsoon—directed by Rodney Amateau, starring George Nader, Ursula Thiess, Diana Douglas and others.

This is an entirely different movie with an entirely different plot, filmed nine years earlier (with an entirely different title) and not even set in the same country. It’s about greed, gold, diving and weather; it starts in a South Seas gambling hall/brothel and winds up in a similar establishment. In between? Better than you might expect, partly because there really are no heroes among this strong cast. $1.25.

Borderline, 1950, b&w, William A. Seiter (dir.), Fred MacMurray, Claire Trevor, Raymond Burr, José Torvay, Morris Ankrum. 1:28.

Maybe I saw too much of Raymond Burr on TV, but his bad-guy movie roles always strike me as suiting him better—and this one’s no exception. Burr is a drug ringleader (or one rung below leader) in Mexico, MacMurray and Trevor two different American agents sent—by two different agencies—to infiltrate the gang. Naturally, each of them thinks the other one’s part of the gang. Naturally, they fall in love. Naturally, it all works out. It is an odd combination—part comedy, part noir, part “melodrama” as the sleeve says—but, to my mind, t works pretty well. For that matter, MacMurray makes a fine leading man and tough guy. I found it enjoyable and the print’s pretty good. $1.50.

Indiscretion of an American Wife, 1953, b&w, Vittorio de Sica (dir.), Jennifer Jones, Montgomery Clift, Richard Beymer, Gino Cervi. Dialogue by Truman Capote. Original title: Stazione Termini. 1:12, 1:30, 1:03 in U.S. release [1:03].

This one’s supposed to be a minor classic, but of course anything by Vittorio de Sica is supposed to be a minor classic. The plot’s pretty simple: Jennifer Jones (the “American wife”) has been somehow involved with the “Italian” Montgomery Clift and is now returning to her husband and child. The two meet in the train station and talk and talk and emote and talk and… Unfortunately, Capote or no Capote, it’s not very interesting talk. I’m not anti-romantic: I saw and loved Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, and generally like good romances. This one…well, at just over an hour it seemed way too long; I can’t imagine sitting through the 90-minute version. For serious fans of de Sica or Jones, I’d reluctantly give it $1.

The North Star, 1943, b&w, Lewis Milestone (dir.), Lillian Hellman (screenplay & story), Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan, Ann Harding, Farley Granger, Erich von Stroheim, Dean Jagger. Music by Aaron Copland. 1:48 [1:45].

What starpower! What historical drama! What sweep! What…well, nonsense, at least historically. The first quarter of the movie is bizarre, as it depicts the healthy, happy, well-fed, joyous occupants of a Ukraine farming village who all have what they need thanks to benevolent Communism. They sing, they dance, they have little in common with real Ukrainians at the start of World War II. Then their idyllic way of life is shattered by the Nazi invasion; the remainder of the movie is all about the occupation of their village, barbaric draining of children’s blood by evil doctors, and the brave defense by a group of horse-riding village men hiding in the hills.

If you read the whole set of IMDB reviews, you might think this is some sort of early Hollywood Communist plot (you know that old Commie Walter Brennan, right?)—as opposed to a wartime propaganda film made at the request of the President, to help convince Americans that Russians were our allies and should be thought of more favorably. This is, then, a true period piece: A picture that could not have been made with that much star power two years earlier or five years later. All that said, and all those fine actors admired, it’s just not a very good movie–not only does it romanticize the USSR, it’s sort of a mess dramatically. At most $1.

Here’s the press release:

Walt Crawford Named Director & Managing Editor of PALINET Leadership Network

Philadelphia, PA, October 2, 2007 — PALINET is pleased to announce the appointment of Walt Crawford as Director and Managing Editor for the PALINET Leadership Network. Crawford is an internationally recognized writer and speaker on libraries, technology, policy, and media, and the creator, writer and publisher of Cites & Insights: Crawford at Large, an ejournal on the intersections of libraries, policy, technology, and media published monthly since 2001. He also maintains a blog on these and other issues, Walt at Random. He was recently listed as one of the 31 most frequently-cited authors in library literature 1994-2004 (the only American writer on that list outside academic libraries.) Cathy Wilt, PALINET’s Executive Director, comments: “We are thrilled to have Walt direct the development of this library leadership community of practice. The PALINET Leadership Network and PALINET members will certainly benefit from his substantial experience, not to mention his editorial wit and wisdom.”

About the PALINET Leadership Network

Currently in beta release, the PALINET Leadership Network is an innovative online member service for library leaders designed to create a community of practice by sharing informative articles, forums on current issues, and collaborative discussions on cutting-edge topics. Designed as a wiki platform, the PALINET Leadership Network provides the latest innovations and most current leadership information in the library arena and beyond. It is an ideal vehicle for staying current with literature, blogs, and other leadership conversations, as well as a critical tool for mentoring staff.

