The tide may be going out on the Desktop Computer, folks. They are bringing back the old Commodore 64. When people start longing for the nostalgia of a bygone era with slow computers, bad graphics and lousy sound, you have to make a pretty compelling case to get people to turn loose of $1500 or so for a new state-of-the-art appliance that is becoming less and less a part of everyone's life. And nobody, not even Apple, seems to be able to do that, now.
I blame the cell phone industry. Whoever it was that first included a little calculator in their cell phone sent us down this path and today we are awash in mobile alternatives to the big, clunky, desktop computer. If a cell phone can do more than just connect you to the pizza delivery guy, if you can do math on it, then why hand over a bag of cash for a desktop computer to do those things? So the value of a desktop computer is decremented by whatever value you assign to the little calculator app. Add in calendaring, Web browsing and Angry Birds, and why would anyone want a desktop computer? Why, indeed.
Flash ahead a few years and desktop computers haven't changed, much. Oh, they're faster. They're always faster. And they have a little more memory than the last one you bought, sure. But when you're at your word processor, trying to decide whether to use "Start" or "Initiate" you aren't taxing your processor. You could make that decision comfortably with an old '286 or a MacPlus. Screens are nicer, bigger and with richer colors, but the screen on my six year old iMac is big, with nice color, too. And it still boots up, every day.
I can browse the Web (to some extent), on my iPhone. I can browse the Web on my iPad, too. I can get my e-mail on either machine. I can do my banking with either one, too. In fact, as far as day-to-day activity goes, I can do everything I would ever want, except take a day off, with my mobile devices (The software vendor behind the accounting for vacation and sick leave here does not work with the best standards-compliant software.).
Today's Apple iPhone, iPad and their contemporaries from other manufacturers can be loaded up with a month's worth of music, video, books, magazines, movies, television programming and podcasts. You can get the weather, including radar imaging for your location, which of course the hardware already knows about, probably. Press a button and find the nearest shoe store, or coffee house. Check in with friends on Facebook. With content management systems like Drupal, you can even work on Web pages with severely clever features, using only a Web browser.
The value proposition is weakening on the desktop. I'll need one to run my income taxes, next year. It is nice to see photographs in big, wide-screen detail and I do enjoy an hour or two of Civilization now and again. But I could see the "Home computer" becoming little more than a wireless router in many homes, practically unseen. A Mac Mini, up in some closet, somewhere, constantly monitoring the temperature, turning off unused household lights, keeping track of how old the milk is in the fridge, and watching out for and snagging old episodes of TV shows to record for later viewing.
The guy that built that first wheel really started something. We can't get enough Wheels. The guy that built the first telegraph started something, too, but now even Western Union is just a money-transfer store. Fewer and fewer homes have land-line telephones these days—there's a machine that came and went in about a century and a half. Could it be that the desktop PCs time was only half a century or so?
We'll see.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Spring Cleaning
It's fashionable to engage in the restoration of our various environments at home, at work and even in our cars, this time of year. We are encouraged to clean this and shine that and throw those away. Massive benefits accrue to those who do, including the Finding Of Lost Stuff and the Efficiencies of Not Searching for Things. People report fewer headaches, reduced lethargy and even lottery winnings after this cleaning is done.
Nobody talks about our computers.
If you have had your computer for more than a month, it is probably full of junk. If you have visited more than a dozen Web sites or ever upgraded software, your computer is almost certainly a museum of abandoned files.
This is a good time to go through your computer and see what can be tossed. Every computer manufacturer includes stuff you never use and never will and many publishers do, too.
If you are running NumberCruncher v5 you can be reasonably certain throwing away updaters for NumberCruncher v3.2 and v4 won't hurt you or your computer. It's popular now to send e-mails with links to little stubs of software that then go and get the real item, and start things working. I tend to keep these e-mails, but throw away the little stubs, which are easy for me to find because I always download everything to my Desktop folder. If you're unsure, it is probably a better idea to leave a file where it is and lose the small amount of space it is claiming, than to delete the file and discover it really was necessary, somehow.
