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Why America’s Mid-Sized Pickup Trucks are Dying

Chrysler–or rather Chrysler’s truck line RAM–has ended production of its mid-sized Dakota. Ford has ended production–at least in the U.S.–of its mid-sized Ranger. Other brands are seeing a reduction in sales of More »

Mac OS X 10.8 – First Impressions

The writer’s wife here. When I found out that Mountain Lion was going to be released this week, I had a certain level of excitement followed by my usual levels of trepidation More »

Never say ‘never’.

Below is a copy of a comment I made in reply to a different commenter on the ZDNet posting, “Microsoft Surface will be a real iPad rival in the enterprise, say CIOs” More »

Mahindra/Jeep Partnership?

Ok, call me crazy–crazy like a fox. There is a market in the U.S. for a compact pickup truck, a Jeep pickup truck and a diesel pickup truck; it seems Mahindra has More »

Car and Truck Interiors

April 25, 2013   David   1 Comment

        For background, I just read an article on Pickup Trucks dot Com about the RAM 1500 garnering a top ten rating for its interior. http://news.pickuptrucks.com/2013/04/ram-interior-makes-wardsauto-top-10-list.html#more
Some of you who have met me in the different comment boards of sites like this know that I am an Opinionated Driver. In this case, I want to discuss a few factors about these interiors.

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In the path of “Frankenstorm”

October 27, 2012   David   No comments

        That’s a slight exaggeration as in truth the main point for me is the fact that where I live is in the northern half of the Maryland county now listed as the bulls-eye for Hurricane Sandy. The storm itself will make landfall at Ocean City, Delaware, according to the most recent report I’ve heard and pass through Dover enroute to passing through York, Pennsylvania. This puts me just about 50 miles northwest of landfall and on the more dangerous northern side of the storm where winds and rain are usually more intense.

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A Mac User’s View of Windows 8 and the Touch Screen Environment

September 06, 2012   David   2 Comments

As a private consultant, I read a number of tech blogs every day. Tech Republic, ZDNet, PCWorld, MacWorld and others. I also tend to follow the discussions that go with many of their articles. I have to admit it amazes me how strongly biased people–supposedly intelligent people–can be against change. With Windows 8 just around the corner, the hype and the outrage is incredible. For many of these people, you would think Apple had just bought out Microsoft and turned Windows 8 into OS X.

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Why America’s Mid-Sized Pickup Trucks are Dying

August 21, 2012   David   18 Comments

Chrysler–or rather Chrysler’s truck line RAM–has ended production of its mid-sized Dakota.

Ford has ended production–at least in the U.S.–of its mid-sized Ranger.

Other brands are seeing a reduction in sales of their mid-sized models; General Motors’ Canyon/Colorado, Nissan’s Frontier and even Toyota’s Tacoma–though the Japanese brands are absorbing sales that once went to RAM and Ford. The big question is why?

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Microsoft is upsetting the OEMs

August 09, 2012   David   2 Comments

Here’s the problem and why I believe Microsoft has made this commitment. Eleven years ago, Microsoft ‘introduced’ a new computing paradigm by developing a Tablet Edition of Windows, claiming that within 5 years nobody would be computing on a conventional laptop or desktop any more. Now, I’ll grant that it was an optimistic claim at the time, but as we can now see with Apple’s iPad, they weren’t that far off from the truth once people started seeing the benefits of tablet computing. However, eleven years ago quite literally nobody paid attention to Microsoft’s concept and didn’t develop to it. True, several brands did maintain a few tablets or convertible laptops that used the touch interface–mostly poorly–but the software developers ignored the paradigm entirely and continued to write traditional mouse-&-keyboard apps.

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The iWork 09 Update and the frustrated Writer’s Wife

August 04, 2012   The Writer's Wife   No comments

Somewhere along the line, and I think I’ve targeted it as some type of update I received on 07/24/12, my iWork install died. Pages crashed with every attempt to save, Keynote wouldn’t even launch, and I didn’t both trying Numbers. Most of the times in the past I’ve been able to copy from a working install and I was golden, not so true this time around.

First, I decided to try copying from my TimeMachine backup. Went back a day before the offending date, and replaced my iWork ’09 folder with my backup. Launched Pages. Was looking good. I saved the file I was editing, exited out and launched it again. Tried to save a second time, no luck. Launch Keynote. Crashed. Frustration set in to the utmost degree. Plan B.

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Apple needs to get off the Intel processors

July 31, 2012   David   No comments

The Mac’s mobile-only future — ZDNet

I think Apple is headed beyond ARM. I’m sure we all remember that Apple did buy a chip design company and I believe we can all agree that the modified ARM chips in the iPhone/iPad were designed by that group. I think, however, that Apple plans to go a lot farther and return to the PPC platform using chips exclusively their own design rather than relying on Motorola or IBM the way they did the first time. If you will remember, that company Apple purchased did specialize in PPC design.

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“If OEMs aren’t committed to Windows 8…

July 30, 2012   David   No comments

… where are they to go?” www.zdnet.com

I expect Windows 8 to see a massive early-adoption surge (I’ll probably be part of it) followed by a rapid falloff while people go into a wait-and-see stance for reviews and commentary. We both already know that some 50% of current Windows techs hate Metro but we also know that Metro is where Microsoft intends to take the OS more fully. Why? It’s the tablets.

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Thoughts on hybrid vehicle technology

July 30, 2012   David   No comments

In reference to A Pickuptrucks dot com article, noting a new Class 5 truck coming to the US using hybrid technology, I keep observing that so much of today’s automotive hybrid technologies seem intent on re-inventing a 100-year-old wheel. I would say the hybrid system that makes the most sense would be one that uses strictly electric drive with the diesel doing nothing more than powering the generator. This system has been working well for almost 100 years in railroad locomotives and even there the battery storage system is at work with units called “yard goats”–in other words, switching units that spend more time accelerating and decelerating than trying to maintain a steady speed. This type of hybrid is perfect for a delivery truck.

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“Bonus”? feature of Mountain Lion

July 27, 2012   The Writer's Wife   1 Comment

So, while I have yet to experience the beauties of Mountain Lion a complaint has surfaced. After the install of Mac OS X 10.8 on the Fox’s mac I hear rumblings of frustration. “My RSS Feeds are GONE!”.  Check Safari? Check Mail.app? Yes, definitely gone. Now, I’ve always known Apple to push the envelope, but ditching RSS feeds when they were built into both Safari and Mail. And not just ditching them gracefully in one or the other, but both. At the same time. Bad form, my favorite not so little company in Cupertino. Bad form.

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  • 1The Writer's Wife (a.k.a. Donna Phillips) is an administrator and contributor for DWFields.com. She has worked in the IT field since 1996 when she first joined the staff of a local internet service provider. She is an avid reader, crocheter, community volunteer, and geek.

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