[Speed Gibson,
Sunday October 14, 2007 at 9:41pm]
Home Computing
When did we lose control of our home computers?
We ran the show for a while, with Altair's, TRS-80's, Apple II's, DOS, Windows (3.3), meaning we bought it and it ran. We didn't need IT types (I resemble that) to configure things. In fact, we need support just to get the damn things running.
My Linksys network actually reconfigured to my new cable modem the first try. I thought I'd give it test drive, upgrading my McAfee anti-virus/firewall software that comes with my Comcast service. Gee, that only took six hours or so, finally discovering that somehow two obsolete modules had disappeared. The current version didn't use them, but the upgrade wouldn't proceed unless it could delete them.
For my next trick, I'll get Firefox to start without trying to apply non-existent updates. I could also uninstall some junky software I tried and didn't like.
Thoughout it all, I'm even hearing the calls of the dark side again, the Mac world. But I finally met someone who went Mac and did go back, unhappy with its environment for Web development. I have also heard stories about Mac OS upgrades being no easier or reliable than Windows upgrades.
Mac or PC, we've lost control, with Gates and Jobs smiling as we resort to simply buying a new computer.
We ran the show for a while, with Altair's, TRS-80's, Apple II's, DOS, Windows (3.3), meaning we bought it and it ran. We didn't need IT types (I resemble that) to configure things. In fact, we need support just to get the damn things running.
My Linksys network actually reconfigured to my new cable modem the first try. I thought I'd give it test drive, upgrading my McAfee anti-virus/firewall software that comes with my Comcast service. Gee, that only took six hours or so, finally discovering that somehow two obsolete modules had disappeared. The current version didn't use them, but the upgrade wouldn't proceed unless it could delete them.
For my next trick, I'll get Firefox to start without trying to apply non-existent updates. I could also uninstall some junky software I tried and didn't like.
Thoughout it all, I'm even hearing the calls of the dark side again, the Mac world. But I finally met someone who went Mac and did go back, unhappy with its environment for Web development. I have also heard stories about Mac OS upgrades being no easier or reliable than Windows upgrades.
Mac or PC, we've lost control, with Gates and Jobs smiling as we resort to simply buying a new computer.