Old Tech is Good Tech!
10:07, 3 June 2009
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I get made fun of for my use and advocacy of old technology. I like buying something new, truly, but I also like getting my money's worth out of it, and I don't see any reason to throw something away only because a new model is out. Not only can the environment not handle it, but neither can my budget.I have a MacBook that I bought in January 2008, but I also still use my lime iBook clamshell running OS 9 because there's a lot it can do, for free, that I would have to buy software for on the MacBook (like saving video into various formats), and I think the OS 9 interface is way better than OS 10. Online, I have had some people mock me over it. However, guess which machine gets the "Wow, that's beautiful!" comments when I take it out in public?
And then there are cell phones. To me, there's nothing intuitive about a cell phone: I take a long, long time compared to most users in trying to do things like, oh, make a phone call. And observation of family and friends tells me I'm not alone in feeling this way. Whereas I feel oh-so-comfortable in cyberspace, a cell phone -- especially the current models -- leaves me utterly confused. What makes some people really laugh is when I pull out my cell phone, a blue Nokia 1100. One friend called it a "training phone." But it gets the job done: I use it primarily to receive calls, since I use Skype or iVisit, to make calls, usually. I also use it to send and receive text messages (including reminders from my private Google calendar, as opposed to my public Google calendar). This phone is as plain as you can get: it doesn't have a color screen, music player, or camera. However, it does have a flashlight, alarm, reminders, and three games I adore. But mostly, it works and doesn't confuse me.
I just found out today that the Nokia 1100 is not only the most popular cell phone model ever sold, it has, at least as of 2007, outsold both the iPod and Playstation 2 (see this story in Reuters UK). So I'm not alone in liking this little work horse of a phone. Or maybe it's a donkey? Whatever it is: hurrah for easy-to-use, minimal-learning curve tech. There is still a market for such!