I have a Macintosh, and a lot of this stuff is just simpler and easier on a Mac than on other computers, but the general theory is the same. If you install, say, Office, and you know you won't ever be using some component of it, you can reclaim a lot of disk space and make finding things in the future much easier if you can uninstall it or delete it. I don't have much need for Microsoft Messenger, for example. I don't remember being asked about it during installation, but it landed in my Applications folder, briefly. I am pretty much an AIM guy, and rely less and less on that.
Those little stubs of programs? They often mount virtual disk resources used to update or upgrade software. Once you have updated everything, you can un-mount the disk and throw it away. There are any number of README.txt or LICENSE.txt files on a typical hard drive. Trust me. Nobody from Adobe is ever going to knock on your door and ask to see your computer. You can nuke those, too.
As a Web guy, I am constantly building low-feature pages to test this or that concept. If I'm building a page with complicated navigation, for instance, it can be frustrating and distracting to build the navigation in a "real" page with content and so on. I will very often create a new, blank page, save it as bogus.html or something like that, then start hammering away on the nav. When I get the navigation working, I just copy or clip it out of the "bogus" page and paste it into a real page. That leaves me with, over the course of a year, potentially dozens of Web pages named bogus.html, in all of the directories I work in. These take up time and space—and if you work in a Dreamweaver environment, they take up space at least twice, locally on your own computer and remotely, on the Web server.
I have also abandoned whole programs. You know, at one time I thought maybe I would take the time to sit down and learn DigitSlinger. But it turns out I'm more of a NumberCruncher guy, working in a definite NumberCruncher environment. The folks who report to me and the folks I report to are all NumberCruncher users. Why do I want to spend the time and effort to learn new commands and keyboard shortcuts and various Save As… methods to get meaningful reports that everyone can use? It's easier to just join the crowd and put those hours (and dollars) to better use.
So, throw open the actual windows, and take a long, deep breath of pollen, and let's clean up our computers, this week. But first: Remember to make a complete backup of everything, Just In Case.
Nobody talks about our computers.
If you have had your computer for more than a month, it is probably full of junk. If you have visited more than a dozen Web sites or ever upgraded software, your computer is almost certainly a museum of abandoned files.
This is a good time to go through your computer and see what can be tossed. Every computer manufacturer includes stuff you never use and never will and many publishers do, too.
If you are running NumberCruncher v5 you can be reasonably certain throwing away updaters for NumberCruncher v3.2 and v4 won't hurt you or your computer. It's popular now to send e-mails with links to little stubs of software that then go and get the real item, and start things working. I tend to keep these e-mails, but throw away the little stubs, which are easy for me to find because I always download everything to my Desktop folder. If you're unsure, it is probably a better idea to leave a file where it is and lose the small amount of space it is claiming, than to delete the file and discover it really was necessary, somehow.
I have a Macintosh, and a lot of this stuff is just simpler and easier on a Mac than on other computers, but the general theory is the same. If you install, say, Office, and you know you won't ever be using some component of it, you can reclaim a lot of disk space and make finding things in the future much easier if you can uninstall it or delete it. I don't have much need for Microsoft Messenger, for example. I don't remember being asked about it during installation, but it landed in my Applications folder, briefly. I am pretty much an AIM guy, and rely less and less on that.
Those little stubs of programs? They often mount virtual disk resources used to update or upgrade software. Once you have updated everything, you can un-mount the disk and throw it away. There are any number of README.txt or LICENSE.txt files on a typical hard drive. Trust me. Nobody from Adobe is ever going to knock on your door and ask to see your computer. You can nuke those, too.
