Hello and welcome! If you are retired and are even minimally technically inclined or would like to be, enjoy using a computer, and find yourself using a number of services such as Google docs, RSS readers, photo editors and organizers and so on, may I suggest that you explore self-hosting or homelabbing as a great retirement hobby. Today I want to introduce you to the two hobbies, how they are different and how they are related.

Revisiting WordStar A day or so ago I ran across an article where science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer had released his version of WordStar 7.0 for DOS, noting that it is now abandonware and, thus, he felt comfortable releasing it into the wild. What was interesting was that, as he noted, not only he, but several other quite successful writers had developed quite an affinity for the ancient software that ran on a long outdated operating system.

For the past ten years I have worked from home. Although I interacted regularly with students and other faculty, those interactions generally took place by email (my preferred method) or, when interactivity was required, by phone, Teams, or Zoom. Actual face-to-face interaction was very limited. I liked it that way for, as odd as it may seem, I don’t actually like dealing with people directly. I say that’s odd because I have spent my entire career in a field that required not only face-to-face interaction but, as a nurse, often that interaction required intimate contact with others.

Putting My Second Act into Perspective Six months ago I retired after forty years of nursing practice. One of the things I was told when I retired was that I would get bored within three months. Uh. No. As I told a former co-worker, I’m busier now than when I was working. The difference is that I’m doing what interests me, what I want to do, rather than what I’m required to do by someone else.

Back in the late 1980’s, when I first began working with computers, there were a fairly wide variety of devices and OSes from which to choose. TRS-80, Commodore (I had the C-128), MS-Dos based PCs, Apple, Amiga, and so on. The challenge was to determine which device worked best for your intended use. DOS based PCs were best for office type work, Apple was the choice if you were doing multimedia, Amiga for gaming, etc.

Using the Right Tool for the Job Back in the late 1980’s, when I first began working with computers, there were a fairly wide variety of devices and OSes from which to choose. TRS-80, Commodore (I had the C-128), MS-Dos based PCs, Apple, Amiga, and so on. The challenge was to determine which device worked best for your intended use. DOS based PCs were best for office type work, Apple was the choice if you were doing multimedia, Amiga for gaming, etc.

Driving a Hybrid Pickup Truck I drove a 2000 Ford Ranger for over 20 years. I loved that truck and basically just wore it out. I think when I finally sold it in 2021 I had put over 250K miles on it. But, alas, all good things come to an end and as it got longer in the tooth it began to have more problems, with their associated costs, than I was willing to deal with.

Doing Unix-y Things In an earlier post I noted that my foray into Linux began when I started an intensive program in network administration, etc back in 2000. That’s not precisely true. That course did not teach me anything about Linux. I don’t even recall it being mentioned. What it did teach me was Unix. Sun Solaris Unix, to be precise, running on a Sun Sparc server (rest their souls). Linux came along a bit later.

Why Do People Use ChromeOS? It seems like people have jumping on the ChromeOS bandwagon in droves since the first Chromebooks debuted in 2011. The draw, as I understand it, was that the laptops were small and inexpensive and required little knowledge of computing. Boot it up, create a Google account (if you didn’t already have one), and go. Schools and even businesses bought into the ecosystem quickly. Today many schools are almost entirely connected using Chromebooks and often students are given a Chromebook for them to take home and use.

Moving from Exchange to Zoho Mail Somewhere back around 2011 or 2012 I moved from my ISP’s email service to Microsoft Office 365 Business plan that offered access to MS Exchange server. I had previously toyed with using Gmail’s services with my own domain name but didn’t find that it met my specific needs. Too, I really didn’t have a great love for Gmail. My motivation for moving, as I recall now more than a dozen years later, is that I was starting my doctoral studies and needed to be able to coordinate more easily with classmates, access calendars and documents across multiple platforms, and generally have better control over my workflows.