About PALINET

PALINET, a member-owned and governed regional library network, was founded in 1936 and is one of the largest U.S. networks, serving 600+ members throughout the mid-Atlantic region and beyond. PALINET provides innovative training opportunities through its classroom and online distance education programs and live events and discounts on hundreds of library services from more than 80 business partners through its group purchasing program. For the latest information on PALINET, visit www.palinet.org.

Apparently my previous posts regarding “what I’ll be doing next” weren’t quite clear enough about the level of uncertainty. So, let me be as clear as possible:

I’ve signed the contract. I will be taking on an interesting, challenging, worthwhile responsibility starting October 15. I’ve made the near-term travel arrangements involved in that responsibility. I even picked up the discounted ALA Midwinter/Annual registration using the name of the agency on my badge copy.

What I haven’t done yet: Posted a formal announcement of exactly what the position is. I want to coordinate that announcement with a formal announcement from the agency. These things take a little time.

Will I be adding other new things? Possibly: This isn’t a full-time job (technically, it’s not a job at all, as I won’t be an employee as such.) But this will be my core position–the one that gets the most attention.

Sponsorship for Cites & Insights is also clear at least through 2008: YBP will continue to sponsor C&I.

I’ll post more when there’s more to post. That should certainly be within the next two weeks.
In the meantime, I would say that posting here might be even lighter than usual, given that I’m sort-of taking two weeks off (as described previously)–but I won’t say that, for two good reasons:

• I’ve always said that bloggers shouldn’t feel obliged to tell us why they’re not blogging for a period, unless it suits them to do so. Life trumps blogging: always has, always will.
• Blogging frequency here has always been erratic and unpredictable. My original “target” was two posts a week; based on that target, I’m covered through early 2011. I know there will be at least one more post this week (I’m watching the final movie on Disc 3 of the Hollywood Legends set, and you know what that means), and I could suddenly be inspired or irritated to put out several other posts.

Heck, I might even do a post about the freshet of posts from people who find themselves with a truly annoying version of “blogger’s block”: Where instead of simply not blogging for a while (no harm, no foul), people are sitting at the keyboard for significant periods of time and still not coming up with posts. Now if I had something useful to say about that…

Meredith Farkas just posted the results of her request for people’s “three favorite librar* blogs.”

It’s an interesting list; I’ll have to check it out at leisure to see which blogs I need to add to my already-bulging Bloglines list.

Oh, and this here blog came in #9, next to last of those actually listed in descending order (a thoughtful choice on Ms. Farkas’ part). “Favorite.” Hmm. I’m pleased and a little surprised.

That’s one lower than in the OEDb post that convinced Meredith to do her survey.

If either of these means a lot, I’m much more pleased by this #9 than by the other #8.

A key point here, though, is one of many excellent ones Meredith (or Farkas or Ms. Farkas–so I’m inconsistent…) makes about “favorite,” particularly for people like me who don’t have clear favorites (but did respond):

When forced to pick only three favorites, though, we pick the ones that mean the most to us at that particular time.

Noting one of the comments–Cool Librarian is in my Bloglines list; I do read it; I do enjoy it. It just wasn’t one of the three that sprang to mind as having been most thought-provoking over the two or three weeks prior to the survey. (I don’t remember my response, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be the same today.)

Yes, I do plan to check each link in that list, and I’m sure I’ll add several of them to Bloglines–at least for a while.

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What? Two posts on a Sunday afternoon? Well, you know, this is the second day of a 16-day weekend for me, so…

OK, that’s not quite true. I like the idea of doing absolutely nothing for two weeks but clearing my mind, becoming one with the universe, going for long walks, etc. But in the real world…

• Tomorrow: Put in hotel requests for Midwinter (yep, I’m going to Midwinter…); send in final paperwork for OCLC; deal with contract stuff for new position (I think).
• Later in the week: Probably make travel arrangements connected to new position. Certainly go back to MVPL and start checking books out again.
• Realistically, get at least one or two essays done for the November C&I–since I haven’t done any so far.
• Do at least a couple of dozen blog analyses for the academic library blog project, to keep that moving.
• Probably come up with topic for at least one column, maybe write the column.
• Rearrange home office space to clear out old crap and leave room for new important stuff.
• And, yes, take enough time to relax, clear my head, do even more walking than usual, and get used to a different pace.

I’m most assuredly not complaining. But taking two weeks “between jobs” isn’t quite the same as a two week vacation. Fortunately, we’re planning one of those too…for next spring or summer, that is.

I am delighted to announce that I’m returning to ONLINE Magazine in 2008, with a new column, “Crawford at Large.”

