Friday 23 March 2012

Technology

                                          TECHNOLOGY
Okay, call me a dinosaur but technology sucks big-time. Remember the good old days when having a tv remote and using it was simple? No more, my Friend. There are now remotes that can operate every appliance and electronics in your house by pressing specific
buttons on one operator. It can probably do everything plus cooking an elaborate dinner for fifteen hungry people.  My Mom's remote is simple--an on/off power button, an up/down channel changer, an up/down volume button, a pause button, a mute button and a return-to-last-channel button. That's it. Nice and simple. I really like Mom's remote. Easy to use and uncomplicated.
I recently upgraded the guts of my PC which meant learning an alien program that refused to recognize old commands. Talk about teaching an old dog new tricks! With the painful learning process came the horrified discovery there was also a new mail service. No more familiar Outlook Express but an unfamiliar Live Essential Mail. Sending a folder of photographs to my Editor became a major catastrophe similiar to the combined catastrophe of a tornado, a nuclear bomb and an erupting volcano.  Taking the photos was child's play compared to the so-called elementary act of sending them. Finally, after four agonizing hours, the e-mail message, along with the attached photos, was sent off. I think somewhere in that nebulous hinterland of nano bits and bytes, my message is still out there--the problem is where as I have yet to hear back from my Editor.
That's why I say technology sucks big-time. Don't get me wrong. I do appreciate changes that do help--dish-washers, microwave ovens, washers and dryers and refrigerators. These are helpful. But please leave my computer alone. I like simple! I don't want my PC to do wonderfully convoluted tasks. I just want my PC to do its normal tasks of e-mail,word processing and filing. I want my files where I can find them. I don't want to remember seventy-seven passwords to retrieve them. I don't want stuff hidden. I don't want a computer who thinks it can out-think me. Remember, computers are just machines that have been programmed by humans. When the going gets rough, just pull the plug.