As a Web guy, I am constantly building low-feature pages to test this or that concept. If I'm building a page with complicated navigation, for instance, it can be frustrating and distracting to build the navigation in a "real" page with content and so on. I will very often create a new, blank page, save it as bogus.html or something like that, then start hammering away on the nav. When I get the navigation working, I just copy or clip it out of the "bogus" page and paste it into a real page. That leaves me with, over the course of a year, potentially dozens of Web pages named bogus.html, in all of the directories I work in. These take up time and space—and if you work in a Dreamweaver environment, they take up space at least twice, locally on your own computer and remotely, on the Web server.
I have also abandoned whole programs. You know, at one time I thought maybe I would take the time to sit down and learn DigitSlinger. But it turns out I'm more of a NumberCruncher guy, working in a definite NumberCruncher environment. The folks who report to me and the folks I report to are all NumberCruncher users. Why do I want to spend the time and effort to learn new commands and keyboard shortcuts and various Save As… methods to get meaningful reports that everyone can use? It's easier to just join the crowd and put those hours (and dollars) to better use.
So, throw open the actual windows, and take a long, deep breath of pollen, and let's clean up our computers, this week. But first: Remember to make a complete backup of everything, Just In Case.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
You Can't Always Get What You Want
And sometimes, you are better for it.
Do you remember "Datsun" cars? They are called "Nissan" now, but in the early days they were not convinced they were going to be successful. In fact, there is evidence to support the theory that the whole USA beachhead was put in place to bring shame and disgrace to a Nissan executive, Yutaka Katayama, to force him out of the company.
Let's put a minimal framework in place. Let's get the bare minimum of service and support. And let's call the whole operation "Datsun" so when we get our act together and go back to the American market in a few years, nobody will have a bad taste in their mouth over the name of the company. The idea was that in several years they would bring all new models, and new executives and a new will to succeed to the market. Few would associate Datsun with Nissan and 'Mister K' would have long since resigned, in disgrace.
Well, it didn't turn out that way. Datsun hit the USA at a time when people were ready for such cars. Our family had one and loved it—a little 510 sedan. Mom liked it because she could see every corner from the driver's seat, it handled well, got terrific gas mileage and didn't break down.
Mister K put in an order for little trucks. Nissan balked, but eventually sent some over. Mister K chided the factory and told them that he wanted the next batch to have carpeting, radios and other sedan-like "luxury" features. The factory wrote back and told Mister K he was nuts. The people in southern California were misusing their little trucks! These were working vehicles, not family transport! But Mister K had launched the little truck craze and Nissan had to swallow hard and work harder to get back out in front of it all, again. One by one, Mister K went from success to success and by the late 1970s, the cars started to be badged "Datsun by Nissan" and a short while later, the Datsun name, with all of its goodwill, was gone.
Sometimes things don't work out the way we have them planned. And that's not always bad. Sometimes it's terrific. Mister K retired a hero to Nissan and to thousands of American fans.
I had a situation like this, this last. Up until today, my training consisted of booking a classroom and making a dozen or so seats available. Folks juggle their schedules so they have a Tuesday morning free, or a late Wednesday afternoon, or whatever it works out to be, and they travel from wherever they work on campus to the classroom. We wait patiently for a few minutes for any last-minute stragglers who might be struggling with parking or walking all of the way to the West coast of UNL. And then we begin a face-to-face, hands-on training that walks people through the subject. There are opportunities to ask (a few) questions. For the most part, we spend the next two hours listening to me rattle on about whatever the subject is, then waiting for one or two of the students to complete an exercise before moving on.
I thought maybe, in the twenty-first century, there might be a better way to learn this. So I set about the task of building a bunch of videos. These each explained how to do one or two things, on more of a "molecular" level. I literally made videos explaining how to log into the system, and how to log out. There's one on how to edit the page footer. Click on the link and How To Edit The Footer is all you learn. The whole thing takes just a moment or two.
So, from the comfort and convenience of your own office or cubicle, you could learn only as much as you cared. As much as you had time for. As much as you wanted to learn, today. You could come back tomorrow and watch the same videos, or pick new ones. So there would be no waiting for two weeks until training you wanted was offered again. There would be no need to clear the decks of any other engagements and meetings on that day, so you would be able to commit a couple of hours or more to getting over here and going through it all.
