Meet Fred, the empowerer

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ISSUE 18.29 • 2021-08-02 PROFILES By Chris Husted If a single organization were approaching five decades of experience in educating people about compu
[See the full post at: Meet Fred, the empowerer]

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WSGeo, fisher75, abbodi86, Lars220, Alex5723, doriel

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All links for this weeks Newsletter on the home page link to a wrong page. All of the links to the Plus newsletter link to the Free newsletter, and the one link to the Free newsletter results in a 404 error. I was able to read the Plus newsletter by accessing it via the top bar.

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Will Fastie

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They are increasingly important, and the principal activity is volunteer work. I do work at the food bank, where I load food trucks by hand. That takes the better part of two days a week, especially during the pandemic. Food insecurity is a horrible thing that shouldn’t exist in the modern world and certainly shouldn’t exist in the United States today.

Many respects for you, sir! I really admire your participation on helping other people.

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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Is that really an advertisement for Auvik in the current newsletter?  If so, is this an on going occurence?  I hope not. I’m not at all impressed and hope this is not a sign of things to come. Please put my mind at ease or correct me if I’m wrong.

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The Ad is in the free newsletter only. The link on the web site this morning for the paid newsletter was to the free one, apologies!

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Cee Arr

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I had forgotten that Fred’s name was familiar to me when I first came  upon Woody. I was a very early subscriber Byte.

Was Fred there when Jerry Purnelle arrived? For many years Jerry was my goto first read in Byte. He died, was it last year, and it evoked many memories for me. I marvelled at where he got the time to buy (I  presumed) install and implement the very latest technology, warts and all.

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wavy

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Congratulations on the long career helping others. Good way to live.

Thanks for the help. I’ve been reading your stuff pretty much from the beginning. I remember buying some of those phonebook sized magazines <g>.

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I would discuss one of your points. While it is true for “bleeding edge” uses like gaming and video, and bitcoin mining a 3 year old computer is reaching the end of its useful life without upgrades. On the other hand, for a majority of users, even most day to day “business” users, I think they still have at least a couple of years of useful life left unless there is a technological break, like the Win 11 hardware requirements.  Even my 6+ year old laptop meets all but one of the Win 11 requirements. It has everything but an Intel 8th gen chip, but I expect that even it’s 6th gen CPU has enough horsepower to run Win 11 adequately.  The “average” user browses the internet, which doesn’t need a lot of horsepower, watches so videos (usually at low resolution), does some email and word processing and the moderately advanced users do some spreadsheets.  It doesn’t take a bleeding edge device to do that. If you buy a mid range to upper range (but not leading edge) computer, it should be good for several years of use by “average” user.  Granted, code bloat, and feature creep will eventually bog down any “old” computer.

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I have followed Fred for years. I was close to being one of the original lifetime subscribers. I’m 86, so it’s been awhile but I’ve sure gotten my money’s worth!

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SueW

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Yep, I recall Fred, before Windows. I think we even exchanged an email or two. When the GUI interface hit and writing DOS batch files was no longer glamorous, I moved to management, and couldn’t spend the time needed to learn programming. But, I did keep a finger in the pie, and the ‘Institution of Fred’ was always there to help.

Your opportunistic endeavor and magnanimity in sharing were greatly appreciated! Not surprising you are a volunteer!

Congrats!

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Apologies for the links being incorrect on the web site.  The “paid” newsletter was originally pointing to the free newsletter.  It’s been fixed now.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Will Fastie

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Pim wrote:

All links for this weeks Newsletter on the home page link to a wrong page.

My fault entirely. All are fixed now.

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My name is Gerald Bailey and read Woody Plus Newsletter for the last 2 years. I have just down loaded Office 2019 and need help finding out what is in it. Most of the items such as word, excel, power point will load, but not outlook. My e mail address is-

Moderator edit: Removed seven email addresses.

Your post is off-topic in this thread.

Please re-post by creating a new thread in the Office 2019 forum:

Home › Forums › AskWoody support › Microsoft Office by version › Office 2019 for PC

Please do not include any correct, full email addresses; partial examples will do fine.

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Nice write-up on Fred. I had been a LangaList subscriber for many years, and followed Fred to this site on his first retirement. Glad you’re still writing, Fred. I’m a big fan and enjoy your columns. Hoping you have many more years of input into this site!

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Will Fastie

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Thanks so much for the profile on Fred Langa!

I was a long-time subscriber to his list, and even remember the days of Byte. Back in 1986, I joined a startup named Definicon Systems Inc who built the first 32-bit coprocessor (the NS-32000) boards for PCs (running UNIX internally, 16 MB of on-board memory!).

Byte published an article (perhaps from our chief engineer Trevor Marshall), and off we went! A year after my hire, then made me president and CEO (You silly, twisted fool you!, as they used to say on the Goon Show.) The Wild West of computers.

I believe Fred and I are about the same age.  Long may we live! 

Be well, and thanks, always, for your fine newsletter.

-Peter

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Enjoyed reading the interview with Fred Langa.  Somewhere in the mists of time I discovered the LangaList and found it amazingly useful – subscribed until it was gone.  I did read Byte and Windows and everything I could get re computers.  As manager of a small office it was my job to bring us into the computer age in 1985 and I knew nothing.  I took a “learn to fix your PC” weekend course in 1986 and was hooked.  We had a 386 running DOS so I got one for myself at home so I could learn how to keep the office one going.  No one I knew was interested or excited by computers so I depended on the mags and zines for my info and education.  I read every word of the LangaList and saved the entire collection on floppies over the years.  I was delighted when his column showed up in AskWoody and continue to read every one.  Thank you Fred.

 

 

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Thanks Fred! I’ve been following you since the Windows magazine days and was a LangaList subscriber which landed me here. I’ve always appreciated and enjoyed your insights. I wish you well with your “semi-retirement” and hope to keep following you for a few more years! All the best!

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29 years of membership of Melbourne PC User Group and quite active over some early years (still now). I thank Fred Langa for all the work on Windows publications over those years, and the help he has provided me. I bought a great number of the magazines he edited and helped others (seniors) with his disseminated knowledge. Good on you, mate!

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Thank you, Chris, for this insightful and enjoyable interview. And thank you Fred Langa for the years of wisdom you have supplied to all of us here at Ask Woody. I am grateful for all the tech help you so freely offer and look forward to being able to read more of it. Thank heavens for Ask Woody and thank heavens for Fred!

Linda

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