Mishalak

To be a turncoat is to leave a side for strategic reasons of not wanting to die. It first appeared in the written English language midway though the 16th century. The story (probably apocryphal) told for the exact origins was of a nameless Duke of Saxony located in the unfortunate position of being near the boarder of the waring Saxons and French. (This must have been centuries before the phrase entered into English because France did not have a boarder with the Electorate of Saxony in the 16th Century) He had the innovative idea of having a coat made up with one side in Saxon white and the other in French blue so that he could quickly change his display of allegiance when the siltation called for it. This was enormously innovative since reversible coats as a commonly available garment did not appear until the beginning of the 18th century and if he'd just been able to avoid the politics and warfare this duke could have had a future in high fashion.

So in what way am I turning my coat? Back in the day I was a loud proponent of the lower cost PC running whatever software was best rather than the OS/Computer with no user serviceable parts. At that time there were actually options besides Microsoft and I happened to use one of them as an interface over MS-DOS. And even after windows came along I still liked the PC better because I could do things getting inside the guts of the OS to make things work exactly how I wanted them to. Maybe I'm just old but I am no longer as happy about that. Or maybe I've been seduced by the shiny Mac and PC ads with that wonderful phrase that "Macs just work".

Now I am realistic. Most products don't actually work as advertised. But I am looking for an improvement over what I do right now. Which is to be semi-constantly worried about my PC being infected with only Plato knows what. And I don't like feeling like a hapless tech support guy from IT who cannot ever seem to actually fix problems without creating more. Plus in looking at the costs of Macs they don't seem that bad anymore. So sometime in August I'll probably buy a Mac Mini or a iMac. Then you'll get the treat of me complaining all the new things I have to learn for a month or two after that. Hopefully in an entertaining way.

I've tried it out using the first 24 of the books in my collection. So far I am less than thrilled. For those who do not know Library Thing is a website that allows you to catalog your personal library. It is free for your first 250 and then it costs if you want to do more. If I was just a reader, a person who accumulates books, this thing would be great. But for someone who tries to pay attention to things like edition and so on it has been less than thrilling. It is hard to get the particular edition information right. Particularly for books that are sold outside the usual channels like items from Easton Press, The Folio Society, and Hill House.

So is it useful to me? Probably not much more than using a database program would be. And I've discovered that one of my books has been quietly disintegrating in the dry air. Old leather bindings don't like Colorado's climate much. Good thing it isn't a terribly valuable one. Just a copy of The Prince from 1954. And terribly frustrating to try and enter in. No ISBN number on such a book.