Easter Parade

FTLComm - Caronport - April 25, 2000

After spending the Easter weekend in Winnipeg we are traversing the Great Central plains as yesterday we went from Winnipeg to Regina and today Regina to Swift Current then tonight back to Tisdale. We did up the Monday issue of Ensign from Winnipeg yesterday morning but today's edition is being done as we travel along and will be posted when we reach Swift Current so if you checked in with Ensign early this morning you would have discovered it was still yesterday. Working on the road is not a new process with us as the FTLComm van has a complete office with desk

and lighting that will work enroute. In January of 97 we used this system on a trip to the MacWorld Conference in San Francisco actually doing up hockey programs for Tisdale games on the road and sending them back via the Internet for printing. On this trip we have just taken the essentials and the desk remains back in the office. With the use of an inexpensive inverter portable electrical power gives you this flexibility. Though it is easier to use a laptop to put Ensign together we need to be able to have the full features of our G3 computer. (This page has pictures taken as we were travelling along from Moose Jaw to Swift Current)

The March edition of Popular Science has a series of feature stories on computer technology as it is likely to evolve in the future and it would seem both from reading those articles and the work that we as a business and family are involved it would be foolish to suggest any limitations to what we can expect in the immediate future. The next biggest change is rapidly taking shape as SaskTel is trying to sort out its future with regard to the high demand from the public for higher speed connections for their computers.

As you have probably heard they are considering working a partnership with Bell Canada but one way or another some basic decisions have already been made and SaskTel must act or others will supersede them in this direction. The demand for faster speed then our current dial up speed that even on a good day in a town will be only 48 or 49K the infrastructure to develop wire alternatives such as ISDN or ADSL are not practical so that leaves the obvious alternative and that is using "wireless" networking technology. The direction computer technology is going is to require and have the capability of continuos high speed connection because of new horizon trends.

Though the web and its information, sales and advertising potential continues to flourish there are other things that can be done with Internet connections other then e-mail and browsing the web. Better and more user friendly, almost transparent computer technology is possible if computers themselves that you use become simpler and the operating system and applications become more

elaborate. This means that you can expect that the computer access appliances you will be soon considering will be using software that is acquired at the time of use from the network thus permitting simpler computers yet giving you far more capability then is currently the situation. As you can see this would mean a far different form of network capability then is currently the case and new appliances would not work without the ability to acquire their operating systems from the network.

Though this seems far fetched right now we at FTLComm did experiments of this kind four years ago and they were more then successful. We published our parts and accessories catalogue on line providing our customers with free run time software to access the catalogue which did not involve a browser or any other application other then the one we provided. This is the sort of thing that we know works and the whole computer industry is about to be transformed by the trends in this direction. The reason these technologies have been

delayed has been largely a result of the widespread use of Microsoft software which produced the development of more advanced computers and operating systems. Now with Microsoft about to to be dissected by the US justice department innovation and its normal evolution will once again resume its normal course. If you would like to know more about this evolutionary technological process send your questions to Ensign and we will pass on to you the information and research results that we at FTLComm have available. Your interest and concerns will help us create the stories that address these concerns.

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Ensign, North Central Internet News, published daily by Faster Than Light Communications, FTLComm