-- Saturday, March 11, 2000 --

 

1:15 a.m. I am so happy and proud to report to you that all systems are back to normal and that I am once again operating from safe and secure ground. My little Macintosh world is back to normal, thanks to the smartest man on the face of the earth.

You may know him as the author and proprietor of the website Espresso, but let me tell you -- Anthony Toscano has powers that lesser mortals only dream of. He can see right through entire system folders and calculate the answer to the most arcane of problems.

Really, it was just amazing. All the funny symptoms were caused by a mismatch between two items in my system that must match up or all hell breaks loose. And yes, I should never have thrown away that one particular folder I saw out there on my desk top.

So, to recap: if you have a Mac, you must have a Text Encoding folder that matches up with a Text Encoding converter in the Extensions folder. The two must be of the same vintage and pedigree. Otherwise: Type 2 errors, no Outlook 5, no Explorer, no matter what.

Now, the good news is that my machine was not possessed by the devil. This was quite a relief, let me tell you. And you would think that now that I have everything back the way it was, that I would leave well enough alone, right? Well, yes and no.

There's still the matter of Eudora. Thanks to the wonderful efforts of the extremely well-connected Maggie Turner, I have discovered that there is an underground cell of Eudora folk who have managed to keep the dream alive.

And so, I will not give up hope that one day, I too, humble sludge that I am -- may be able to join that merry band of hearty individuals who have broken away from the Microsoft stronghold for good and have set sail to new worlds and new civilizations -- but it won't be today.

For now, I will sit tight with Microsoft. Smile quietly. Play along.

And to all those extreme meanies who laughed at my plight and told me to get "a real machine" -- to you I say: Ha! I may be beaten up a bit, but I am not bowed. A real machine, indeed. Just you wait.

The system works. The center holds.

The Macintosh lives! Our plans for world domination are proceeding apace.