Stepping Backwards

For most of my "career," I've been driven by a corporate demand to "stay current"; to use the most up-to-date technology. I've worked for small companies and Fortune 500 corporations that had IS departments who automatically updated the software I used, regardless of security, function, or need. The school where I currently work has the same policies. Like some sort of braindead robot, I have followed suit personally.

Not any more.

My current office computer came with Win7 and Office 2007 installed. I put up with those two user-hostile programs for as long as it took to complete my 2009 taxes and a couple of pressing projects that had been held up when my last office computer died. Once those tasks were out of the way, I reformatted my OS hard drive, installed WinXP SP3 and Office 2003. I'm done with "upgrades" for the rest of my life, most likely. My production computer, a Mac PPC tower, is probably my last Mac, too. I can do anything I need to do on that machine. Apple has decided to obsolete the PPC machines and their support, so I can't upgrade my software even if I had a reason to want to upgrade my software. So, I am motivated to stick with what I have. The upside to this is I'm done spending money and have nothing left to do but do work.

Win7 wasn't terrible, but it isn't particularly compatible with Office 2003 or many of my other programs. The real reason for moving backwards was that Office 2007 is a joke. Almost every function I regularly use in MS Office has been buried in a completely obscure menu structure. I have no good reason to spend time learning a brand new software layout. The one I used for decades works fine. If MS had its head out of its ass, the company would have left users with a "classic" option. They didn't and because of that I'm more inclined to mess with a completely different program (like Open Office) rather than figure out the new organization of MS Office.

The same goes for Apple's new Intel machines. Rather than buying new, expensive equipment from a company that has a long user-hostile history, I'm tempted to build a Hackintosh and avoid Apple whenever possible. Since my PPC is working and doing the job, I'll put that off for a while but it's the logical option.

I know guys who are running productive, profitable recording studios on OS 9 machines. I know a couple of authors who write on Win for Workgroups 3.11 and make a boatload more money as authors than I'll ever approach. A fair number of authors still use Wordstar on MSDOS machines, for that matter. Upgrading isn't even a question for these people. They are too busy working. I'm going to try to follow their example.

A Tool?

I just finished a one day "experience" with Apple's iPad and I'm just short of amazed. I'm amazed that anyone could consider this product anything but a toy. As usual, I'm wrong.

When I returned it to the IS guy who is promoting the iPad as an "educational tool" and described my opinion, it was obvious that I'd offended his finer sensibilities. When I said, "I can't imagine a job so detail-free, so simple, that this thing could be considered a 'tool'." He replied, "I could do my job with it."

I'm clearly from another generation. My generation was one where IS guys wrote code, maintained hardware and software, and did stuff. This more modern version of an IS guy uses his "tools" to "go to meetings, maintain work-flow charts, and for simple email." Holy crap! Again, I have missed the career boat. I blew off systems management as a late-life career opportunity because I thought I'd have to learn stuff about stuff I don't care about. Obviously, any idiot can do the job if this POS is a tool of that trade.

Aside from that sort of realization, my opinion of the iPad is that it is a toy. If you want to watch movies or television or YouTube in low-fi resolution, via WiFi, the iPad is for you. If you're mostly interesting in purchasing and/or observing other people's content, the iPad is your vehicle. If browsing the Web without being able to produce any sentient content yourself is your idea of "work" or "recreation" you are going to love this thing. It's a really expensive toy, but a toy just the same.

Saturday Night Live did a pretty decent routine on the iPad back in January. In the end, they recommended a real computer for the few of us who have to do "real work." I totally agree. If you are a Y-Gen twit, the iPad will do a perfectly good job of allowing you to type in (at your usual 5 wpm rate) your idiot messages to your friends. You can watch YouTube and Netflix until your parents evict you from the basement and you have to find a bridge to live under and aspire to that Starbucks clerk job your $80k in college loan debt prepared you for.

Technologically Stuck

I'm on my way to 62. I have most of the toys I want to own and more computers than I need. It's pretty easy for me to imagine that my current stock of computerized toys will suffice for the rest of my life; however long that may be. I'm not being depressive, although I have that talent. I, honestly, have all the tools I need to do the jobs I want to do. So, why would I buy new technology? 

 Two reasons: 1) The technology allows me to do something I suddenly need to do that I didn't need to do before or 2) the technology develops manners. 

The first reason is insanely unlikely. I have software and hardware that has produced music and video/movie material that is so far above the level at which I work that it is impossible to imagine that I will be able to reap the maximum benefits of the software/hardware I own. If that's true, adding new capacity to my already underutilized capacity is foolish. 

Honestly, I think the second reason is even more unlikely. I approach hate for the software I commonly use. The overriding impulse for programmers is to complete the task the programmer decided is most important, rather than apply a little hardware to observing what the user wants to be doing. Every time a piece of software takes off on some unimportant task, in total disregard for the signals I'm giving the software through the keyboard and mouse, I want to find that geek and push his head through a monitor. 

Manners are a vanishing commodity in today's technological society. People interrupt live conversations to check their phones for email, texts, or just to look at their Facebook page. Commercials blast over the top of program audio in an attempt to catch the viewers' attention, but mostly succeeding in pissing off potential customers. We drive in rage, interrupt each other without thought, and occasionally freakout and gun down our friends, family, and coworkers. Why would the concept of good manners find its way into software? 

No reason. It probably won't. 

Without either, or both, of those advantages, I have no reason in the world to buy a new computer or to spend significant money on new software. Apple, of course, banished guys like me to history with the move from PPC processors to Intel. I like my G5. It works and it's more than fast enough. Apple is done with the PPC generation, none of their current software will work on my machine. So, I'm done with Apple, at least as long as my G5 is working. Most likely, when it dies I'll just find another used G5 and carry on. 

Microsoft wasted a lot of good will and energy with Vista, but that left me with WinXP for an extra three years and a total of 9 years on one operating system. After all that familiarity, why would I want to move just because Win7 has "Snap?" Win7 is bigger, slower, and requires new hardware. My hardware works fine. XP works fine. It's rude, but so is OS X. 

 I used to think there was an advantage in "staying up with the times," but now I'm uncertain. I know a couple of guys who are still using their OS 9 Macs and are doing perfectly well on that historic equipment. A couple of years back, I met a few folks who make a living recording live shows and they are all solidly WinXP & Nuendo v2.0 users. Steinberg has a list of reasons why those guys ought to "upgrade" to Win7 and Nuendo 4.2, but there is one overriding reason for the recordists to ignore Steinberg: reliability. The system they use works and has worked since 2003 and "new" means new bugs and troubleshooting. 

 I'm wondering if Moore's Law (data density doubles approximately every 18 months) will have less effect on consumer spending in the future? When the software doesn't provide any actual functional advantage, what's the point in buying it? For me, I think the answer is "it's pointless."