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One of the hardest things to live down is a good reputation--that insidious word-of-mouth legend that follows you long past any basis in reality. For decades, computer knowledge was the driving wheel of my public persona.
I've had a personal computer for as long as any of us could have had a personal computer. Those first underpowered, overhyped boxes were fun because they could be made to do things. Simple things, but things you made happen. You hunted for the tools to do these small things, or you made your own tools and shared them proudly in that tribal circle we used to call computer clubs.
When personal computers became reliable enough to do a little light bookkeeping and the occasional noncritical text file, I began a long and gritty slog through the business world. We selected engines and built the interfaces around them.
As nerd clusters formed companies and started to develop integrated software suites with shaky but semiconsistent internal logics and commercial availability, we all went commercial. You could throw one of these dogs on a machine, design an exotic boot screen, gin up various fill-in-the-blanks forms, and have some suit cross your palm with silver.
Voodoo internal networking and steam-powered modems provided the next wave of income and job security. Nobody but the one that cobbled these monsters together could keep them from running amok. End users treated you like some benevolent alien life-form when you rescued them from some "press any key" disaster.
The corporate world was soon flooded with eager young faces with something called "a degree in computer science," whatever that was. Personal computers moved to Microsoft DOS (the dark place), with a few percentage points of boutique operating system outliers on exotic hardware, and I had to make a transition.
When Windows took over, we were still able to design splash screens and forms, but now the results were less impressive and harder to sell as innovation. Personal computers became less interesting and more pervasive. I moved inexorably from corporate developing to single user or very small business consulting. Maybe it was less glossy for the old resume than a Fortune 500 and counting firm name, but it was a whole lot kinder to my digestive tract.
New generations of Windows got crankier and crankier about being poked around in their innards. When Windows went from an overlay to a foundation, it turned into a black box. You could take a fistful of classes, attend endless seminars, and develop applications for it, but in the end, you still didn't have control, you went along. A $3,000 course in resource management doesn't make much sense when your typical client is trying to figure out how to turn the damn thing on.
Enter the internet. HTML wasn't much, but it could generate lots of fairly easy income. Good times. You could author and charge for a finished website package and contract to fix it when it fell apart. Every time a new generation of HTML offered new tools, you could go back to the same clients and make them feel uneasy with the retro-tackiness of their public faces. More good times.
Focusing on the interweb tubes paid the bills nicely and gave you access to instant client cred. All you had to do was pull up some of your best efforts in front of a potential new client and sharpen your pencil. As the field became more lucrative, it became more competitive. My digestive tract was starting to talk to me again.
At this point, my wife decided we could run away from home and get away with it. Lucky is the caveman who only has to go out and kill money and drag it home. She had been collecting both our incomes for years and managed to hold on to it until the eagle screamed. It was time to leave the big city and move to the boonies. As an extra bonus, when we put our home up for sale, a fit of madness had infected the Orange County, Calif., real estate market.
Consulting became advising, and working all day became semiretirement. We moved to Pismo Beach, Calif., the only beach community that has lost a little under 800 people since the last census. This is a dismal, terrible place wreathed in eternal fog and cursed with ocean-polluting giant flocks of pigeons. Just because the pictures make it look like paradise and the people appear friendly, don't be fooled. You really do not want to move here, please. I just stick it out to build my character.
It was time to take stock. Yes I knew computers, but the computers I knew no longer existed. The knowledge that drove my once-deserved reputation had become, for the most part, archaic and useless. The next transition was to overqualified reviewer and commenter. I was tapped to do a series of columns on various software and hardware offerings under the title Tools of the Trade. It kept me involved while things continued to evolve.
At the same time, my new set of "gentlemen's hour" surfing crew "bruddahs" started referring to me as that guy who knows computers. The "gentlemen's hour" is that time between the "Dawn Patrol" and the "sneak a session in at lunch bunch" populated by silver-haired, fairly in-shape surfers who can spin yarns of ever-growing dimensions and still back them up with a respectable showing in the water, considering the demographic.
Computers really got personal. When a friend asks you to fix his or her beloved box, you truly start to understand the meaning of pressure. And then you discover you can't really fix it. You can slap it, fiddle with it, and breathe a little life into it, but no amount of your orthopedics will get rid of that limp. Something deep in the nether regions, something tiny and elusive, will continue to pop up for no apparent reason and confound your best efforts. I did not want to admit to it, but my skills had become limited, and the operating system had become so complex and interdependent that anything truly critical probably required somebody professionally involved on a daily basis to resolve it.
When I reached out to the uber-geeks that had formed squads and roamed the streets like gypsy pot menders, I discovered a new set of realities. Nobody knows how to fix PCs anymore. They know how to bring them back to point A. Sure, if a video card tanks, they can put in a new one. If a hard drive crashes, they can put in a new one. But if the computer is more than 18 months old, you need a new one to support the ever-expanding requirements of the latest operating system.
