Blegs

Selfish, Personal Post: If You Were to Start Tomorrow, What e-mail service would you use?

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After a day of waiting on hold with my new internet server (I “bundled” for considerable savings but also because our local cable provider had been swallowed in a buy-out),  the last techie informed me that it was surprising I still got any e-mails – not that they were disappearing from my inbox and from deleted, etc.  (And pretty soon I wouldn’t get any.)   Suddenlink addresses, apparently, were being sent to some black hole.  Meanwhile, Optimum does not provide that service.

I guess I need to move on.  Opinions are generally well supported (and not in short supply) among Chicagoboyz; what has your experience taught you?  I’d love anecdotes  but statements like – XX is wonderful or terrible will also help.   After all, who is more savvy than a Chicagoboy?  On the other hand, I’m incompetent and totally rely on the Greek Squad so simplicity and safety are my biggest concerns.

Bleg: How to Read Old Spreadsheet Files?

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Can anyone recommend a way to convert .FCS spreadsheet files generated by the 1980s software suite PFS:First Choice into an Excel-readable format? Alternatively, can anyone recommend a way to read the data and formulas from .FCS files?

Thanks.

Sgt. Mom’s New Work-in-Progress

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As mentioned last night in the Chicagoboyz Zoom meetup, I have started a new novel, this one to be set in WWII. I’m stuck for a title, so any suggestions will be gratefully considered.

The concept for this new project is based on letters between two cousins during the years just prior to and during the war: One is the wife of a civilian internee in Malaya, waiting out the war in Australia, hoping for word that her husband has survived the fall of Singapore and captivity by the Japanese. The other is an Army nurse, eventually sent to North Africa and Italy. (Suggestions for other plot developments will be considered, also.) I am up to four chapters already, and posting excerpts on my book blog.

Introduction – here.

The first letter between the cousins, here.

A bit of narration, here, and here.

The second letter, here.

Shameless book promo

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I’ve started writing again after a ten-year pause, so it’s pretty much like starting from scratch and I can use all the help I can get. The first two books of a three-book science fiction series, Insurgents and Awakening, are available on Amazon now, and the third, Survivors, will be up in a week or two. (The books work as stand-alone novels; you don’t have to read them as a series, though I think they’re more fun that way.) All three are/will be available in paperback and e-book editions, and the e-books are free in Kindle Unlimited.

There’s an excerpt from Insurgents here and the first chapter of Awakening here, if anybody’s interested.

I hope ChicagoBoyz readers will find the trilogy interesting, since it’s meant to be the chronicle of a totalitarian society’s collapse over a period of several generations.

If anybody happens to read one, I would be very grateful for a review.

AT&T Agility Challenge

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Chicagoboy Andy Bizub, owner of Midwest Performance Cars, sends a request:

My company is a finalist in a national business competition….. and we need your vote to win!
 
Midwest Performance Cars was selected as one of ten finalists in the AT&T Agility Challenge. Please visit the link below, where you can view our brief presentation and vote once per day, every day until July 26th.
 
Please help us get the highest vote tally.
 
We are very proud to be the only business in Chicago to have made the final cut.
 
https://bizcircle.att.com/agility-finalist-midwestcars/
 
Thank you for your support,
 
Andy

You can vote once per day until July 26. I voted and will continue to vote daily. Please help Andy to win the AT&T Agility Challenge, and please consider giving him your business if you are in the Chicago area.