1. Word processing. I got my first desktop computer in 1977, and the first thing I did was get a word processor for it called Electric Pencil. I've never looked back. You can blame Electric Pencil for my career as a writer.
2. Spreadsheets. Spreadsheets were designed to change the profession of accounting and to boost sales of computers. If it weren't for spreadsheets, there wouldn't be a PC Magazine, and you wouldn't be reading this. I'd be writing recipes. The invention of the spreadsheet was perhaps the most important small-computing development.
3. Telecom and e-mail. These were two of the early computer-related technologies I adopted. I used CompuServe mail and MCI mail back then, and now I e-mail through my own domain vorak.org. In the early 1980s, I proposed that e-mail should replace the clunky fax, which became the rage with the advent of the cheap Japanese fax machine. Over the past 20 years, e-mail has taken over the world. I didn't foresee spam becoming such a problem, though. Sigh.

4. Desktop publishing. This eventually evolved into Web page publishing and came about as part of the development of the GUI and the subsequent invention of the laser printer and PostScript. Now even professional book publishers use desktop publishing front-end systems in development.

　　5. Chat rooms. We've had online chatting since the early days of CompuServe and The Source, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) has been around just as long. On The Source (now defunct) chat was difficult to manage. CompuServe promoted it as a CB simulator, which you'd use to talk to your good buddies. And IRC was obscure. But chat became a part of society with its popularization on AOL. AOL was built on chat and made it what it is today.
6. Games. Games are actually near the beginning of the list too, because they contributed to programming techniques learned by developers. But games came into their own within the last decade and might be the most profitable part of the industry. Most innovations have come from game code.

7. Photo editing. It's amazing how many people love to take pictures. And one of the newest hobbies in the world is computing. Put them together, and you have a powerful combination. Digital photography is going to be one of the biggest businesses ever. Digital photo editing in the "digital darkroom" is a huge part of it.

8. Presentation graphics. Either this category or photo editing (above) must be regarded as the last great killer application. Just as e-mail and word processing have become ubiquitous, few presentations given today do not incorporate a PowerPoint-like slide show. Digital projectors have made the PowerPoint show a part of society worldwide.

9. The World Wide Web/Web surfing. Whoever coined the term Web surfing hit a home run. That combined with Information Superhighway made the Internet blossom. Now we have billions of pages and something of a mess.

10. Bootleg software and music. The Internet and computer technology gave us cheap copy and transport mechanisms for any and all digital data. This primarily means software and music. It will eventually mean movies. Nobody is sure what to do about it. This is a mess, too. I sense a theme developing.

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