Do not move on to 2026 without letting go of something significant from 2025 – an old idea, habit, fear, or concern of ego. Let go to free up white space for something new to enter. ~Brendon Burchard
Happy New Year!
Happy Anniversary to Comp-U-Talk! January marks 42 years of business. A big Thank You to all who helped us along this amazing journey.
Annoying things happened in December. Microsoft announced they are going to kick Microsoft Publisher to the curb in October 2026. That makes me sad. I have been writing this newsletter in publisher for 30 years. This month I am going to attempt to duplicate the effort in Microsoft Word. I am sure the endeavor will be delightful ☹ Their recommendation is to convert all publisher files to word files using the Save-As Feature. I tried that. It was ugly. I am generating this newsletter from a blank page. The complete Microsoft announcement is here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/microsoft-publisher-will-no-longer-be-supported-after-october-2026-ee6302a2-4bc7-4841-babf-8e9be3acbfd7
In my head, I think tariffs are designed to encourage companies to bring manufacturing back to the United States. I approve of the USA becoming as self-sufficient as possible. But I’m telling you, getting back to self-sufficiency is painful and expensive. We saw the price of RAM, a major component of computers, triple, and at some suppliers, it quadrupled in price. Add the explosion of growth in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) data centers and we are facing some major price hikes on parts that are in short supply.
If you have been waiting for prices to come down so you can replace or upgrade your workstation, STOP! DO NOT PASS GO! DO NOT COLLECT $200! Start the upgrade/replace cycle now. I can’t tell the future, but I don’t see this problem reversing course anytime soon.
And the verdict is in. I have spent way too many hours trying to get Word to keep my formatting. There is a rumor that I can replace Publisher with Power Point or something new called Designer. Think I will try that next month and see if works any better.
Until then, stay safe, stay healthy, throw out something that is holding you back and start something new.
Janet
Thank You for 42 Years!
