This and That: Are We There Yet???
by Elizabeth B. Wright September 2004
The major portion of this article deals with how I arrived at the following conclusion:
Have one computer dedicated solely to Internet use plus a “workhorse” computer.
My bare-bones list for the workhorse computer, without Internet access is:
An office suite (and there are several good, cheaper alternatives to Microsoft Office);
A graphics program; unfortunately, many of the photo programs are memory and hard-disk hogs, so the working computer still needs to be fairly up-to-date in configuration.
A greeting card and simple publishing program;
Money management software;
Genealogy software plus other programs which are of personal use or hobby-related, such as cooking, sewing, landscape and home design, etc.
Think about it. If you have the resources and the room, what better way to keep your programs and data safe from Internet problems than by having them on a separate machine?
Now for a dissertation on why this might be necessary. Gaming is not necessarily included in this discussion. When the first generation of computer geeks, freaks and nerds ruled the computer world, it must have been truly exciting--all that wonderful technology out there to conquer. Making electronic gizmos actually do something. Some of the more business-minded people capable of looking into the future were able to envision useful applications for all this new stuff.
At some point in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, personal computers landed in the hands of ordinary people. But guess what, so few understood what they could be used for that the above- mentioned personalities had to band together into user groups to help the rest of us get started.
But now we are either at a crossroads or a stalemate.
Gone are the days when new software stores were popping up all over the place, offering the latest, greatest programs. I went to a funeral once where the not-very-bereaved widow called out to the preacher saying “You can stop now. Everything that needs to be said has been said!!” It looks to me like every type of software that needed to be created for personal and home-office use has been created and marketed. We all have our word processors, spreadsheets and databases. Plus fun, research, educational, computer functionality and security software. Add to that the Internet, which is a big factor in the need for security, and there just doesn’t seem to be anything else we can effectively use. Like the funeral service, have we reached our saturation point?
I really don’t have the answer to that, but do have some thoughts. I’m not advocating a cessation in program improvement and learning, just the opposite in fact. Rather I believe we need to know when we have what we need to effectively use our computers, then continue to improve our skills in those areas. All of the programs we have today are so feature-rich that most of us will never tap into the vast resources available in any given package.
But with the industry desperately trying to sell new computers, the obvious trend has been to make everything obsolete as fast as possible, thereby convincing consumers to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. With new operating systems and the latest hardware, the programs we now possess are often deemed to be out of date and some will no longer work in new machines. And isn’t it odd that some software vendors have no problem with making programs bigger, but not necessarily better? If the corporate world is trying to force us into constantly buying upgrades, it seems to me we are on a treadmill to nowhere. Is it possible that the vendors are doling out features, one upgrade at a time, when possibly they already possess most of what will eventually be available? I admit to being a tad suspicious.
And will the power brokers allow us to just go along, or will they manage to take the Internet away from us by requiring newer, faster machines and software? Some of this is in place already. Older browsers often don’t work because “conveniently” many websites no longer recognize them.
Much of this is due to advances made in the area of multimedia, which I admit is an improvement. We now have the benefit of CD and DVD technology, along with better sound and visual equipment.
If average users really want to get the most out of their existing setups however, my suggestion is to strip everything from their computers that makes no contribution to achieving their desired results. The biggest stumbling block, at least for many of us, is in the area of Internet security and privacy. If much of what we do - e-mail, research, commerce - is Internet dependent, then keeping a personal computer working becomes a real challenge.
If it is feasible, I really believe we have reached a point where we need one computer solely for Internet use and one for everything else we do. Obviously we need a way to transfer data from one to the other, and there are many ways to do this. The point is, trying to secure a computer for Internet use can really cause problems for other aspects of computing. I know this panders to the marketplace in terms of possibly buying additional hardware, but many of us already have “old” computers which can easily be used for the original intended purpose. By installing word processing and other programs we use routinely on the “old” computer and Internet-related software on a second machine, we can hopefully have fewer conflicts caused by security needs and software upgrades needed to keep the Internet connections intact.
Elizabeth Wright is a member of the OKCPCUG and a regular writer for the eMonitor