Al Fasoldt,
author and
syndicated
columnist
I write Technofile, a weekly newspaper column on consumer technology published in The Herald American in Syracuse, New York, USA and distributed to 100 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada by Newhouse News Service, and Bit Player: Inside the Internet, a weekly column on the Internet that also appears in The Herald American. An associate whose identity is kept secret writes Dr. Gizmo, a newspaper column in the Herald American offering advice to the tech-lorn.
I also write The Common-Sense Audiophile as a staff member of Fanfare magazine. My work has also appeared in Esquire and many online publications. I am a system editor at the Syracuse Newspapers, and have programmed software used at the newspapers and other sites. I'm also a commentator and host on the weekly TV show, Point 'n' Click.
I've been a newspaper reporter, writer and editor since 1963. During the VietNam War, I was Saigon Bureau Chief for Stars and Stripes, the daily newspaper published for American military personnel and civilian employees overseas. I was awarded the rare Joint Services Commendation Medal in 1967. In Vietnam, I was wounded twice—during a mistaken American attack on U.S. troops and during a misdirected American bomber raid against an outpost of 12 GIs on a hilltop. If that sounds to you like Mash, you'd be only half right; it was nowhere near as funny.
I've been an amateur videographer for 20 years, and am fascinated by the possibilities inherent in image processing. Take a look at samples of my work in still-image processing from my own video clips.
TV time: I'm a ham and proud of it. The folks at Time Warner Cable in Syracuse produce an award-winning show on computers and software called Point 'n' Click, and I've been pleased to be part of the production for four years. Producer Nancy Roberts seems to be studying my computer screen while I try to figure out hers on a show in February 1997. Co-host Chuck Swanson adds an exceptional grasp of complex software configurations, too. The show won the cable industry's highest national award in 1998 as the best locally produced series of its kind in the country. The awards are the cable industry's equivalent of the Emmys.
Escher's famous work showing hands that draw each other reminds me that technology is linked to us, and we are linked to it, in the same mysterious way.
[Larger version of drawing.]
Caveats, mea culpas and other Latinate admonitions:
These pages are designed for a display that can show at least 256 colors. If you're using a 16-color display, you won't see the images properly, and such things as the multicolored logos on all pages and even the page background itself may look quite strange.
Pages on this site were written for and tested with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 or 5. But it should not look much different in recent versions of Netscape. If you are using another browser, such as the one built into America Online's software, you may not see all the features of this page or the other pages on this site. You should consider upgrading to a direct Internet connection (at the same basic cost you're paying for AOL) and to Internet Explorer 4 or 5. Internet Explorer is free, and can be downloaded from Microsoft. Use this link to go to a Microsoft page where you can download the latest version of Internet Explorer.
Note: The latest version of Internet Explorer is a superb browser, and I am no longer cautioning against installing it. However, if your PC does not have a fast processor and does not have enough memory to run Internet Explorer 4 or 5 (I'd put that minimum at 48 megabytes), check out Opera, from Opera Software, at the Opera home site.
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