Keeping up with new software and technology
"Visit my MySpace page. Follow me on Twitter. Add me as a friend." That is all I hear these days. I've known it for a long time, but it is really becoming clear to me that this world is an Internet driven world. A world where information is at your fingertips but you just have to know how to find it.
A lot has changed since the days of traditional filing and organization and the birth of the web. All of our paper documents are being replaced by electronic copies that will last forever and our photos are becoming digital so when that fire comes, just grab the old pc. Don't worry about the photos on the wall just grab and go! This is just a small sample of how technology has benefited our lives greatly.
From a different perspective however, from one who deals with creating new technology everday, take it from me; it is very hard to keep up with it all. At one point in time, it was realatively easy to learn new things and see clearly what the future held, but nowadays so many new things are being developed that you just cannot keep up with them all. One of the major problems with this is competition is forcing saturation in the market and honestly, most of it is junk. Whether it is a website or a new electronic gadget, it is a spin off of something else yet the makers force us to learn the same things over and over again. Instead of focusing on growing together for one purpose, the world is against each other and people like you and me are caught in a game of pickle. This will be another topic for me to discuss in the future so I will keep my ideas about competition and how it affects our country for a later date.
Windows or Mac? Windows or Linux? Should I pay money for a development platform or should we focus on open source? Photoshop 5 yesterday, Adobe Creative Suite 4 today. A new web site to join today and another tomorrow. Create an account here, register there. Changing search engine requirements are always changing and deciding the future of small business. How many accounts do I need to register? How many times do I have to upgrade my Blackberry? My iPod? My accounting software?
How are we to get ahead when we are stuck in the now trying to learn what was built years ago and just released today? They have just debuted an upgrade of the product you just purchased. It will be half price as soon as you get home and open it. Why? There is already a newer version and right now they are creating a marketing strategy that will sell it to you and they will get you to buy it!
Just something for everyone to think about.
Posted by scott at 12:42PM in design
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3 Comments
Personally I think technology is great but a lot of the stuff we see or use today is a little overboard. I see a lot of people buying things like cell phones that have so much stuff that theres no way a person could possibly have a need for other than just to say they have it. I also think a lot of technological stuff produced now is also alot of technological crap that people rely on too much. God forbid anything bad happens to the world because im pretty sure that those people who really rely on technology are in for a rude awakening!
I agree. I wonder what would happen to this world if for some reason the Internet was no longer available. I'm sure mass chaos would insue.
Mass chaos? Only for the young. There are tons of records that are not online. And probably a majority of it will never be. People are far too cautious to put their hope in a digital copy. Today, fax machines are digital, but they reproduce a hard copy on the other end of the line. The copy is usually not as legal as the original, with its signature and all. The fax is sent, then the original is mailed. Archives of historical documents are always done in microfilm or microfiche. The latter is often hundreds of pages of text and pictures on a single sheet the size of a notebook. It's solid, it's portable, and all you need is a magnifier to access it. Digital has a long way to go to match that. Recorded sound is another thing that digital has tried to replace. Digital is usually compressed and unpacked. The resulting sound is only a close approximation of the original, able to be manipulated to make it sound even better. Vinyl recordings were a simple transfer of sound waves to mechanical strokes on a revolving mold. When the recording media is spun at the same speed, a needle follows the mechanical grooves sending a message to reproduce the original sound waves. Magnetic media (tapes) used much the same transfer of sound waves to be captured magnetically. A simple magnetic reader takes the electronic patterns on the tape and transfer it to a vibrating membrane that reproduces the original sound. And then there is "film," both still and moving, that chemically has captured light to preserve the past. These media can be viewed with the naked eye! No translation needed. And digital is better? If the young people of today reject the genius of Edison, Eastman, and the rest, then they will lose the past to be lost inside vulnerable hard disks around the world.