Why Do The Gadget Makers Hate Me?
You can spend as much as you like on new gadgets, gismos, software, hardware, firmware and upgrades. The fact will remain that at some point, usually within a few weeks you will wish you’d waited that bit longer or bought something else instead. It’s obvious that the Technology industry is growing all the time, new technologies are discovered, old technologies become cheaper and then obsolete.
What is the point in continual spending on having the next biggest, best gadget? Or having the fastest computer and the biggest television? It’s just like having a fast car, there is always a faster car. Or if you get a big house, there is always a bigger house.
The problem is, if you have the slowest computer, the oldest phone, the smallest television and a Dial up Modem then you will spontaneously combust. This is what we are conditioned into thinking by the Marketing. What’s more it’s true, If you haven’t got an iPhone or a Blackberry then I would recommend staying away from petrol.
So it’s quite clear i’m a believer in trying to stay current. I must confess my television is a couple of years old, I haven’t upgraded this because I’m very bitter. I bought this 40” Samsung television for about £1200, roughly 1 month later it was £1000, 4 months later it was £600 and obsolete because it’ll only do 720p. Watching 720p is like driving a fast car with cataracts, enjoyable but ultimately life threatening.
So people are popping up around with 1080p 50” TVs they swapped for a Mars Bar and they love to show it. However if somebody comes along with a DLP projector and a 102” projection screen in their front room, 50” TV man is going to feel pretty bad. They’ve always got the excuse of “I don’t need one that big for my front room” which actually means, “I can’t afford or justify one.” I am that person, except I’m worse because I only have a little 40” Television and it’s can’t even do 1080p.
I got a Macbook last year, the one Apple took the Firewire Ports off and replaced a year later with a Unibody plastic one. So on one hand, I feel bad because Apple want me to buy a MacBook pro to use a Firewire device. On the other hand I feel good because they’ve turned the MacBook into more of a freak show now. Mine is a great looking aluminum specimen, if you buy a MacBook now then it’ll be white again, and plastic.
This isn’t me doing this to you or even you doing this to you, this is Apple doing this to you. Apple hate you like Samsung Hate Me. I can at least put my Televisual Bitterness down to advances in technology. Apple took away my Firewire Ports because they hate me, they gave you a plastic Laptop because they hate you.
In the early Naughties, Microsoft gave us Windows XP. After about 4 years it started getting good. Then they brought out Vista and stopped you being able to get a PC with Windows XP. Vista was a mistake, Microsoft were forced to give you a choice again because Vista just wasn’t practical for businesses.
To run Windows Vista smoothly you need a PC with 32 Cores, 4 Billion Terabytes of Ram and an Array of Solid State Hard Disks. To run Windows XP smoothly you needed a Pentium 4, 1GB of Ram and a Mouse. Then there is all the different editions. Microsoft basically make you feel like Oliver Twist if you don’t get Ultimate Edition. You will feel poor and left wanting more. To be fair they’ve done the same with Windows 7 but at least that works.
With Windows Vista there was Poverty Edition, Poor Edition, Business Poor Poverty Edition, Business Poor Edition and Mans Only Option Edition. This is all because Microsoft Hate you. So you keep Microsoft happy by buying Mans Only Option Edition, they then punish you for trying to make them happy by giving you an Operating system that is unusable. They slowly put it right (better) over two years, leaving you feeling like you’ve had a two year bout of PIles.
You might think advances in technology have brought down the prices of Computer hardware. You can get a computer now, with and Microsoft Operating system for less than £250. I don’t believe it’s due to advances in technology, I believe it’s because of Windows Vista. Hardware had to get cheaper to make Personal computers affordable again.
It’s either that or consumers stick with what they’ve got and don’t put any money into the industry. This would in-turn stop money going into the Technology industry and we wouldn’t get any new gadgets to play with. Even that makes me feel like the entire industry hate me, they’ve got me up against a wall, they are telling me that if I don’t spend money with them, they’ll stop making me new toys.
Without a doubt the prize for the manufacturer who hate you the most, has to go to Cisco. Cisco are a manufacturer of Networking hardware for Business. They make routers with bugs. Most routers come with bugs as not every eventuality is covered in testing. This is usually not a problem, you go to the manufacturer’s support website and download a new firmware.
With Cisco, you go to the manufacturer’s support website, add a download to your basket and then are told you need to Pay, in one way or another, for this update. You can’t just buy it either, like an online shop. You need to pay for a Support Contract to get an upgrade.
Imagine if you bought a brand new BMW 5-series, a nice business class car. Imagine if it came with a time bomb and you didn’t know the time it was set to. BMW tell you they know how to deactivate it but you need to pay them.
Imagine if you were doing a sky dive and your shoot didn’t come out, this was an extra you had to pay for. The bag for the parachute was all you got and you had to pay if you wanted your chute to come out.
Both these examples involve certain death and so does not upgrading the firmware on our Cisco. If left in it’s factory state it would stop the internet working randomly, when it wanted. This would certainly cause a similar type of spontaneous combustion I talked about earlier.
