I'm back honing my "minimalist Linux" skills and retraining myself on kernel tweaking.

Envy of other people's talents aside - do remember all those old MMX CPUs that don't offer the CMOV instruction (whatever that is) - and can no longer boot modern terminals.

Must say, I have reservations about the Cloud. Great if you're getting paid lots of money in connection with it, but I'm not convinced that it's necessarily a good thing.

Visions of more and more personal data-harvesting and targetted advertising... Probably unfair. And probably of little concern to the "fone"-using generation, who can't remember what it was like to go through an airport without being searched and made to feel suspected of evil intent.

I have to say, my brief foray into Windows 8 raised my eyebrows. One of the first things they encourage you to do is to open/sign in to a Microsoft account. Fortunately, this isn't essential. As long as you never want to use their "apps store," that is.

At least GNU/Linux developers continue to offer choice and refuge to binary dinosaurs like me for the time being.