One of the many bright spots arising from my public job search was that Marydee Ojala got in touch and we discussed whether it would make sense to return. We’d agreed to drop “PC Monitor” at the end of 2006 because I couldn’t come up with six worthwhile PC-related topics a year to write about–in 2007, it felt like writing a “Modem Monitor” column: Maybe interesting at one point, but past its sell-by date.

The new column will cover a range of topics relating to the intersections of libraries, media, policy and technology. If you hear an echo, that’s partly right: In some cases, the new columns will be partially based on previous material from CItes & Insights, updated, further synthesized, and cleaned up to offer coherent 2,000-word standalone pieces. (ONLINE‘s columns are typically three pages.) For example, the first column is mostly new, but roughly a third comes from a three-year-old C&I discussion that’s specifically relevant to the new situation. In other cases, the material will be entirely new. In all cases, I intend to craft interesting stories that help to move the field forward.

I’m delighted to return to ONLINE. It’s been a leading magazine in the field for many years (the current volume is volume 31!) and Marydee is an excellent editor. (So, of course, is Michelle Manafy at EContent Magazine, where I continue to write the “disContent” column in alternate issues.)

[In case there's any confusion: No, this isn't the new core position. You'll hear about that later...]

Once again, I’m going to bend my promise to simply note new reviews of Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change.

John Miedema posted a thoughtful review on September 18 on his eponymous blog (well worth reading, by the way). Here are the second and sixth paragraphs (of a six-paragraph review):

Balanced Libraries is a response to the discussions surrounding Library 2.0, the movement that has tried to use Web 2.0 technologies to reinvigorate library services. Some assert that Library 2.0 is about much more than technology, with each stone in the library system being overturned and re-evaluated, hopefully leading to better service for library patrons. Inevitably, change is met with resistance. The library crowd is reasonably adept at getting at the best of the enthusiasts and the resistors, but sometimes an experienced and clear voice is needed. In his book, Crawford lives up to his blog tag-line, “The library voice of the radical middle”. It could be the bible of the Slow Library movement.

Balance is not a sexy idea, but Crawford helps makes sense of the debate, showing how both change and stasis can be troublesome for libraries, providing a fresh take on the timeless wisdom that technology must serve library the mission, not the reverse.

There’s more, to be sure; please do read the whole review. Do know that I take “It could be the bible of the Slow Library movement” as high praise–and if you think “Slow Library” means resistance to change, you need to follow that link.

What else can I say? Buy the book–it makes an important contribution to a number of continuing conversations.

In a very minor way, it’s the end of a (personal) era. Around 2 p.m. I turned in my “fob,” card key, corporate credit card and calling card. Around 2:30, I left with the last box of personal stuff from the office.

The post title gives the time I spent as a systems analyst (senior programmer/analyst, always the same job title) at RLG (or after June 30, 2006 the OCLC RLG Service Center), beginning June 11, 1979.

I really began working more-or-less full-time as a library systems person in 1968–June again, if I remember correctly. That would bring the total to 39 years, three months, some days. I could honestly claim “five decades as a library systems professional” (60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 0s) and was hoping for six–but things change.

So for now I’m gainfully unemployed. Not for long, I don’t believe, but I’m taking two weeks before starting in on new endeavors. (I’ll announce that endeavor/those endeavors as soon as they’re finalized and approved as public knowledge.)

It’s been an interesting ride. I wasn’t part of the first generation of library automators, but I was part of the second wave. Some day I might write more about that–or maybe not.

I’ve worked with lots of first-rate people and generally enjoyed it thoroughly, learning and contributing along the way. Of course, I’ll continue to work with all those colleagues I’ve gained in the profession as a whole, since my “professional self” is the basis for most future plans.

One victim of the on-and-off technology goblin that’s been haunting us was the scanner portion of my four-year-old Epson all-in-one. The printer was fine; the scanner was fried. That’s now an old story. I was able to return unused supplies still in sealed packaging and a colleague (for a few more hours) took the printer off my hands for a mutually agreeable price ($0).

And, based on technology magazine reviews and our expected needs, I purchased a Canon Pixma MP610 all-in-one–an oddly difficult-to-find model (the award-winning model is the MP600, but it’s been replaced by the MP610, which I’m simply assuming is nearly identical). It specced out as fast, capable, and had duplex printing capabilities–something I really wanted. (I’d talked to my wife about the desirability of adding a high-speed duplexing laser printer, but wasn’t really wild about having two printers or spending the money.)

Got the all-in-one home, set it up (painless), tried it out: Noisy scanning-head return, a little squeaky on startup, excellent print quality–visibly better even at the low-quality “fast” setting than the Epson–and, indeed, pretty fast, whether at “fast” or normal.

Until I tried duplex printing. At which point it slowed down a lot–to somewhere between two and four sides a minute, instead of the 9-11 full text pages a minute of single-sided printing.

