The last time I wrote any kind of year-in-review was three years ago, which is still available online if you want to review it: 

  http://www.geocities.com/boyweho/xmas-2004/e-mail.html 

  So as I enjoy a quiet New Year’s Eve by myself, I figured this was as good a time as any to take a moment and look back. 

  Like my last review, this one is organized like my hard drive, into the following five sections, w/ just a paragraph or two on each subsection. 

ma-main ....: gmail, qmug.org, yahoo.com
mc-mac .....: PowerBook, iPhone, MW/SF 08
mu-music ...: Annie Lennox, Eurythmics, Xmas
mx-men .....: Joshua, Friends, My Dad
mz-misc ....: food, clothing, shelter 

 
ma-main ...... gmail.  In my last review, I was drowning in spam, so the first point of business was to let you know my new @qmug.org e-mail address.  That cut the flow of spam from ~400/month down to ~4/month.  However, over time, I started sending and receiving most of my personal e-mail thru my yahoo.com address, which after all these years, still lets a piece of spam slip in almost every other day. 

  Since I want to be alerted that I have e-mail, not spam, at the beginning of November I opened up a gmail account, and in those two months gmail has not sent me one piece of spam, so I am pleased and thrilled to ask you to please update your address book once again to my new address, doan.**@gmail.com (that’s doan.ds, a little redundant, I know, but doan.st and doan.san were both already taken).

  The next month or three will be transitional, but the idea is to consolidate all of my qmug and yahoo accounts into gmail.  As I did last time, I must explicitly ask you to use my e-mail address only for personal communications, and not as part of any chain mail (“fwd this message to 20 of your best friends”), any contests to win anything, or anything else that isn’t directly or specifically from you. 

 
mc-mac ... PowerBook.  Right after my last review, I was incredibly lucky and fortunate to get a brand new 12" PowerBook, and that it will be turning three already on 02/04/08 is kind of hard to believe.  I actually wrote a “Happy 2006!” message to gush about it, but that message was so long, I never sent it.  Suffice to say in short that it’s been a joy and a pleasure to have. 

............. iPhone.  But this year, or at least the past six months, have been, if you haven’t heard already, all about the iPhone.  Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, Inc., unveiled and demoed it at Macworld Expo/San Francisco in January 2007, and it went on sale in June.  Because of that unusual lead time, preparing for it was very easy, and my past six months w/ it have been bliss. 

  My previous iPods did not display photos or videos, so that’s been a nice plus, plus its camera is nicer than my previous cell phone’s.  All of my contacts sync back and forth between my PowerBook and iPhone, something I couldn’t make happen w/ my Motorola phone.  And the Internet for maps, surfing, and YouTube is invaluable.  Lastly, because of the iPhone, I’ve taken to solving Sudoku puzzles! 

 
(cont. on to “MW/SF 08 to Joshua”)