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by James Robertson.
Original Post: Luddite, or just cynical?
Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants
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Ed Foster has posted an interesting letter from one of his readers. A fair amount of it reads like the guy's a luddite, but I think there's general cluelessness here as well:
"Essentially -- if anything has to talk to anything else -- I avoid it," the reader wrote. "Because it won't. Or it won't without a lot of coaxing. Or an upgrade. Or a separate service charge. Or the moon being in the right phase, you standing on the left foot, and reciting Shakespeare. In fact, a lot of my 'time saving tools' have been costing so much time spent fixing glitches caused by 'computer errors' on the part of software or the institution that I've dropped:
"High Speed Internet: The time spent downloading or uploading mid sized files on dial-up is now exceeded by the time spent downloading and installing the latest fixes and patches to keep out viruses I never had to worry about when using dial-up. Cost? Don't go there.
"PDAs: I loved my PDA -- but problems using it with the Outlooks address book always put me traveling, out in the middle of nowhere, only to find the latest update before I left wrote gibberish all over my travel instruction to where I was going, or over critical contacts. So now my contact file is back in Word, where I have total freedom with the fields and can see what I'm getting. Besides, the PDAs are getting outlawed at many of the facilities I visit, due to camera concerns (mine doesn't have one, but tell that to the sixth grade graduate behind the security desk).
"High-End Cell phones: No longer do I go for the high end with features, modem capability, and programmability. I get the basic phone. You spend more time trying to learn a new entry system, menu structure, etc every eighteen months or so than the features save you. (Not to mention the cost of the cables, software, etc.) Now I enter the number and punch whatever button I need to call."
"Online bill payment: The time spent recently correcting an error by the electronic transfer company -- which modified an electronic address on its own initiative, and sent the money elsewhere -- cost me over $300 in fees and interest charges that I never recovered and more time and phone effort than I would have spent if I had written checks for the last two years.
I think this guy complains too much on a bunch of this. Broadband vs.dialup? Please... if you think dialup is competitive, you're either stupid, or haven't actually had broadband. And mind you - dialup is no protection against viruses and worms. Thinking so is a sign of very, very weak thinking. Now, I've never really glommed onto a PDA - but then again, I've never been much for paper organizers either. I think this is just an entire segment that I don't deal with at all. The riff on picture phones is a real problem though - I like my picture phone, but I'm just waiting for the first time I have to leave it behind. His riff on cell phones just sounds clueless. I've upgraded phones a bunch of times, and each time, my vendor has been able to transfer my old phone book over. As to menu systems - please. Each phone I've gotten has been different, and I've spent maybe 10 minutes adapting to each one. The next riff, on online bill payment and fraud - I've had the kinds of problems he's mentioned with paper and checks. Guess what - this is a function of your vendor's back office technology, not of the front end browser interface. If that sucks, you're going to get stuffed whether you point and click or use a pen and checkbook
This guy is clearly an old dog, and the new tricks are apparently way too much for him. And by old dog, I don't mean age - my father in law, who is over 80, is way more clued in on this stuff than this guy. Someone issue this guy a baseball cap and send the golf cart to his place - it's time for the retirement home...
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