It’s the little things that trigger epiphanies. Those tiny moments of recognition that make me say “Oh! I see!”
A few days ago, I took my Canon S100 out of my shoulder bag where it lives. I’m very careful with my cameras. When I’m shooting, I’m so focused that unless I adhere to a strict routine, I lose stuff. As I’ve gotten older, I lose stuff anyway and I don’t want to lose any cameras, so I follow my checklist to make sure that no camera or accessory gets left behind. I pull the camera out of my bag, stuff its sleeve in my pocket, take my pictures, and put it all back. When I get home, I pop the SD card out, plug it into the computer, download the pictures, clear the card and return it to the camera. Back into my bag it goes. I know if I keep to the program, I will always have a camera near at hand. For some reason, the last time I used it, I didn’t put the S100 away and left it next to the monitor. I’m sure I had a reason, though I can’t recall what it was.
I forgot it until last night when I picked my bag and noticed how light it felt. What was missing? Ah, the camera.
“Hmm,” I said. “I didn’t realize that little camera adds so much heft to my bag.”
It was late. I was on my way to bed, but stopped in my office to collect the cordless phone to return it to its cradle in the bedroom. I noticed the camera lying on the desk. I picked up the camera and thought “Gee, I should swap the battery and charge this one. I’ve been using it a lot.” I have quite a few spare batteries. There is nothing that will ruin a shoot more completely than having a battery die in the middle and not having a replacement with you.
I popped the battery out and went to put it in the charger. I looked at my power strip. Six chargers. Impressive for a strip that only has 6 plugs.
This being a Canon battery, I tried putting it in the first Canon charger on the strip. It didn’t fit. I tried the next but it didn’t fit there either, which shouldn’t have surprised me because it was Panasonic and this was a Canon battery, but who can read black lettering on a black charger in dim light anyhow?
There was one charger in the strip I hadn’t tried. Unsurprisingly, the battery popped right into place. I looked around and realized I have two more Olympus chargers nearby and an off brand charger whose purpose I do not recall. The chargers in this group each attach to one arm of an octopus splitter. With a wrinkle of concern, I realized I had another little camera on the way and no room for a charger. I was going to have to add another strip. I wondered where I could possibly put it. Things are getting crowded in the electrical part of the office.
Epiphany. Bong. Whack.
I have a lot of cameras, computers, tablets, readers, telephones, printers, transmitters, routers, modems, Roku, DVD players and music making thingies. I don’t even know how many there are. I don’t even know where I’ve put them all. Or if they work. They have accumulated while my back was turned. There are all the old ones I used until I got newer ones. Then there are the back ups I never use, but have in case a piece of equipment fails. Spare telephones, extra cameras. Even a couple of miscellaneous computers.
Everything uses batteries including items that plug into a socket somewhere and most things seem to need a WiFi feed. No room is exempt, from kitchen to bedroom. We have electronic toothbrushes in our bathrooms. After even the briefest power outage, my entire house starts blinking.
Night is lit up by the soft glow of red, blue and green LEDs. It’s never fully dark or entirely silent. Everything flickers, whirrs and buzzes, beeps and dings. The telephones variously whoop, bong or play obnoxiously loud music. Even my wallpaper (the stuff on the computer, not the walls in the kitchen) makes splashing sounds as my virtual dolphins leap in an electronic sea.
My universe collapses in the face of a power outage. Nothing works if the power’s down. I am slavishly devoted to technology and the thought of having no electricity for even a brief period makes me shiver with dread.
Everyone these days seems to have a vast quantity of electronic gadgetry, no matter what they say because nothing is simple anymore. The microwave, the refrigerator, the range and the oven are computerized. Those are merely the basics.
I had to reboot my bed the other day.
I may not in theory need so much stuff, but I can’t imagine giving anything up. I love it all. I even love the things I don’t use, cell phones that served me well and obsolete computers or cameras which have been replaced by newer models. They are my Hall of Fame collection.
Accumulation will never stop. Garry’s new computer is on the way and who knows how many peripheral items it will spawn.
