Tagged: Five things about me

Whether you love or hate the "meme," the "Five Things" one is still circulating. And once you've been tagged, it seems rude not to respond. So here goes:

Five Things You May Not Know About Me

1. I've been writing about technology since 1983. My very first published story was about  beryllium copper wire, the supplies and prices of which matter a great deal to PC component manufacturers.

2. The first time I interviewed Bill Gates was in 1984. He was in his 20s. So was I.

3. I went to chef school with the intention of becoming a vegetarian chef. I almost took the plunge to cut carrots for a living in 2002. Instead, I stayed in tech journalism and built Microsoft Watch.

4. I was one of the 90 or so bloggers who got one of those controversial Ferrari Vista laptops over Christmas. (I guess Microsoft realized that I had no plans to try to install Vista on my one and only PC that is working fine with XP.) Before I accepted the machine, I made it clear to Microsoft that I was treating it as a loaner, not a gift. (I did the same last year with Apple and its iMac loaner that I returned after dabbling with Mac OS X.) I haven't yet blogged about the Ferrari because I haven't found anything new to report. There's certainly nothing new to say, re: ethics. There are ethical and unethical bloggers -- AND journalists -- out there. A loaner laptop isn't going to change my mind about Microsoft, AMD or  Vista

5. I don't have a TV. And I haven't read a printed copy of a newspaper since 2001.

Five others I'd like to know more about: Mini-Microsoft, Steven Sinofsky, Frank Shaw, Terri Stratton, Ryan Stewart