Picking A Program

Having been involved professionally in philately since 1976, my role has been that of a writer, editor, and publisher. What I have done in that time is not important here. Rather, I believe I have been able to be part of the hobby/industry while still able to observe it through the objective-some would spell that "j-a-d-e-d"-eyes of a journalist.

Of particular interest to me is the manner in which philately and technology interacted. I obtained my first personal computer in 1980, trading stamps for it. In many camps, that alone is enough reason for me to be considered an expert in the general arena of "stamps and computers."

Let's look for a moment at what most all of we stamp collectors do in the furtherance of our hobby interests:

• Gather, sort, and categorize many, many small items
• Seek out information about these items, i.e., research, and
• Attempt to produce the results of our finding in a coherent manner, i.e., mounting our collection(s) for our own enjoyment and/or for exhibit and, to a somewhat lesser extent, help develop the largest body of literature of any hobby there is.

• Make it easier to keep track of all sorts of things, through databases and spreadsheets
• Learn about nearly everything we want via online searches-either that or Google and Yahoo have been scamming us for quite some time, and
• Ease the burden of neatly configuring presentations, such as album pages, and severely lessening the burden of original writing through word processors and their accompanying spelling and grammar checkers and thesauri.

Advice from an aging philatelic journalist (me): think for a moment what your hobby life would be like if rather than the "imperfect" inventory and album programs you had none at all!