Apple II cameo at Computerworld
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When I quit my job at Computerworld almost two years ago, I left the company on good terms. Though that’s true of every job I’ve ever had, Computerworld is unique in allowing me to continue my professional relationship as a freelancer, contributing reviews, interviews, and feature stories. As a result, I’ve been more prolific since leaving than I was during my tenure there. As a salaried employee, writing was not in my job description, so my byline never affected by bottom line. Now, each successful pitch results in another paycheck, which is a powerful motivator.
The downside to that arrangement is that stories that would’ve been published when they were "free" (minus the time and effort of the professional editors I worked with) may get passed over when there’s a fee associated with them. That’s why you saw KansasFest coverage at Computerworld 2007–2013 but not in 2014 — the enterprise IT and Apple II crowds overlap only so much.
Nonetheless, I inadvertently worked the Apple II into my latest story for Computerworld. Apple II Bits is powered by the content management system WordPress, which I’ve been enthusiastically using and supporting for eight years. When WordPress 3.0 came out four years ago, I reviewed it for Computerworld — so it seemed a natural fit to revisit the topic in my new capacity as a freelancer for last week’s release of WordPress 4.0.
My WordPress 4.0 review was submitted with screenshots of the WordPress backend taken while I composed the Apple II Bits blog post "Maniac Mansion design notes". I hadn’t been thinking that, with Computerworld’s own recent rollout of an entirely new design and more visual CMS, they’d need to use one of these images on the homepage. And so it was that a screenshot of LucasArts’ 1987 classic point-and-click adventure game Maniac Mansion graced the homepage of Computerworld.com in 2014.
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