If it is just the operating system driving you mad, you have three choices: Warm boot, in case the brain freeze is random and once you clear its memory, it comes to its senses. Cold boot, if it's a little more serious and you really need to flush the tanks and clear the decks. There is no longer time or more stressful period than those endless eons between a full lockup and a successful cold boot. There is plenty of time to develop a sour stomach, raging headache, and sense of betrayal from a tool into which you had invested so much trust.
After that third or fourth unsuccessful attempt, it finally dawns on you that life as you know it is about to implode. The pressure on the last option is in direct proportion to the quality (and frequency) of your data backup and the age of the computer.
The third and final option is a complete reinstall. A 2-year-old computer will have a set of restoration discs that reflect the state of the operating system at the time of purchase. Any patches, tweaks, or updates will have to be re-acquired and installed. It is more than a little disconcerting to think you are home-free only to have control taken away from you and a seemingly endless array of service packs and other must-have updates flooding in. After the operating system is through with you, you still face third-party updates you have to chase down one at a time. Video card and printer drivers and all the applications required by those external gadgets need to talk to the main box. Networks will need reconfiguring. The list goes on.
It started to dawn on me that I really hadn't lost that much. My skills are still on a par with the new gurus. They simply acquire newer tools and get paid by the hour--hours I'm increasingly willing to pay for. In fact, even those skills that these techies depend on are becoming obsolete. Almost everything is disposable and immediately replaceable, usually with something cooler and cheaper. The personal computer is the last of a long line of Tinker Toys.
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PCs are fast becoming the digital equivalent of hot rods. Upgradeable hardware and endless arrays of options appeal to enthusiasts and confound the masses. There is nothing crankier than a confounded mass. I know because I am one sometimes.
Personal data storage matters; the state of the gadgets that use and create that data is increasingly fluid. Once your data is safe, preferably in multiple places, such as clouds, external hard drives, and maybe a DVD or two for the real belt-and-suspender stuff, you should feel a palpable pressure drop. All external data is about access and filtering. Now that my legacy is secure, what's next?
Here I sit waiting for my first early retirement Social Security check to arrive, something my wife refers to as my allowance, and I find myself taking stock and looking to reinvent myself for the next wave, whatever it is.
What a long, strange trip it's been. The arc of that long-winded walk through my history with PCs has taken a lot of strange turns and twists. What tools are left in my hardware toolbox?
My current personal desktop computer is developing a personality. It's a couple of years old and it has come to the conclusion that just because it used to do something does not mean it feels any obligation to continue doing it indefinitely. There are blue screens of death and grave dangers if I violate these new boundaries. If things keep moving in the current direction, this very well may be the last of a long line of this particular type of contraption.
My Xbox 360 plays anything developed for it, for the most part, without a hitch. PC gaming is still the domain of the Fan Boy, and those $500 video cards are amazing. They can also melt down and refuse to run the latest games for no apparent reason. The Xbox 360 also streams Netflix (what doesn't these days?), plays music, and provides access to a huge online community through Xbox Live.
The Sansa Fuze MP3 player does exactly what I bought it for: It plays MP3 files with great reproduction and minimum hassle. It is not the control freak its more famous competitor is.
My Samsung geezer phone (I forget the real model but geezer phone covers it) has big readable numbers and takes calls and messages without a hitch. I don't really have much use for texting, but live and let live.
I don't own a smartphone but a great many people I know do. There are those who truly need all the horsepower and flexibility these little beauties provide. But based on observations in the field, it appears to me that a lot of them are just really great toys and fashion accessories. I love a great toy myself--always have (just ask my wife).
Tablets, not yet, but soon. Apps, nuggets in pretty paper.
What about Tools of the Trade? What can I offer to a community as skilled and invested as the readers of this publication? What unique insights can I offer to people that can reach into the heart of the information storm and find exactly what is required?
Can I offer insights on the creation of state-of-the-art networks or new developments in advanced data hashing? Not really. By the time I get up-to-speed and generate a coherent review that makes it through the publishing time warp, the target will have shifted. How about in-depth analysis of the current state of cyber libraries and their internal design? Not so much. But here is something I can do.
I am the one who has developed into the target. The one whose short-term memory is eroding a little and is not really feeling the pinch because you and yours have given me the tools to find what is required when it is required. What will it take to continue this evolution?
I know what goes into an elegant interface and how and why to praise it. I can also tell when the emperor has no clothes. So send in the next wave. Everything is trying to do everything. Hardware is shrinking, expanding, and evolving. Less is more, more is less. I can mishandle, drop, and generally disrespect a new gadget with the best of them. Bring it on.
This is going to get good. I am ready for the next wave. Surf's up.
Dave Rensberger
The P.N. Gwenne Company