I swear this has all crept up on me, slipped into my life a gadget at a time — a computer, a modem, a router, a laptop, another computer another and another. New cameras replaced old ones and they were themselves replaced by even newer gear. New gadgets were invented and became indispensable. As technology continues to evolve, each piece of equipment will be replaced eventually by newer versions. Like virtual seasons in an endless cycle of beeping, flashing and whirring change.
Excuse me. My oven is beeping. Dinner must be ready.
More than the official four in this house. We tried. For a long time.
With Cherrie’s computer, then with my computer but it just wouldn’t connect. That the modem is kind of old and kind of slow and high-speed is rather faster than the equipment can handle may have something to do with it, but whatever the reason, it isn’t happening. I will rejoin this show in progress tomorrow. Please stay tuned!
My husband and I have Blackberry Smartphones. These days, I have the Torch (it was on sale), but Garry still has the Curve. He uses it for email, to track appointments, and to make phone calls. The reason we both wound up with Blackberries and not iPhones was simple: iPhones have pathetic voice quality for making phone calls. So do most smartphones. Blackberry is the only one that seems to care whether or not you can actually hear the voice on the other end.
No one, apparently, makes phone calls anymore, so phone manufacturers aren’t interested in telephone voice quality. Everyone is obsessed by apps. They want to know what apps they can use. They text, play games, take pictures …. but they don’t use the phone as a phone.
In this household, the only thing for which we use our telephones is to communicate and keep our schedules. That’s it. I lack the pointy little thumbs that make texting convenient for younger people. It’s a genetic adaptation I don’t have. My thumbs do thumb-centric things like grasping tools: they are not good for typing except touch typing where they are fine for whacking at the space bar.
Why would I want to do all that stuff on my phone when I have a desktop, a big laptop, a net book, and a tablet? If I want to take pictures, I have two Olympus PEN camera bodies plus 4 high-quality lenses, as well as a small superzoom point & shoot Canon that I keep as backup in my purse. My telephone is good for three things: making and receiving phone calls, synchronizing with Outlook‘s calendar (so Garry and I know who’s going to which doctor and when) and email. He uses it for email a lot more than I do. I prefer a full-size keyboard.
I use a camera for taking pictures and a computer for most everything else. I know that my Torch has a ton of capabilities I never use and I don’t care. I don’t want to use them. Twice I have used my phone to take a picture because it was the only thing available. Otherwise, I like cameras for photography, computers for computing, GPS units for navigation, and telephones for talking to people on ….tada … the telephone.
Unless you are on the road all the time without access to WIFI, what possible advantage do you get by running your world from this tiny device? Why do you even want to? Is it the only mobile device available to you? You mean you don’t have a laptop, netbook, or tablet?
I genuinely don’t understand why anyone feels a pressing need to use a small inconvenient device to do things that are so much easier to do on a bigger device … which they probably already own.
How well do I understand my phone? Enough to do what I need to do. It has good audio for telephone calls! It’s a telephone, you know?
One day, people will discover that they are doing everything the hard way. This is likely to occur when the younger generation starts to hit their late 30s and 40s and discovers they can’t see tiny little objects without special glasses. It happens to everyone and nothing you do will prevent it.
At that point, like a thunderbolt from Zeus himself, an entire generation will realize that it’s a whole lot easier to type on a keyboard, edit graphics and format text on a monitor large enough to see more than a few words at a time and bright enough to tell whether or not the photograph is in focus (what a concept!). They will be shocked by the discovery, thrilled to realize they no longer need to squint at a tiny screen when they could see the whole thing on a big bright high-definition monitor! It will be an international epiphany of epic proportions!
Not only that, but maybe people will remember how nice it is to hear the voice of a loved one, not just see a text or email. We might even rediscover (be still my heart) intimacy. You never know. Human relationships may come back into fashion!