So, I concluded, you can get fast printing or duplex printing–but you can’t get fast duplex printing. Too bad, but I can live with it.

Then, a couple of days later, it struck me. See below the fold.

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I have a sleek, small (about half as tall as the Epson) scanner/printer/copier that does a sensationally good job in all three uses. It cost less than $200. It’s not fussy. The text print quality on cheapo copy paper is better than I remember getting from lasers.

Oh, and it duplexes. Automatically. Which you just couldn’t do on an inexpensive printer two years ago.

This is a wonderment. The story isn’t that duplex printing is slow–which, it turns out, is deliberate: the “text ink” doesn’t dry quite instantaneously, so the process allows five or six seconds for one side to dry before printing the other side. The story is that duplex printing works, even with cheapo copy paper, and yields excellent results.

Oh, and given that ink jet printers have traditionally been “ink delivery systems,” going through large quantities of expensive supplies at several times the per-page cost of laser printing, there’s another new development: A standard for defining per-page costs. The first group review of printers claiming to meet that standard (including the MP600, which uses the same ink) found that they do indeed meet it. And this one’s per-page cost for monochrome text is 2.7 cents a page–about 0.7 cents a page more than typical laser costs.

Let’s see. Now that I’ll be doing all my printing on that printer, including blog posts I want to save for use in C&I, I’ll probably print, oh, 500 text pages a month. A fast duplexing laser printer would cost maybe $300, maybe more. At a per-page differential of $3.50 a month, it’s highly unlikely that such a printer would ever be cost-effective.

So there’s the story: Lots of remarkable virtues, mostly simply not available at a reasonable price four or even two years ago.

One of those virtues isn’t quite as snazzy as it might be. Big whoop. If I’m doing big duplex jobs, I can always do it the way I did on the Epson: Print odd pages, reinsert the output stack, print even pages.

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I’ve been doing a few slightly negative posts lately. I thought a more positive one was in order. Here it is…with the moral that even an upbeat guy like me can occasionally focus on minor faults when they should be focusing on major virtues.

A few LSW acquaintances picked this up this morning. A colleague at work, and a colleague at my future place of work, heard about it later this morning: I might be off the air for several days.

Why? Yesterday, when I turned on the home PC (a five-year-old Gateway, 2.2GHz. P4, “only” 80GB but I’m only using half that, XP/SP2, and it generally still “feels new), it basically didn’t respond. Oh, Windows came up, as did ZoneAlarm and the other tray items–but if you clicked on anything, it might respond a minute later, it might respond two minutes later, it might not respond at all. Tried a couple of things, including trying to bring up Windows in safe mode. Nada.

Arggh. Panic. Well, it is a five-year-old PC, and that is pushing my luck, but still…

So: Came home early today (hey, I’d been working extra-long days), tried some futzing around, no help. Went to Office Depot and Best Buy looking at possible replacement computers (which still might make sense)…but could I even retrieve non-backed-up data (e.g., settings, typefaces)?

Came back and had an Aha moment: Maybe I couldn’t get into safe mode because I use a wireless keyboard–and the “F lock” key wouldn’t be recognized until Windows was operating. To the garage to retrieve the “wired” keyboard. F8 at the right time, Safe Mode…and everything runs like a champ.

Hmm. Disabled Zone Alarm autostart (and unplugged the network cable). Restarted Windows. Everything runs beautifully. But, of course, without internet access–just fine for writing, spreadsheets, photo work, not so hot for email and blog reading and blogging and checking book sales…

Our local big-newspaper tech columnist asserts that you don’t need security software anymore, that your router’s firewall and the virus scanning built into most email systems is enough. I wonder whether his PC is being used as a bot… let’s say I’m doubtful of that theory, Pollyanna though I may be.

So, just for fun, I re-enabled Zone Alarm autostart…but turned off the automatic weekly scanning. I had noted that it was trying to start an incomplete scan–and most of virus software protection should come from real-time scanning, anyway, not the full-disk scans.

And it works just fine. For now, cross fingers.

Best guess: Zone Alarm Suite does separate virus and spyware scans. If you set both autoscans for the same starting date and time, the spyware automatically follows the virus. I’m guessing that the incomplete state caused them both to start simultaneously, and that the two scans went into deadlock (just as you can rarely use two virus programs simultaneously, as they’ll go into deadlock). My wife’s new Toshiba uses McAfee, which manages to combine both kinds of scanning into a single scan…

If I start scans manually once a month, it’s really unlikely that I’ll be idiot enough to start a spyware scan while a virus scan is running.

Comments involving Apple will be cheerfully ignored. In fact, if I do get a new computer, there’s a good chance it will have the same odd boxy logo on its front as this five-year-old beast does.