The Rankin File

About Bob Rankin

Doctor Bob's work has appeared in Yahoo! Internet Life, Boardwatch Magazine, ComputerWorld, NetGuide, NY Newsday and other publications. Bob is co-driver of The Internet TOURBUS, author of several computer books, owner/operator of the popular online florist Flowers Fast, creator of the Lowfat Linux! website, and Geek in Charge at the Ask Bob Rankin computer help site.

I'm a geek, a computer programmer, a writer, and an entrepreneur. I live in upstate New York, between NYC and Albany. My degree in Computer Science got me a job at IBM, but after spending 15 years there, the Internet literally sucked me out back in 1997. Now I work at home in my underwear, publishing information online, operating Flowers Fast and producing the Internet Tourbus newsletter.

Ahh, my first computer... it was a TI-58 programmable calculator, which I taught to bark, sit, and play yahtzee. I also programmed it to act as an alarm clock, which was pretty cool. The display would go blank for the number seconds you wanted to sleep, and then it would flash 888888888E+88, causing interference with a nearby turntable amplifier which provided the audio Bzzt, Bzzt, Bzzt effect. Even had a snooze button... now that's geeky!

My high school had a teletype with 300-baud acoustic coupler modem that dialed into a nearby university computer. This bad boy even had a punch tape system for storing and loading your programs. The teletype made a wonderful "chunk chunk chunk" sound and helped me get into all sorts of mischief, so I guess it was only natural from that point that I would pursue computers as a career. My high school later got a Radio Shack TRS-80 which could use a cassette tape for storage.

I avoided getting a home computer for many years, because I spent all day at IBM working with them. I finally broke down and bought a used IBM "PC Junior" in 1990. It had 4.77 megahertz of raw processing power, no hard disk, and no modem. But I loved it, and now have a PC Jr collection in my basement, sitting right next to my vintage Model 33 Teletype. Now where's that old 5.5-inch floppy with the checkbook manager I programmed in QBasic?

My first contact with the Internet was in the early 1990's through a conferencing system internal to IBM, where I worked at the time. I had already been networking online with people around the world for ten years, but it seemed that the Internet held much greater treasures in store. I became more and more fascinated with the Internet, both as an information resource and as a means of conducting business.

In 1994 I wrote the "Accessing The Internet By E-Mail" guide which told how to access almost anything on the Net using simple e-mail commands, and gave it away for free. It was hugely popular, eventually being translated into 30 languages. The goodwill this generated enabled me to sell thousands of my $5 guides to the Internet, and eventually led me into writing computer books.

My book "Doctor Bob's Painless Guide to the Internet" was published in 1996 by NoStarch Press, and was followed by "Juno: Free Email and More" (1998) and "The No BS Guide to Linux" in 2000. Writing computer books won't make you rich, but it sure is a head trip to see your very own book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble.

The Internet TOURBUS is a virtual tour of the best of the Internet, delivered twice weekly by e-mail to over 90,000 people in 130 countries. Bob Rankin and Patrick Crispen (aka the "Click & Clack" of the online world) explain Internet technology in plain English, with a dash of humor. Since 1995, Tourbus riders have been getting the scoop on Search Engines, Spam, Viruses, Cookies, Urban Legends, and the most useful sites on the Net. TOURBUS has a very diverse audience, with people from all over the world, and every level of computer knowledge. Tourbus is read by doctors, lawyers, teachers, students and journalists. We try to present Internet tools and technology in a way that appeals to both gurus and grandmas. I think everybody with an email address should be getting Tourbus. :-)