I loved it when I bought it last October, and I love it even more five months later. The Amazon Kindle Fire 7″ HD is fun, a complete entertainment center in a convenient, purse-sized package. It’s almost too much fun. I intend to read, but end up watching a movie. I get distracted by the plethora of choices.
If you understand its purpose and limitations and it suits your needs, it’s the best deal you can get.
It’s a fine reader. You may need to adjust the brightness to suit your comfort level, but that’s easily done. Adjusting the size of the text is a mere finger pinch. In bright sunlight, it isn’t as good as my 2nd gen Kindle, but I rarely read outside. I do, however, read in bed and the built in backlighting is very convenient.
The sound is remarkable. It’s hard to believe you can get that much good sound from such tiny speakers. The quality of the video is also rather amazing. Much better than I dared hope. I actually watch movies and TV shows on my 7″ Fire HD — something I was sure I would never do. As an Amazon Prime member, there are a great many movies and television shows available for free; it will be a long time (if ever) before I need to buy anything. I have a huge library of books for the Kindle and all the books in my Audible account are automatically available on my Kindle too. I’ve gotten great “box sets” of Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy at amazingly reasonable prices. Any music CDs I’ve bought since I got the Kindle appear automatically under the music menu.
The new Kindle HD links to the older of my 2 Audible accounts. They cannot yet link an Audible account that isn’t under the same email address as your Amazon account nor can you link multiple Audible accounts. If you have multiple Audible accounts under one email address that is the same as that used by your Amazon account, they can consolidate libraries, but they will become one single account. If you have more than one Audible account under separate email addresses, you can only link one. I gave up and closed my second account.
If you are having problems with your Audible library, you will need to call Audible. They have always had excellent tech support, even before Amazon acquired them.
The Kindle is great for listening to audiobooks, in my opinion better than any MP3 player because I hate earphones. The Kindle is small enough to carry in a purse and not heavy. You can use it with earphones.
The available memory is only 16GB. It’s plenty unless you want to download movies. Streaming them uses no memory, so there’s no problem. Regular “print” books are small; you can carry a whole library with you if you want. Music and audiobooks take up a lot more memory, but you can stream music. You can’t stream audiobooks yet, but I think you will be able to soon. They’re working on it. Nor is there any way to expand the memory. The Kindle has no slot for an SD chip nor has it a port for a flash drive. Why not?
Wouldn’t it have been simple enough to include slots for one or both? Therefore, you cannot expand beyond the device’s embedded memory. Period. Buying the 32 GB version doubles the amount of resident memory, but there’s still no option to expand beyond that preset limit. I hope future generations of the Kindle Fire will include ports and slots for either flash drives and/or memory cards.
You can work around the limits, but if you fail to recognize the limits of the device you will be very frustrated by it. It is what it is and that’s a lot. It’s just not everything.
Audiobooks can be very large. You can keep a few on the Kindle, but probably not all 57 hours of ”Lord of the Rings.” Listen to a book, then delete it and download the next one. Unlike when you download from Audible to your computer, you cannot download a multi part book in sections. It’s all or nothing. A book that is in your Audible library in multiple parts will download in a single section to the Kindle. If the book you want to load is LOTR or Winds of War, make sure you have enough room. I have not successfully downloaded anything that long. Huge books play, but never finish downloading, in effect streaming which, in theory, you can’t do. No, I don’t understand it.
You can store everything you aren’t actively listening to, watching, or reading on Amazon’s cloud servers. Thus when you delete a book you don’t lose it. You just move it off the device. You can retrieve it whenever you like. All is well if you have WiFi. It’s only an issue when you lack a WiFi connection. Serious road warriors should probably spend the money and get a version with 3G. Kindles with 3G automatically switch to it when there’s no WiFi.
You can do most things you would want to do on any tablet on the Kindle. You won’t be editing pictures or writing your novel, but I don’t think you’d be doing that on any tablet. Or at least, I wouldn’t. For those things, I want a lot more RAM, a real hard drive, the right application and most important, a full-sized keyboard.
