Back to School

This week, I saw "Back to School" specials on tires, clothes dryers and truckloads of things that have nothing to do with going, or sending someone, back to school. Okay, maybe tires. If my daughter was going off to some faraway college in a shaky old car, I'm sure I'd want her to do it on new steel-belted radial tires. But not to pick on tire dealers, these guys are exceptionally ruthless. They are out there for every holiday. July 4th, Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, even: "Hey, grandpa! Thanks for taking that bullet on Iwo Jima. We got you a set of snow tires for the Studebaker!" But a new washer-dryer?

Having said all of that, have you checked your pages for Back To School? Are you still touting Fall, 2007 or Summer Session?

Peanut and Jocko showed up every week when I was a kid, promising a future where computers made our lives easier. Computers, they told us, would lead us away from drudgery, from repetitive tasks, from having to remember things. And maybe one day this will finally filter down to Web development in a way that automates dealing with expired information. Easily, I mean. We can do it now, with the application of enough time, talent and money. But why can't we just highlight a paragraph in Dreamweaver and set it to expire on the umpteenth of October?

Check the page on October 7th, and the information would be there. Show up on October 20th and it would be gone, with no further attention from the developer. It could be great. It could also be awful, when someone edits out the </expire> tag and the entire page from the <expire="10/14/2008"> tag on just… evaporates.

See, the thing about automating various events is that computers will always do only exactly what you tell them to do, and not necessarily what you want or what you mean. Computers won't know when special circumstances should change the rules you have carefully crafted. Computers won't know or care. They'll just do what you've told them to do.

I used to leave my computer On all of the time. Research (that's pronounced anecdotal evidence) of the day said that they didn't use much electricity keeping everything spinning and warm, especially if the monitor turned itself off when not in use. But when Chancellor Perlman said to turn 'em off, I got religion. My computer now turns itself on and off every week day. It comes on at 7:28am, when I'm usually taking off my jacket, or putting away my lunch for the day or something similar. And it shuts down every afternoon at a quarter to 5:00pm. It sleeps all day Saturday and Sunday. It's a great time and I guess a great money-saver. But it's not (yet) smart enough to know about Monday holidays.

Sometimes I wonder about my poor, lonesome computer. All alone in a darkened room, obediently waking up to tackle the days chores. Anxious, maybe. Like a little puppy. All alone in a darkened room until finally, in frustration, it shuts itself off in the afternoon, to try again in the morning.

I don't mind a macro or two. I love keyboard shortcuts that can save me from drilling down into a menu or three. And a simple macro that kicks off a repetitive action or chaining together something like "Save As…" and moving the file to the Desktop, and maybe even how to name the resulting file. That's fine. I'm there when that's all happening. I can control it. I even bypass it during special circumstances and "Save As…" my file somewhere else, if I need to.

I'm looking over my pages this week, to make sure they are still up to date. But I'm taking Peanut and Jocko at their word, and waiting for the day when computers make our lives easier.