|
  |
|
|
Is it just me?
Everything these days on the internet seems to be seamless; millions of programmers across the planet have been working hard to make it so. Ordinary users learn how to navigate this virtual world to different degrees of proficiency, but most are totally out of their depth when it comes to understanding what's going on and exactly how things are working. Probably not that many programmers have much more beyond their specialist niche. Data flows here and there in astonishing volumes, and much of the important things in people's lives resides somewhere other than their personal computer; it's sitting on a service in a warehouse with humming fans which could be a hundred metres away or a thousand miles. For instance, many people run their email from webmail, they log on, read mail, delete spam, reply, all from a server. All their mail, both business and personal, resides on the server, if the server exploded or the building in which it was housed with its fellows burned down, millions of email accounts would be lost. Of course, there's more chance of your PC catching fire than the servers going that way [possibly...] but I just don't like the lack of control. That's why I use an email client, as it's called, a software program which handles my mail ON MY DESKTOP, and saves it securely on my hard disc [from which I can back it up at any time]. The one I use is Eudora, free for personal [sponsored] use, in which you can create mailboxes. Other advantages are you can colour and bolden/italicise text, change the font and size, paste in pictures with the text and generally personalise from your own desk. Whenever I've had to use webmail, either for myself in an emergency or for someone else who couldn't get to theirs, I've been disappointed at the drab sameness of everything, the uniform font colour and size, the lack of embedded pictures etc. And the fact that they are all somewhere other than on my PC just doesn't feel right. This attitude may be because I'm from the generation who used the very first computers, where, after loading in a software program from a tape machine, that could take as long as fifteen minutes, you were in DOS with a C:/ prompt and in charge. Nothing came along and did something you didn't want to happen, there was no GUI, just a black and white screen and a C:/ prompt, and it was up to you to make it do things. So my familiarity with DOS, then led on to early Windows, which then rapidly developed with regular upgrades to what we have today with thousands of operations happening unknown to us is part of the programmers art we must trust, and I became a mere user. With the internet and especially broadband, we are mostly all connected to the world all day long, and some 24 hours, and our lives might be distributed around the planet on different servers holding different aspects, and most likely the CIA/MI5 holding everything on everybody. Emails are all stored for years and can be searched and examined at any time, every action we take is recorded - cookies, browser memory, tracking bots, search engine bots. It's quite a change from the early days when to cause a dot to move about the screen with a few lines of Basic was a triumph, and the few games which came along, such as Styx, had to be loaded from an audio diskette. To write a program of a few hundred lines that turned the keyboard into a synthesizer, and then to debug and get it working was very satisfying. In those days in order to use a computer you had to program. Now, it's a multimedia experience entirely out of our hands. And all this in just 30 years. |
http://www.oneworldnet.co.uk/ebooks/index5.php
| http://www.foolonthehill.oneworldnet.co.uk
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
Fairs and Festivals
A celebration of alternative festivals
www.oneworldnet.co.uk/fairsandfestivals
|
|
No reactions yet.
Please login or sign up to rate this intel.
Please login or sign up to add a comment.
The copyright for this content entitled "Is it just me?" has been specified by the contributor as:
All Rights Reserved
This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.
|
 |
May, 2012
2008
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2009
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2010
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2011
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2012
January, February, March, April, May
|
|
Not a member yet?
Qondio is a powerful network for making it online. If you have a website to
promote, we can help.
Sign up and get in on the action.
|
|
Welcome to Qondio! Discover the awesome power this network can deliver by going to our About page. Or you could skip straight to the Sign Up form.
|
|