The manual — such as it is — is poorly written and incomplete. Effectively useless. Amazon has very good customer service, real people who really know the device and will stay on the phone with you until your battery runs out … but who wants to have to call customer service to figure out how to delete a book or movie? Or for that matter, turn the unit on? It’s stupidly simple, but even if you actually find the manual (I had to call customer service for that, too), you won’t find a listing for “delete,” “remove”, “turn on,” etc. Amazon, hire a competent technical writer. We work cheap. Give a job to someone who needs one!
I bought the $199 version that has advertising. I’m not finding it intrusive. You can get rid of the adverts even after you’ve bought it for an extra $15 if they annoy you, but they show up only as offers on the splash screen. Otherwise, all the ads are under the Offers menu, so you won’t see them unless you are actually interested and go looking for them.
Thumbs up for overall quality, sound, video, and speed. It’s a good-looking compact device. Accessories are affordable. Definitely get the Quick Charger ($9.99); you will be very glad you did. I also bought some inexpensive styli and use them occasionally. They’ve turned out to be useful for my iPhone. The touch screen is sometimes too sensitive. Usually it’s easier to use your fingers than a stylus, but the stylus does come in handy. A cheap stylus will work just as well as an expensive one. I have both and I can’t see any difference between them.
Fingerprints are not a problem. I buy lens wipes at the drug store. They clean the Kindle, my camera lens, my computer and my eyeglasses. Don’t bother with a protective screen; it’s a waste of money.
Do get a cover. Not only does it provide basic protection, but it also keeps dust and dirt out and makes it possible to prop your Kindle up like an easel. Then you can watch or listen hands free. Many covers also turn the Kindle on and off when you open or close it. Since the on/off button is a bit hard to find by feel, a case that does it for you is a plus.
The Kindle Fire HD does a lot more stuff than you expect. I’ve had it for more than 6 months and I’m still discovering useful fun functions. I’ve discovered I can listen to music while reading or playing Scrabble. I can listen to an audiobook while checking email or doing something else online. I’m finally starting to coördinate audiobooks and Kindle books, so I can listen and read at the same time. Kind of cool: as the narrator reads, the books come alive and the text highlights with the narration. Neat.
The Kindle wakes up instantly. Effectively, there is no boot time at all.
It’s not perfect, but it’s still the best deal in town!
When I was a young woman, I refused to wear pointy shoes. They hurt my feet. It took some doing, but I found non-pointy shoes from Fred Braun, Bass and Keds. I wore comfortable sandals, going so far as to have them made to fit my feet — simple, flat and strappy. I owned boots with square toes made in England or Australia. I thought mini skirts looked ridiculous on any anyone over 16, so for a brief unhappy interval, I made my own. That was less successful as people looked at me and said “Ah, you must have made that yourself.” I don’t think it was a compliment.
I still won’t wear clothing I don’t like. I won’t wear anything uncomfortable. I didn’t care about fashion when I was 20 and I care a lot less at 65.
I am equally resistant to fads in technology. I’m geeky enough to understand what’s going on when the latest gizmos are introduced and savvy enough to determine if it would be useful to me.
My purchasing … all purchasing, but especially tech stuff … is driven by what I need rather than what’s new, trendy, cute, or sexy. I don’t have an MP3 player because I’m not outside on the move often enough to need one. For the few times I’m not near a computer, I take my Kindle.
Being unfashionable has advantages. It saves you money. If you don’t need to have the latest thing, you won’t need to replace your wardrobe when whoever decrees what’s “In” and “Out” changes his/her/their mind. I have a pea coat — a real one, made for the U.S. Navy — that is as warm and attractive as it was 35 years ago.
My big Dell computers were bought with an eye toward running everything I have now plus anything that I might need in the forseeable future. I bought computers with as much memory as the operating system will support. I got the highest resolution HD monitors available. I bought huge, fast hard drives and two external drives to deal with data overflow and as insurance against losing a hard drive. I included the biggest baddest video cards the machines would support, Blue-ray reader/writer units, and sound cards that will support any system I feel inclined to hook up. These computers won’t be obsolete any time soon.
