Newsletter Archives

• Happy New Year!

  Posted on January 6, 2025 at 00:16 CST by Will Fastie

  

  ISSUE 22.01 • 2025-01-06

  EDITORIAL

  

  By Will Fastie

  To begin 2025, we bring you our best advice about keeping your PC spit-polished and ready for another year of hard work.

  The article “Let your PC start the new year right!” has been a staple around here for years. The tradition is now in the capable hands of our resident hardware expert, Ben Myers, after a long run from Fred Langa.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.01.0, 2025-01-06).

  Editorial Happy New Year!, Newsletter Archives, Newsletters, Search

• What has Microsoft done right?

  Posted on July 1, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.27 • 2024-07-01

  EDITORIAL

  

  By Will Fastie

  We spend a lot of time here griping about Windows and, for that matter, all things Microsoft.

  It’s not exactly our job to look for the bad stuff. It is our job to cast a critical eye on the matters we cover in the newsletter and to report and analyze as objectively as possible.

  But it can’t be all bad. After all, if we decided not to embrace change, we’d be calling ourselves the AskWoody XP Newsletter.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.27.0, 2024-07-01).

  Editorial Microsoft, Newsletters

• Who are you? (2024 edition)

  Posted on February 19, 2024 at 02:42 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  EDITORIAL

  

  By Will Fastie

  Here are a few things we learned from this year’s reader survey.

  First, many thanks to the very large number of readers who took the time to complete our 2024 reader survey. Your response is very gratifying and greatly appreciated.

  There are several reasons we do these annual surveys. Of greatest importance is making sure we understand the nature of your use of technology, which directs the content we produce. We also want to know a bit about you and your background — again, so we can gauge the level to which we write.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.08.0, 2024-02-19).

  Editorial Newsletters, Readership, Readership survey, Survey

• Happy New Year!

  Posted on January 1, 2024 at 02:45 CST by Will Fastie

  EDITORIAL

  

  By Will Fastie

  To begin 2024, we bring you our best advice about keeping your PC spit-polished and ready for another year of hard work.

  The article “Let your PC start the new year right!” has been a staple around here for years. The tradition is now in the capable hands of our resident hardware expert, Ben Myers, after a long run from Fred Langa.

  The core of the article will remain the same, with abundant references to the classic and detailed PC-maintenance how-tos originally published in Windows Secrets — and now available in our newsletter archives.

  Did we miss anything? Got ideas about what we should include next time around? As always, we listen to the forums carefully.

  Speaking of the archives, we know that they have not been as accessible as they should be. During the second half of 2023, we worked on under-the-cover repairs and enhancements to our system, with the goal of improving our on-site search capability. This, as it turns out, was a much bigger project than first anticipated.

  I had hoped to offer this as a New Year’s gift to all our members, but as the busy end of the publishing year approached, the project slowed. We will be resuming this work in earnest this month and hope to make a formal announcement of the new capabilities by the end of the first quarter — sooner, if possible.

  Our very best wishes for a peaceful, productive, and prosperous 2024.

  Read the bonus Plus Newsletter (21.01.0, 2024-01-01).

  Editorial Happy New Year!, Newsletter Archives, Newsletters, Search

• Privacy is complicated

  Posted on November 27, 2023 at 02:45 CST by Will Fastie

  

  ISSUE 20.48 • 2023-11-27

  EDITORIAL

  

  By Will Fastie

  AskWoody spends a lot of time discussing matters of privacy and security.

  It would be great if we could write one article that would serve as a permanent primer on the subject. Unfortunately, you know from decades of experience that the threat landscape changes constantly. We’re lucky if we can stay one step ahead of the bad guys.

  Or, for that matter, the good guys, who seem hell bent on learning everything they can about us and using that information — for better or for worse.

  Although a single primer seems an unreachable goal, we can offer some guidance around specific technologies. That’s the theme of this, our fall Bonus Issue. In the following four articles, Susan Bradley shares her thoughts and offers guidance to help you keep your personal information as private as possible, short of becoming a hermit on an isolated atoll in the remote Pacific. She covers privacy from the perspective of location, gadgets, the Web, and the PC.

  Your patronage makes it possible to provide this bonus material, and more. Thank you for being a Plus member.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.48.0, 2023-11-27).

  Editorial Bonus Issue, Newsletters, Privacy

• Who are you?

  Posted on February 27, 2023 at 02:42 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  EDITORIAL

  

  By Will Fastie

  Here are a few things we learned from this year’s reader survey.

  First, many thanks to the large number of readers who took the time to complete our 2023 reader survey. Your response is very gratifying and greatly appreciated.

  Although we can’t share every detail of our results, and we haven’t published them in the previous two years, we now feel we have enough information to present the basics.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.09.0, 2023-02-27).

  Editorial Newsletters, Readership survey

• Lunch with Brian

  Posted on February 6, 2023 at 02:42 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  EDITORIAL

  

  By Will Fastie

  Brian Livingston was on the East Coast a few weeks ago and took the opportunity to make a side trip to Baltimore.

  Brian called in advance to set up the meeting, saying he preferred to meet the people he was working with face to face. He graciously paid his own way, and we had a nice afternoon.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.06.0, 2023-02-06).

  Editorial Brian Livingston, History, Max Oppenheimer, Newsletters

• How our little business is run

  Posted on November 28, 2022 at 02:44 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  FROM THE EDITOR

  

  By Will Fastie

  The operation of a small business isn’t usually the subject of a paper in the Harvard Business Review.

  Neither is AskWoody Tech LLC.

  In one of our regular and routine conversations, Susan and I talked about our respective operational roles, the things we regularly do, and — more to the point — the technology we use every day. The surprise was that despite common links, we do dramatically different things.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.48.0, 2022-11-28).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Editorial Editorial, Newsletters
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