I thought I would get the Nobel Training Prize for coming up with that. And I actually have gotten good feedback from it, and suggestions for more little movies. But there are a lot of people who need to actually sit and do something, to learn it. Some people can read something and they know it. Others can hear something and they absorb it best that way. Others have to actually do it, for something to sink in.
I had made no provision for those folks. I'm working on stand-up training, now. Things don't always work out the way we would like for them to. But sometimes, the result is even better than we had originally imagined.
Do you remember "Datsun" cars? They are called "Nissan" now, but in the early days they were not convinced they were going to be successful. In fact, there is evidence to support the theory that the whole USA beachhead was put in place to bring shame and disgrace to a Nissan executive, Yutaka Katayama, to force him out of the company.
Let's put a minimal framework in place. Let's get the bare minimum of service and support. And let's call the whole operation "Datsun" so when we get our act together and go back to the American market in a few years, nobody will have a bad taste in their mouth over the name of the company. The idea was that in several years they would bring all new models, and new executives and a new will to succeed to the market. Few would associate Datsun with Nissan and 'Mister K' would have long since resigned, in disgrace.
Well, it didn't turn out that way. Datsun hit the USA at a time when people were ready for such cars. Our family had one and loved it—a little 510 sedan. Mom liked it because she could see every corner from the driver's seat, it handled well, got terrific gas mileage and didn't break down.
Mister K put in an order for little trucks. Nissan balked, but eventually sent some over. Mister K chided the factory and told them that he wanted the next batch to have carpeting, radios and other sedan-like "luxury" features. The factory wrote back and told Mister K he was nuts. The people in southern California were misusing their little trucks! These were working vehicles, not family transport! But Mister K had launched the little truck craze and Nissan had to swallow hard and work harder to get back out in front of it all, again. One by one, Mister K went from success to success and by the late 1970s, the cars started to be badged "Datsun by Nissan" and a short while later, the Datsun name, with all of its goodwill, was gone.
Sometimes things don't work out the way we have them planned. And that's not always bad. Sometimes it's terrific. Mister K retired a hero to Nissan and to thousands of American fans.
I had a situation like this, this last. Up until today, my training consisted of booking a classroom and making a dozen or so seats available. Folks juggle their schedules so they have a Tuesday morning free, or a late Wednesday afternoon, or whatever it works out to be, and they travel from wherever they work on campus to the classroom. We wait patiently for a few minutes for any last-minute stragglers who might be struggling with parking or walking all of the way to the West coast of UNL. And then we begin a face-to-face, hands-on training that walks people through the subject. There are opportunities to ask (a few) questions. For the most part, we spend the next two hours listening to me rattle on about whatever the subject is, then waiting for one or two of the students to complete an exercise before moving on.
I thought maybe, in the twenty-first century, there might be a better way to learn this. So I set about the task of building a bunch of videos. These each explained how to do one or two things, on more of a "molecular" level. I literally made videos explaining how to log into the system, and how to log out. There's one on how to edit the page footer. Click on the link and How To Edit The Footer is all you learn. The whole thing takes just a moment or two.
So, from the comfort and convenience of your own office or cubicle, you could learn only as much as you cared. As much as you had time for. As much as you wanted to learn, today. You could come back tomorrow and watch the same videos, or pick new ones. So there would be no waiting for two weeks until training you wanted was offered again. There would be no need to clear the decks of any other engagements and meetings on that day, so you would be able to commit a couple of hours or more to getting over here and going through it all.
I thought I would get the Nobel Training Prize for coming up with that. And I actually have gotten good feedback from it, and suggestions for more little movies. But there are a lot of people who need to actually sit and do something, to learn it. Some people can read something and they know it. Others can hear something and they absorb it best that way. Others have to actually do it, for something to sink in.
I had made no provision for those folks. I'm working on stand-up training, now. Things don't always work out the way we would like for them to. But sometimes, the result is even better than we had originally imagined.
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