If we aren’t hit by a tornado, tsunami, or earthquake, as far as computers go, I’m set. I figure I’m good to go for 5, maybe 10 years or more. And, almost everything is upgradeable.
“The sky is falling,” cried Chicken Little. “PC sales have flattened out!”
I’m happily surrounded by desktop and laptop computers that run without a hiccup and on which everyone depends. ZDNet is simultaneously predicting the end of the home computer. This deduction is worthy of Chicken Little or maybe, Turkey Lurky and is based entirely on computer sales having flattened out while mobile device sales remain brisk.
A pile of mobile devices: smart phones, tablets, laptops and e-book readers. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Armed with this pair of facts, the author concluded that from henceforth we shall all do everything on mobile devices because we no longer need hard drives or embedded applications. We can just pick up apps from the online app store and everything we need can be accomplished … on the telephone? iPad? Chromebook? Android tablet? Having made an earlier and even more baseless pronouncement that we don’t need dedicated GPS’s because you can use your telephone or iPad, I should not be surprised, but stupidity always surprises me. For some reason, I expect better of my peers.
Some other moron (maybe more than one moron) pointed out we don’t need cameras anymore. If you are a photographer, you’ve probably bumped into these people on forums. They don’t get the difference between photography and snap shots. “We can take pictures just as good on our phones,” they shout. Shall I take their advice? I will just throw away my cameras, lenses, filters …everything. I mean, Hell, I have a telephone. What more do I need?
They have declared anything I use for work or art obsolete. Before I try to edit a 12 X 16 photograph on my telephone, a few details are bothering me.
How stupid are these people?
In what world do they live? Do they work … as in, for a living? Are any of them musicians, authors, or photographers? Book designers, engineers, developers? Accountants, financial advisors? Movie makers? Are they aware that most professionals rely heavily on powerful installed applications, like Photoshop, Acrobat, Framemaker and CAD?
Are they kids who think playing games on their phone is the ultimate technological achievement?
People aren’t buying PCs because they have all the computers they need.
Sooner or later, everyone has enough and they don’t need another. There won’t be a buying surge for microwave ovens or refrigerators either. We have enough of them too. The inevitable has occurred. Everyone who wants a computer has one. Most of us have more. In this household, with 5 computer-using adults, we have 10 laptops and desktops. None is close to obsolete.
Like other families, we are short of funds. Bad economy; money is tight. We buy things, just not as much as we did. We can’t afford mistakes, so we have to get it right the first time.
A few years ago, I bought Kindles for my husband, son, and me. Yesterday, I got a newer Kindle that will play audiobooks, music, video, collect email and can be hooked up with Facebook and Twitter. That gives me a compact device to use for all media without breaking the bank. I can listen to audiobooks and read print on one device. Listening, now that I no longer commute, has meant being tied to a computer, usually in my office. The new Kindle gives me freedom to roam.
My netbook was supposed to fill this niche, and to be fair, it tries. It does as much as it can, but I hear its labored breathing. Like “The Little Engine That Could” it mumbles “I know I can, I know I can.” The new Kindle will do many of the things I do on my Netbook, plus everything I did on my original Kindle.
I took a long, hard look at Chromebooks, but the limitations kept flashing at me like neon signs. No hard drive. It would let me do everything I can do on the Kindle or Netbook except edit pictures and create real documents which I can do on the Netbook because it has a hard drive and software. It isn’t the most convenient way to work, but I’ve written on it, edited pictures and published, all from the Netbook. It’s not my first choice of tools, but it will do in a pinch. The Chromebooks are the same size, so other than a gain in boot up time, I don’t see much advantage. Not yet, anyhow.
Using the Netbook, I can do 95% of my work without an internet connection. Offline! Imagine working without WiFi! It could revolutionize the computer world.
