Friday, July 29, 2005
DISK BOOT ERROR! Insert System CD to continue.
What an awful way to start a morning. Of course, the disk in question contains most of the key files in my digital life. After an hour of futzing around, I finally got in.
The SONY box underneath my desk is more powerful than any computer in the entire world a few decades back. That's great, but the downside is that it is not a consumer device. If I were a novice, I'd still be staring at the DISK BOOT ERROR! message. I don't know where I'd turn.
Yesterday I was reading an article about how "thin clients" are poised to make a comeback. Your software resides on the net, as it does with Gmail or Salesforce.com; your applications are "hosted." The pros take care of security, upgrades, and backup. Your home machine is more a simple terminal than a full-fledged computer.
Technology has gotten ahead of us. Bleeding-edge, screamer computers are great for early adopters and hobbyists; it's the mental equivalent of souping up your hot-rod. For others, just because Moore's Law has made household supercomputers affordable doesn't mean everyone should run out to buy one.
What an awful way to start a morning. Of course, the disk in question contains most of the key files in my digital life. After an hour of futzing around, I finally got in.
The SONY box underneath my desk is more powerful than any computer in the entire world a few decades back. That's great, but the downside is that it is not a consumer device. If I were a novice, I'd still be staring at the DISK BOOT ERROR! message. I don't know where I'd turn.
Yesterday I was reading an article about how "thin clients" are poised to make a comeback. Your software resides on the net, as it does with Gmail or Salesforce.com; your applications are "hosted." The pros take care of security, upgrades, and backup. Your home machine is more a simple terminal than a full-fledged computer.
Technology has gotten ahead of us. Bleeding-edge, screamer computers are great for early adopters and hobbyists; it's the mental equivalent of souping up your hot-rod. For others, just because Moore's Law has made household supercomputers affordable doesn't mean everyone should run out to buy one.
BETA | jay 7/29/2005 09:12:00 AM| WRITE JAY |
1 Comments:
Amen to that! The only question to having apps hosted is security of data. If hackers are getting my credit card data, my voicemail passcodes, etc. out of vendor databases why should I trust that my files are any safer in this world? Granted I can use apps hosted and store data locally, but I imagine there will be some hesitance to all this. Still, imagine how much easier the lives of the average user would be if they didn't have to deal with firewalls, upgrades, backups, DISK ERRORS, etc.
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