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Everyone's favorite nerdy thief paid a visit to New York City this past Thursday. He really hit the high notes on the stage of the Juliard Theater near our Manhattan Campus, and could barely lift the Presidential Medal for Leadership that our President Schure awarded to him. When invited to attend, I decided to bring along an objective pen and an open mind. By the end of the ordeal, my objective pen was a relic to the floor and my potty mouth was unstoppable.

As college press from the college that was running the show, we were assured we would be second on the list for questions to Mr. Gates from the press. I was delighted, I didn't think LI News Tonight going before us could hurt anything. When I said us just now, I meant the students, what college was once about, we are probably better known as tuition payers by the boys upstairs. Ed Guliano, our provost, knew of the agenda but as moderator, conveniently forgot. He gave the command for any idiot to rush the microphones leaving my editor (and the question that we had worked on) in the dust. It was a big dog and pony show, as usual. The representatives of the tuition payers were screwed when just as the lone voice of students was about to be heard, Ed closed the Q&A session.

It didn't lower my opinion of Microsoft or Bill Gates, but it didn't change it. During the presentation, Henry Skip Gates(no relation), a professor from Harvard University joined Bill in releasing the new Encarta Africana. Professor Gates spoke of W.E.B. DuBois a great black inventor and visionary who dreamed of angering the white people by making an encyclopedia centered on blacks the way all others were centered on whites. His idea was to highlight all the great accomplishments that were intentionally left out by the existing Encyclopedias. I don't think there should be an hostility toward the makers of the traditional encyclopedias, they didn't know any better. Putting out an encyclopedia is a big task and little help was available to black visionaries during W.E.B. DuBois's career so it never came about. With the help of Microsoft, Professor Gates saw that dream realized. The demo was amazing, it contains rare out of print books and video clips that few have ever seen. The coverage of black people's contribution ot music is my favorite.

It's too bad we were told that there was a set agenda and that only one question was allowed from The Slate while others asked multi-folded obvious questions. I wanted to ask if Microsoft is ready for its demise. We have already seen the shift of computing from the mainframe to the desktop and now we are seeing it go from the desktop to the network, specifically the Internet. Where is this going to leave Microsoft? We all know that it left IBM to a half-assed attempt at a PC to compete with Apple. IBM is now officially pulling out of the PC market and focusing on its prior business, Servers and Chips and also looking forward to the Internet with its e-commerce commercials. IBM is a great company that was built slowly and grows slowly but won't shrink too easily, which is why it is a great stock. Microsoft is working on a half-assed attempt at competing in the future. Soon, you will run most apps over the net and Microsoft will be there, clunky and expensive, but there. Companies like Sun Microsystems knew "The Network is the Computer" for the last 20 years . Microworkz.com will always have a special place in my heart for its iToaster, the consumer Internet appliance that flips Windows the bird. Apple will be booting your iMac over the Internet and allowing tons of creative human beings to remain human and creative. Poor Microsoft will have to fall back on producing BASIC interpreters and Microsoft Word.

RELATED LINKS Encarta Africana PRNewswire on the Launch PRNewswire on the presentation

The Encarta Africana is only for Windows but don't fret. Virtual PC 3.0 allows a Macintosh to run Windows faster than any wintel box(read the stats). But seriously folks I like Microsoft. I think they did a great job back in the Mid 80s when they first demoed Microsoft Word. It was a great application for the Macintosh. I think it was quite diplomatic of Microsoft to also make it run on Windows. But if they want to be truly diplomatic, Microsoft better get to work because Word still works 40% faster on the Macintosh. For more information, links and ramblings, visit beatnikblues.com.