A Chromebook would do what the Netbook does, but faster. It can’t do everything the Netbook does because the Netbook’s 260 GB hard drive means I can use real software, not just “apps.” I have tried dozens of apps for photo editing and text formatting and editing. There isn’t any app for serious graphics design or photo editing. Finally, I already own a Netbook, so by definition it’s the cheapest solution. Saving 2 minutes of boot time is not worth $450. When Chromebooks get a hard drive, maybe we’ll talk.
Every Chromebook cost at least twice the price of the 7″ HD Kindle Fire, so finally, I bought one. Now, I have a device that does 90% of what I need for short money with terrific customer service from Amazon, too.
Lies! They are telling us lies!
The problem in figuring out what device was right for me was compounded by how corrupted my sources of information on new technology have become. ZDNet used to be a reliable source. Now they are toadies in thrall to their advertisers. No more real reviews. Instead, they serve up puff pieces, touting whatever Microsoft or Mac’s PR departments tells them to say. Maybe someone believes it, but based on the comments I saw, not many.
I search individual blogs for honest appraisals of new technology. I rely heavily on reviews by knowledgable users. I compare features against price. I try to evaluate if a technology is “ready” or if it’s still Beta.
Stupid articles; are we dumb enough to believe them?
Not long ago, in an equally ill-informed article, ZDNet announced the death of dedicated devices, in particular, the GPS. The author (and I use that word advisedly) stated since we all own tablets and smartphones, we are now going to use these iPads, iPods, or smartphones for navigation. I found the idea of attaching a 10″ iPad to my windshield pretty funny. Having tried my phone as a GPS, no thanks. The limitations of the phone mean you can’t see the map OR hear instructions over any kind of background noise.
They have also repeatedly announced the death of personal computers along with the replacement of embedded software by mobile apps. They are serious, or appear to be. They think free apps will replace everything. Really? Have they actually tried to use these apps? I suspect they have not tried anything. They make assumptions and print them as facts.
We don’t need no stinkin’ facts! What’s research?
Instead of professionals producing thoughtful articles about technology, we have a bunch of stooges for big corporations. They are not working for their readers. They are trying to sell us on whatever their sponsors want them to push. The articles are nothing more than slightly reworded corporate PR releases. I would say they are badly researched, but I believe there was no research done at all.
They got a PR packet, picked some information out of it, did a little tweaking, and voilà, that’s the article. If I’m going to just take the manufacturer’s word for it, I don’t need them.
I doubt whoever wrote the last article saying that we were all going to do everything on our mobile toys has ever tried to do anything working people need to do. He certainly never tried to do it on one of the devices he was touting. He probably thinks his telephone is a fine precision camera and he is welcome to his opinion so as long as he doesn’t ask me look at his pictures.
Anything that can do everything doesn’t do anything well.
In the realm of small dedicated devices, from cameras and MP3 players, to telephones, DVD players and book readers, dedicated devices perform far better than equivalent “add ons” to general purpose devices. A modern computers is not a dedicated device: it’s a platform with power to drive a lot of different things, rather like a big empty room. It does many things, but it won’t do everything well. You can use it as a TV, but sitting in your living room, feet up on the recliner and watching a movie on your big-screen TV is a more satisfying experience.
You can use a computer as a GPS, but a small dashboard or window-mounted unit is a lot easier and responds faster. Nothing takes pictures like a camera with a good lens. Nothing reproduces music better than a good sound system with high quality speakers. Book readers are better for reading text and if you want to make music, learn to play an instrument.
I don’t want to read on my computer or take pictures on my phone. I am a photographer and I use a camera. If you are positive your iPad is just as good as a camera, if you believe your cell phone or android tablet is good enough to fill your picture-taking needs, you’re probably right. Don’t show me your pictures. Please.
I own three cameras. I edit in Photoshop. I write books. I design books and I use Framemaker, the world’s most anti-intuitive software, but also the only software that does the job. In the ZDNet fantasy world, we are going to do everything on our telephones or tablets. Where do I fit into this portable society? The answer is simple: I don’t. Probably neither will you.
“There’s an app for that!”
