Technology Whine Version 1.0

We meet again fare reader – this time I will get on a virtual soap box. I’ve been quiet past few weeks because of other things that have been occupying my time. The day job got pretty crazy past few days, and the weekends were part of a family traveling bonanza. Yours truly is actually hovering above the earth right now in a blue tin can sipping a fresh diet coke with a born on date from sometime before Y2K.

My mental vent this time around encompasses a few elements of what technology has brought me in the past several years, what it has taken away and what it has simply screwed up. I’m almost positive there are a number of you out there that share the same feelings about this, and if not, well too bad – this is my vent. The title of this chapter is enumerated with a “version 1.0” since I’m absolutely positive I’ll revisit this technology whine again in the not too distant future.

So what I am going to whine about? Well, where to begin. I consider myself somewhat technical, I do actually have higher education in Computer Science, have worked in what the mainstream media refers to as “hi-tech” industry since I graduated college. So sure, why not – I’m a professional geek, not a nerd. Over the years of reading trade rags, websites, attending all the usual and no so usual trade shows, I’ve seen plenty of trends, fads, ideas, and shifts in paradigms when it comes to technology. Some stuff is pretty cool, and some stuff leaves you walking away thinking “Umm…so what?” The “So What” factor unfortunately these days has come up more so in recent years then before. The technology advancement and impact on day-to-day life “curve” has been flattening out for a while in my opinion. The dot.com bubble made the curve dip like the Superman ride at a Six Flags Amusement park, but in the bigger longer term, the curve has flattened to the point of stagnation. There are several reasons for this, I will only scratch the surface on this topic since there are many other credible folks who have written books on this that I don’t wish to read or regurgitate here.

Oh mother where art mouse?

Some of the advancements in technology revolve around making things smaller, more compact. The laptop is the perfect example, when they first came on the scene they were ‘nothing but a huge thang’ – more silly than anything. I remember watching my high school physics teacher try to look balanced and walk erect with this monstrosity slung over one shoulder. Of course, at the time – he was considered one of the more “progressive” teachers because not only did he use a computer, he carried it around with him and created our semester workload on it. Once laptops became smaller, tighter and less prone to flare up the sciatic nerve, that was a good thing – impacted the business user, the student and perhaps the home user. Now we fast forward today, my laptop is considered a “light weight” or “notebook” because it’s very small. I like the small laptop because it allows me ease of use on planes with the very tiny coach class seats. This laptop was recently upgraded because of my company’s lease program; we get new systems every 2-3 yrs, very nice indeed. Alas, my whine. The new laptop is the same physical size as my old one. Same screen size, thickness, weight etc. Granted the system is a lot faster, and has a larger hard drive. But, I’ve lost all input devices to external attach on this system. My older notebook had built-in floppy drive and DVD player, my new one does not. So is this progress I ask? Where did the idea of newer, faster, less built-in attachments factor in? Now, flying across the country, with the desire to watch a DVD is a wire dongle, external DVD player hoopla. Very annoying, wrong direction if we want to progress forward.

Please pass me my Elephant

This brings me to my next puzzling experience. Have the ears of the recent North America human changed in shape or size? I know hi-tech and ears aren’t something you would combine in a sentence but trust you’ll see how I tie this together. The recent growth of digital music in the MP3 format has spurred an industry around portable digital mp3 players which are basically the next generation of Sony’s lucrative Walkman of the 80s. I remember when the “Walkman” first came out – it was just a radio that fit on your hip and it came with somewhat large foam covered headphones and it was ungodly expensive. Then Sony got smart and integrated a cassette player and introduced the notion of affordable portable music. Such bliss. Looking back, I remember something that I didn’t have to worry about – the headphones fit perfectly. Fast forward 20yrs and I bought an Apple iPod when they first came out with the 5GB model. It was slick, it worked (still works great) and it holds close to 1,000 songs but the headphones – who were they sized for, Dumbo? They were huge and very unfitting; I never could get a good fit without getting an ear ache. So ok, not a problem – I can forgive them, besides they gave me a 1,000 song, randomly accessible Walkman (although it lacks a radio) – with decent digital quality – better than tapes, not as good as CDs. Some of you have noticed that I skipped the “Discman” which was the next progressive stage in the Walkman’s life – however it was a step backwards for a long time because you couldn’t burn your own CDs until very recently at which point MP3s showed up and made them almost obsolete. So let’s a do a quick retake here – 1985 I was able to strap something to my hip, that had custom music, radio, and headphones that fit. Today I have definitely improved on almost all areas except the headphones. I have purchased two other sets of relatively inexpensive headphones, now called earphones and they don’t fit well at all. It’s like the people who actually cared about how the final interface between player and listener just gave up.

There is hope! I have done some investigating and discovered that to get the best fitting ear phones you have to go in two directions and it will cost you some pretty coins too. One way is to get back to the hi-fi “headphones” which Bose creates very well. They’re large, but oh do they sound fabulous. The other direction is to get the very small, highly adjustable Bang & Olfusen ear phones. Both options are in the few hundred dollar range but I guess that’s what you have to pay in the name of technological progress. So anyway, at the moment I am listening to my iPod with $2.99 ear phones that I bought at the airport because I left my $5.99 set at home. The sound quality is horrible, the fit is very loose, but it’s better than listening to the drone of the jet engines.

Well I think that’s enough whining for now. In version 2.0, I think I might have enough mental strength to approach the subject of cell phones and 32 bit computing.

Until then, Rock on.