The Simplification Of Personal Computers

Once upon a time, anyone who knew how to do anything with a computer beyond switching it on would have habitually been referred to as a “geek”. Certainly, if you spent any more than an hour a day using a computer for anything other than work, you would have been considered uncool. However, recently the use of computers has become something that more people do than not.

The very idea of something like Facebook ten or fifteen years ago would have set alarm bells ringing among the cool kids. Computer users socializing was like dogs rollerblading – not normal, unsettling to look at and something to be discouraged. But as computers have got cheaper and easier to use, social networking is now all the rage.

The boundary between “geek” and “chic” has narrowed in many cases to a point where it doesn’t exist. Indeed, the idea of “geek chic” has really taken off, and it is not even an issue for many kids who have grown up in an age where the Internet is fairly widespread. Now it is those who do not use computers that are considered a little bit odd.

Like any social change, there can be debate as to whether this has had overall desirable results. Certainly, someone who works in computers or just considers them a hobby need not cringe every time they are asked what they are into. With any kind of mass use, a phenomenon can attract undesirable activity and publicity, but on balance most people seem happy with the diversification it has brought.

Your PC – From Box To Desktop

As time goes on, any technological development will be refined and re-refined until it is automatic and can be operated by a trained monkey – and then it will be honed some more. As easy as we now find it to operate a personal computer, there was a time when it required a great deal of messing around to get it initially set up, and in many cases every time you turned it on.

These days, you can take delivery of a personal computer one moment and be doing whatever you feel like with it ten minutes later. Many of the newer models do not even require much connecting, coming as many of them do with an integrated web cams.

This appeals to users who would previously have found computers difficult to “get into”, as operating instructions have a tendency to resort to tech-speak at very short notice. However, it is something that may put off the more tech-literate users, as this level of usability comes at the expense of choice – you have no say in the software package that comes with the computer.

A “PC in a Box” may well be just the thing for a first-time buyer, but if you are more computer literate it will often be cheaper and more beneficial to put the system together yourself, even to the point of buying components from different sources to get things just right for your needs. This is something that is quickly learned as time goes on.

Great Things About Computers #6: Writing

The development of easier-to-use personal computers has contributed immensely to the ever-greater quantity of writing being done in this day and age. Although opinion will naturally be divided on whether this is a good thing, it has certainly democratized the process considerably, meaning that more and more people can get their writing published or publish it themselves.

To make a long story short, if you wanted to write a book in times gone past, you would have needed a typewriter or a complicated word processor – potentially costing more than was reasonable for a luxury purchase – in order to put together a readable manuscript to send to publishers. Now, it is standard to email a section of the finished draft to them instead.

The phenomenon of “blogging” has taken off in the last few years to the point where an overwhelming number of people now have personal blogs, and to the point where even the idea of blogging has been mutated successfully – witness Twitter, often referred to as a “micro-blogging” site.

There are some – often paid writers themselves – who decry the increase in blogging as somehow “devaluing” the idea of writing. This seems almost exclusively to be a territorial reaction to the threat of losing readers to someone who the reader can relate to. Certainly, some blogs make for awful reading, but the same can without a doubt be said of much of what gets published by paid journalists, too.

Great Things About Computers #5: Email

Before we had email, the world was a different place entirely – but it is hard to think how different because it has become such an accepted part of life that we hardly remember what we did before we could send and receive email. Most of us will use it at least once a day, and many of us will have an email client open for most of the day for one reason or another. It helps us work and keep in contact with friends.

Before email, the quickest way to get in contact with someone was to call them on the phone. Largely, this depended on them actually being there to take the call because not everyone had voice mail. Email just about pre-empted text messaging in terms of mass use, and was the first form of instant communication not to depend on both sender and receiver being available at the same time.

Email also had the advantage over text messaging of not being limited to a certain number of characters. If you phone someone just to chat, one is always mindful of the phone bill and is thus likely to keep the conversation brief. No matter how long your email, it won’t cost you any extra – in fact, it won’t cost you anything on top of your Internet subscription.

Email really comes into its own in a business context. A lot of information can be included (like a written letter), and it can be sent instantly (like a phone call) and picked up whenever the receiver is available (like a text message), thus combining all of the important benefits of the other forms while having no major drawbacks. You can attach bulky files with it and check when it has been received and read. It has made a big difference in work and personal life.

Great Things About Computers #4: Music

The development of technology dedicated to music has been constant during all of our lifetimes. There will be many people reading this who can remember a time when the choices available for playing music amounted to “cassette or vinyl”, with possibly an 8-track player thrown in out of left field. These days, more and more people are using their computers to find and play music.

Downloading has become a major part of the music market. Initially, the vast bulk of music downloading was done illegally through peer-to-peer file sharing sites. Mindful of the potential threat to their commercial viability, record companies used a combination of court action and the introduction of legal downloads to claw back much of this market.

Initially, MP3 players were something you had on the desktop of your PC to play songs that you had downloaded. As time has gone on, MP3s have become something you store on your computer to transfer to a dedicated player such as an iPod or, increasingly, a “smart” cell phone. These cell phones can be used to download songs themselves, too.

If you have a vast music library filled with old CDs, these can be transferred to the computer and then on to a player, or can be played through the computer’s speakers. A major advantage of this development is the ability to create playlists that take from a vast library, and make a radio or club DJ out of each of us as we seek to pick the best sequence of tracks.