I like buying gadgets but moan when I can’t afford better ones and I am a firm believer in Retail Therapy. I groan about certain ‘advancements’ in technology and I hate standing still. So where am on all this? I’m confused like everybody else, I feel loved by the money which buys me the gadgets and hated by the companies who make them.
I’m always left wishing I’d waited a few more months or given somebody else my business.
Consumers are left hating the Technology Industry because, like all industries, they want your money. Consumers having obsolete technology is just collateral damage. If this didn’t happen then the Economy would be in an even worse state and we’d all still be cave men.
Snow Joke
It aint half been snowing!
I went out this morning, all the roads to Nottingham were gridlocked so I decided to go to a Job in Calverton.
I left Calverton at 10:30am and got home to Mansfield at 3:00pm.
On the A614 Police, Gritters and a JCB cleared the left lane and freed some stuck lorries. They did a good job, it’s just unfortunate the backlog had made all the roads gridlocked.
I took a photo just before I embarked up a hill. I had to stop at the top of the hill and almost burned my clutch out to avoid becoming stuck.
I also took a photo of the snow falling on my back Garden.
Nearly 2010
Well this year has just flown by, It’s nearly Christmas and much has changed.
I moved out of my parents house and in with my girlfriend, our house is now a home. I’ve had a studio in the house, then in the Garage and now back in the house again.
I’m still working for Custard and still enjoying it. I’ve almost had my Honda Civic Type-R for 2 years!
I’ve had my Macbook a year and I’ve just sold my Mac Pro on eBay.
So what would I do differently in 2010? I can’t think of much, this year has been perfect in my eyes. The only thing I’ll change is that I’m hoping to go into 2010 with a cleared credit card.
But there is a few weeks before the new year and what has happened in the past few weeks/ will be happening before 2010?
We went to the Lodges last weekend for the Annual Custard Christmas Bash! Like before there was lots of cracking prizes. I won an Olympus FL-36R Flash which nicely compliments my Olympus E-500 dSLR. I also Won a Casio Digital camera which does 1000fps slow motion videos. I won a trip to Tattershall Park for me and Sarah plus booze and chocolate. All in all a very generous load of pressies. Chris wanted us to win it so we could video the reptiles eating their dinner. I’ve put a few videos on youtube so Chris could see what the Camera did.
We moved the rogue squadron of reptiles from “My Studio” back into “The Reptile Room” and the consolidation process has rendered it and empty room which I’ve now filled with all my Music Production equipment. I’ve got a pair of M-Audio Studiophile BX5a Deluxe monitors coming this week. They are smaller than my KRK R8s. I will be using the KRK for final mastering and the BX5a for the main music making process. They seem to get a good write up, they are smaller and should have a less Room shaking effect which is great in a small end bedroom.
It’s been snowing for the past few days (on and off) but it’s really come down today! It’s topped up the existing snow and covered the road in our street, all the gardens, roof tops and cars.
I went out with the dSLR and tried to catch some snow flakes!
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It’s Geeker Time
I have noticed a steep decline in my geekyness since moving out which is mostly due to the retail therapy which it brought. With having to spend gadget money on necessities rather than niceities it means that I can’t obsess over a new toy for a week then use it occasionally.
I did get myself an dSLR, I bought it off Chris as he’d upgraded to a Canon 5D Mk2. I got his old Olympus e-500, 2x Lenses, a Bag and a 16GB compact flash for a very good price indeed. I’ve got into that a bit and I’ve got aperture on my Macbook.
I still have the studio although I thought it looked like a grotty den so I’ve had this week to sort things out. First things first, I didn’t feel the need for the Mac Pro to be in there. There is now a Quad Core PC in there with 4GB of Ram. I used to bootcamp the Mac Pro anyway and the PC which has bigger hard disks seems to render tunes quicker and still lets me layer up as many synths as I want. (The tune me and Jo Deviant are currently working on has 74 patterns and about 24 different instruments, it handles this fine)
So the Mac Pro is back in the house and wired to the router so I can sync to my Apple TV again. The problem is the Mac Pro was bare, but my Apple TV is hacked and has SSH on so I SCP’d all of my Music and films off my Apple TV (in their 4 character file name format) and then imported them to my fresh iTunes library and synced them back. I’m going transfer the Photos from Aperture on my MacBook to Light Room on my Mac Pro and start using that for Photos.
So the studio, I’ve covered the nasty felt desk with Hardboard using Builders adhesive, screws and countersunk washers. I’ve then trimmed off the felt round the edges and build in some extra structure to the desk to make it more sturdy and give me more space.
I have also sealed all the gaps in my Garage with strips of Pipe Insulation.
Tattershall Staff Weekend
We are in the Custard Pine Lodges again at Tattershall. I was up until about 3am this morning drinking lots of lager and eating lots of Crisps and Pizza and we got up about 9am this morning. We’ve been playing Giant Jenga on the decking, Limbo on the Beach and Rounders on the Golf Course. We started drinking again about 12pm to try and take the edge off of last nights woes. It’s working but it made rounders a bit tiring.
I’m just sat on our Decking on my macbook, I’m just about to have a Mince Stew before more games… mMmmm Stew!
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