Y'know, sometimes I wonder if we've moved ahead very much at all in the past ten years, from the 'good old days' of Pentium 2 SECC slot one CPU's and a thunderous 8Mb of SDRAM, when HDD's were measured in Mb rather than Tb and five-ton CRT's with 17" screens were the doggies' danglies.
Seems to me that as the hardware has improved and become more reliable, the software industry has been writing ever more intricate programmes and pushing the envelope ever wider.
The result of this 'catchup game' is that we still get the same sort of silly glitches and inconsistencies that early systems were justly infamous for; maybe I'm getting a bit of a grouch in my old age, but wouldn't it be just dandy if someone, somewhere could come up with a universal system whereby users could install and use only the bits they need, rather than having to install the whole shebang from ground zero and keep 'updating' as time goes by?
I've said this before - and Mikk has made mention of the anomaly re. page loading times vs. workload capability - todays' PC's are a lot quicker than the human brain ever will be, so in that sense all that extra performance is wasted.
There has been a move towards low-power rigs recently - a welcome move for me, with 2x 89W Opterons buzzing away 24/7 - which has refocussed the 'need for speed' on greener issues, and the very important issue of keeping running costs down to a more realistic level.
These low-power units - in particular my 4450e rig - are every bit as quick as the best of the K7 Athlons I ever built, but without any of the problems I had to overcome to make them run reliably.
So, from a hardware aspect we continue to have choices; however when we look at the software picture, it isn't quite as rosy as the industry would have us believe.
Elsewhere I posted a request for any input from IE9 users, after I was more or less compelled to update all my browsers from IE7 to IE8 after two or three of my regular sites failed to open links and popups, simply on the premise that "IE7 is no longer supported".
Okay, so this is Microsoft which is well-known for forcing issues on its users, so no great surprise there; what DOES get right up my nose is the fact that other software houses (Adobe please take note) are aiding and abetting what amounts to an internal conspiracy by following the same strategy.
If you then add to all this the fact that with the advent (no pun intended!) of tablets, handhelds and smartfones, all of which have their own sort of software and apps, you can see that the industry is fast approaching a point where confusion has every chance of overcoming rationality.
Every software house, every harware maker and the advertising industry in general has a vested interest in perpetuating this escalating cycle of "improvement" and "development" - don't get me wrong, I'm not against free enterprise by any means - but there has to be some sort of joined-up approach to the way in which these businesses run their operations and develop their products.
I'd hate to use the word 'legislation' in this instance, as that would be seen as overly heavy-handed, but I would like to see an international forum created that had the power to oversee new developments and prevent the "cartel" mindset that some of the bigger software houses appear to have become addicted to.
For myself, I'd be quite happy to remain fat, dumb and happy with my favourite apps and programmes on my home-built systems, surfing my favourite sites; however I won't be here for that long, and my kids, grandkids and great-grandkids might have to deal with a silly situation, that by rights should have been dealt with now before it becomes a problem.
Sorry if this has turned into a diatribe, folks, but there is an issue brewing here that does need looking at - any comments welcome, but keep it clean please!
All the best,
JB.