No, there isn’t. There is no app by anyone anywhere that can come anywhere near any version of Photoshop. There is no application other than Framemaker that will create indexes across chapters. For creating PDF books for reading online, you need Acrobat. What? You don’t need to do any of that? Well, I do. So do other people. People work with spread sheets and other office application. Before you declare the PC obsolete, you might want to try working … really working … on these little tiny devices you want to sell me. You’ll be shocked and amazed to discover a spread sheet is invisible on a telephone. You might be able to create a small one on a tablet, but if you are a serious number cruncher, you aren’t going to do it on an iPad or any other tablet. You may use a tablet to display the final result, but you won’t use it to do the work. If you are editing pictures, you’re not going to use a little screen on a pod, tablet, or telephone. You will want a big high-definition monitor.
Photo and video editing require a large monitors, lots of RAM and a huge hard drive. Despite the opinions of the young and clueless, there people who take their jobs and art seriously. These folks require serious tools with which to work. If you think games are the epitome of technological achievement, get a job.
How come people are still buying small mobile devices but not computers? Aw, c’mon. You know why not. They don’t need another computer, but they don’t have a tablet. Or, they have a cell phone, but the technology for telephones is changing … and telephones are subject to much more abuse than other devices. They get rained on, dropped, and sat on. Crumbs and coffee make the keys sticky and touchscreens become unresponsive. I’ve had the same phone for years, but I don’t use it much. When it dies, I’ll replace it. Till then, I’m fine.
People will not always buy a new phone twice a year. They’ll make sturdier ones, waterproof, dust-proof, and shock-proof. Eventually, everyone will have enough telephone, tablets, and other gadgets. No doubt there will be new gadgets, but to sell them, they’ll have to come up with new needs to fill. Otherwise, they will build them, but no one will buy. They will create a gadget so sexy, cute and trendy that manufacturers will be anticipating a veritable rush to buy them … but no one will care. They will be gadgeted out.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The clock is ticking.
Computer sales are going to stay modest until the expensive high-powered laptops and desktops we recently bought break down or are obsolete.
Are personal computers going the way of dinosaurs? Mine aren’t.
If Microsoft forces their OS on me, an operating system that shows all the signs of being out of touch with the needs of users, I might reconsider my choices and buy a Mac or a Linux box. I have a big investment in PC-based software so I’d rather not, but maybe I can get upgrades that run on other operating system.
No amount of salesmanship will convince me to buy stuff I don’t need or like. I don’t like anything I’ve heard about Windows 8. Like Vista, it sounds like a good reason to not buy a computer.
I like gadgets. I like cool devices. If someone gives me a toy, I will play with it. But I’m not going to spend a lot of money to get it. Free is my price on anything I don’t actually need.
About the software
We need new software. Photoshop Elements was a good faith effort to create a version of Photoshop for people who don’t need all the bells and whistles. We need other streamlined applications that don’t require so much hard drive space. Microsoft Office is bloated and excessively automated. You can’t do half the things today you could do 10 or 15 years ago.
Freeware is the way of the future, as well as cross-platform applications that will work on any operating system. Many households already use computers running various operating systems.
For years, software was way ahead of hardware. Now, the reverse is true. The software world has seen an explosion of creativity in games, but no equivalent development of working applications. Adobe, a company that was dedicated to providing professional software has been floating along without doing anything significant or unique in years. How about Framemaker Elements? That would give Word a run for its money.
It would be great if magazines and journals that supposedly provide information to the trades would consider doing that. As a consumer, I resent them trying to sell me stuff. The only reason I read trades is for non-partisan information on new technology. Now, I don’t trust anything they say so, which makes them useless to me.
As a writer, I deplore the poor quality of the articles and as a consumer, the obvious lack of research offends me. At the very least, try the product before you tell me it’s great.
Let’s go back in time to when integrity and honesty could be used in the same sentence with writer. Bad enough that every sleazy politician is out there lying his/her ass off, but “et, tu brute?”
With camera in hand, exploring European lands, cultures, food, and drink...mostly with a plan, but sometimes enjoying the adventure of just getting lost.