Great Things About Computers #3: Gaming

If you have a computer for any reason other than work and/or the Internet then the chances are that you are a gamer. There are other ways to play games – dedicated consoles are one such way – but the increased amount of memory available with a home computer means that more complex games are best when played on a PC.

PC gaming really comes into its own on “thinking” games, where a large amount of data needs to be stored and recalled at short notice. Sports management simulations are one example of this, as they contain information on players and need to take account of a vast number of potential eventualities. To simulate tactical decisions as made by a sports coach takes a lot of information.

Personal computers also tend to have more capability to reproduce high-quality graphics and sound. You may need to buy dedicated graphics and sound cards to get the maximum from your PC, but games are available for PCs which are still not manageable on consoles, even with the innovation of consoles with their own hard-drives and the increasing development of CD and DVD technology.

Most people with a PC will have used it for gaming at one time or another, even if it is just a bored office worker playing Solitaire while waiting for something else to do. PC gaming ranges from the inherently basic to the hugely complex, and many of the popular console games of today started out as PC games.

Great Things About Computers #2: Data Storage

Information is everything. From the moment you are born, there is information pertaining to you, and a place for that information to be stored. As you go through life, you collect more and more information, and the pace of that information keeps increasing. The first time you get a bank account, the first time you get a job, every examination you sit – it all becomes information.

When information is created, it has to be stored. Walk into any office for any company or authority that has been in existence for any more than a decade, and you will find files that contain reams of paper with essential information on them. These are stored in boxes, cabinets and even entire rooms that take up space. One of the key innovations of the computer age is that this space can now be shrunk.

Any computer can store an amount of information which, if it were written down on paper, would fill rooms and rooms, and which may be needed at a moment’s notice. The job of the filing clerk has become immeasurably easier with the greater use of computers, which can automatically cross-reference information and make searching faster and easier.

From key information like banking details, to more personal data such as diaries and photograph albums, all information can now be moved onto a home PC, protected with passwords and unique information, and kept for a time when you want or need it. Information is everything, and with the right computer knowledge, it is now easier to keep track of.

Great Things About Computers #1: The Internet

When talking about computers these days, it is almost accepted that one will be talking about the Internet. The fact of the matter is that there are few if any PC’s sold today that are not Internet-ready, and if you are in a position to buy a computer you are in a position, and of a mind, to use it to go online. And the Internet is a huge part of life in general today.

If you are not an Internet user these days – whether an occasional user or someone who spends portions of every day online – then you are very much in the minority in most countries. Indeed, even the bucolic nation of Bhutan, which was computer-free until very recently, now has an Internet infrastructure, although it is a small one.

The Internet allows you to do so many things that would be a lot more difficult, and in some cases impossible, without it. It is now immensely easy to form and maintain friendships over huge distances, to watch TV programs that are not broadcast in your home country, and to arrange transactions that previously would have required you to locate and visit a shop you had never been to.

The Internet has simplified life for many of us, and although it has brought some problems along with it – as any innovation will, unavoidably – it is an invention no less important than the telephone in its scope. Just as the telephone allowed us to start speaking to people in different towns and countries in real time, the Internet allows us to make contact with anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Personal Computers And How They Change Our Lives

There is no doubt that in technology develops faster and faster the more time goes on. As progress speeds up, it also increases the options open to those who want to make it go faster. Unless something gives at some point, people will soon be ordering computers that are obsolete by the time they are delivered and switched on for the first time.

Computers have become a central part of everyday life and they have an influence on everyone, even those who never use them. As the technology involved becomes more refined, the amount we are able to do increases. Chances are that when you were a kid, you imagined you were on the television or in movies. Today, you can make that come true with some very basic software.

There are those who say that along with television, computers have destroyed the imagination of children and adults alike. When we had to sit in a cardboard box and make believe it was a sports car, we really had to work our minds. Now that we can experience a much more realistic simulation using computers, we have got lazy, or so the theory goes.

However, on the other side of things, the Internet has allowed a lot of people to give freer rein to their imagination by creating blogs, photo streams, and websites of real complexity. To say that computers are rotting our brains is to be grossly unfair. One might as well criticise the ancient Egyptians for inventing paper and thus paving the way for tabloid newspapers.

How Computers Have Fitted Into Our Lives

It was once imagined that computers were and always would be a luxury item. They would be kept in one room in the home, used mostly for work and would be coveted for their game playing facility by the children. Before the Internet had entered the mainstream of people’s consciousness, we could not have foreseen how computers would work today for us.

Social networking is one thing that has taken the computer from the position of esoteric luxury item to everyday accessory. A staggering five hundred million people use Facebook. There are also many millions of Twitter users and other social networking sites that are full of subscribers. Online socializing is huge, and people do it on the bus, at work, and even while getting their hair cut.

Online shopping is another huge deal which would have been hard to foresee thirty years ago. These days we can have an idea for an item we need, log on and search for it, choose between different kinds and find the best price before paying securely for the item, all without moving from in front of the computer.

There is also a huge importance placed on the information and communication aspects of the computers in our homes. We can send and receive email, and we can find out facts and figures that may be essential for business, educational or entertainment purposes. One sentence we hear a lot less these days is: “Who was that guy who did that thing…?”. These days, we can find out easily.

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