Rural Ramblings

I started with computers in the early 1980s, the mighty ZX 48K Spectrum. Imagine that 48K, not even the size of a publishable photo nowadays. In those days I just used it for games, my very patient and much missed mother in law had one too and used to buy magazines with game programmes she could type in. This proved to be very frustrating for her, she was an excellent typist, but when the darned thing was printed wrong it was a long job figuring out where the error was. Programmes came on cassette tapes and sounded like a crazy fax machine when they were loading. I still have one or two kicking around now.

From the ZX 48K I moved up to a ZX 128K, with better games and a faster machine. By the early 1990s I was on a 25MB IBM machine and using floppy discs. And then, with help from my lovely mother in law, in 1996 I bought a machine that could use the new fangled Internet. Immediately I saw an opportunity and in addition to playing better and better games I started out on a new career in journalism, where I am today.

With the Internet came email, websites and the beginning of online banking and shopping. As we were living on a remote Scottish island the shopping option was very useful, especially as we had carriers that brought your goods to the door and even inside the house if they were heavy.

Floppy discs were replaced by disc drives using Cds but dial up was still the norm for getting online. However, if you bought software it came in a box, with a manual, nice art work, maps sometimes with games and you could sell it to someone else if you wanted to. The operating system was on a disc and other software was often downloaded and installed via the Internet, which on dial up was tedious, little did I know what was to come.

Now, games and software are downloaded and often used online and I dread updates. I set aside one day a week to do my Microsoft updates. I hate it. There is rarely a progress bar or any estimation of how long the process will take, which is often hours and more often than not my poor system goes into a fritz for days afterwards. Note to software companies, I would like a progress bar and more choice as to what I need, not new features that I have no interest in.

Finally, another gripe. Software taking over my system and slowing it down, notably in alphabetical order, Adobe (I use for work but would love an alternative), Microsoft and Norton. It’s my computer, guys consider yourselves lodgers in it and show more consideration. Maybe pay more attention as to what the user wants rather than what you want to give and perhaps take from us.