Technology is great

Recently I performed open heart surgery to my PC as the five years old parts that were in it finally decided to go kaput and not work on me. Now I would say it is quite an accomplishment seeing as the average PC only last about two years for the average person due to various reasons (your operating system clogging up is a major contributor). Me getting five years out of it then means I actually got my moneys worth. But sadly it came to a crashing halt a couple of weeks ago when my PC no longer boot into windows in a stable manner, even when I reinstalled Windows cleanly.

So I rip out all the old computer chip, motherboard, and memory and replaced it with brand new, state of the art ones from Intel, Intel, and Kingston, respectively. Everything else I just reused with the new components as they were still in good shape (not to mention, high quality parts that were not cheap back when I first bought them). A man, what a difference five years make in terms of performance! I was seeing almost 7 times the performance while ripping videos. With new technology also came efficiency, and I bet my newly reconstructed computer probably suck more than half as much power from the grid (hehe, TRON). I mean the exhausted air sure feels much cooler (though I can no longer use it as a space heater).

Feels productive to have my PC running again, as I can schedule tasks for it to do while I am away from home with my mac laptop. And when I am home, having a second computer increases multitasking on so many levels (because there comes a limit where you just can't play a video while photo editing at the same time on one computer). Plus, there is one thing a PC does better than a Mac - being a media center. Hence my PC is also my media center PC thus all my media files go through it, and not my macbook. It is hard to explain to people why having an extra computer on hand is such a boost (much a kin to having a second or third monitor). It is one of those things where you just have to try for yourself. Once you do, you can't go back.

I was just tweeting the other day about how weird it is that I have 8gb of memory on both my computers and yet my first computer back in 1999 barely have 6gb in hard drive space (there was also one picture where it showed an iPhone 4 of today is more powerful than the first colored iMacs). It is during these moments where you think to yourself just how the heck did you live with it back then (Sim City 2000 was the shit). But of course I was not nearly productive with a computer as I was back when I was I think 13? Back then it was all about games and surfing the web. While today it is still about games and surfing the web, the digital artist side of me realizes that the computer and the internet are powerful tools to create and publish my ideas.

My first PC's screen was 13in (one of those ginormous CRT monitors no less), and now I stare at a 30in screen everyday (I had a 20in also, and back then I thought IT was huge). What a difference a decade makes. 

Of course with the rapid pace of advancement in technology comes the great wallet drain also - for those people that choose to chase it. Do I want to be that person? Maybe, I mean who does not want the latest and greatest. However my poor (in monetary terms) upbringing taught me to be (somewhat) frugal, so no I don't go after what is new all the time (still happily tapping away on my original iPad). My Macbook Pro is now two years old, not going to upgrade it any time soon unless my creative software no longer run at a pace that is satisfactory. I think unless something new is so revolutionary that it changes the game, there is just no need for me to upgrade (hey, I held off on upgrading my PC for 5 years did I not?). The last time this happened was when Apple introduced the aluminum unibody Macbook Pros with glass screen and LED backlit LCD. It was so much better compared to my white plastic macbook that I literally just dumped it to my little brother and bought the new one. 

Technology may advance in a fast pace, but it is too expensive to run along with it. 

Case in point for me is when it comes to phones. I am generally one revolution behind everybody else. Remember when color screens first came to cell phones? I was a year behind everybody in getting that. Texting phones? A good two years behind. I still have yet to upgrade to a smart phone, which is already on its next revolution with computing power that rivals small PCs (iPhone 5, come soon please). Of course when it is me that is not paying the bills, I cannot really complain now can I. Though when I get a smart phone the one footing the bill will be me. That is why I welcome the end of unlimited data plans and the introduction of cheaper entry level ones. I probably don't use that much data (in fact as of right now I don't use ANY!), and wifi is so abundant that there is not reason not to use it. The cost savings, extrapolated over a two year contract is substantial. 

Speaking of smart phones as powerful as computers, I think that is where the future is heading. The computer industry have already transitions pretty much from the desktop to the laptop (more laptops are sold than desktops). Even creative professionals can live off of a laptop because computing power are no longer exclusive to non mobile platforms as thermal efficiency in chips improves. Heck I hardly know anybody that don't do there computing on a laptop. Well, the next transition is from laptops to tablets and smart phones. I mean, it is all about getting smaller, and being portable (before that happens, laptops will getting lighter and thinner). But what about actual work? You seriously can't expect to type the great American novel on a smart phone! Actually I think you can, as all you need to add to it is a connection to a monitor and a keyboard. When it comes down to it, the major things we do with computers boils down to these things - internet, games, media, office suites. I can see all this migrating to the smart phone package. In fact, it has already begun. 

One thing technology has destroyed in the process of being great is the enjoyment of music. Don't get me wrong, without the mp3 revolution, I would not have 10% of the music I have now. The accessibility and potential exposure to all types of music is one thing mp3s brought to the table. But I think the essence of music have lost some of its luster with the breaking down of albums into individual songs for sale. Albums used to tell stories, and the order of songs is something artist put a lot of thought into. Nowadays they just lump songs together and call it an album. Heck over in Asia, many artists don't even put out albums anymore, instead putting out singles or mini albums. Leave it to the indie artist to still put together albums that have meanings and interconnections between songs.

And when is the last time you actually listened to an album from beginning to end? Radio and per song purchasing has allowed us to pick apart album and just get the songs we want (not to say that is not GOOD). I remember it was still cassettes and CDs, I would buy an album and actually listen to the whole thing. I still try to do this with my digital music when I can, as for sure I don't always buy the whole album for an artist. Enjoy music for what is, because it is not something to listen to while you are doing other things. The meaning, the vocals, the instruments, the production, etc, these things in an album need to be enjoyed in a quiet environment, sitting down, and a pair of headphones on (of course, the highest quality of mp3 you can get haha). Then again, artist needs to put the same thought back into music, and not just cobble some beats and call it a hit just because it is catchy.  

So yes, technology is great. The best thing you can do is leverage it, and not let it go to waste. 

To the cloud!

I bet a bunch of you use the great Pandora app to listen to music. Now imagine instead of playing internet radio, it plays the music you have (I am being told right now that Last.fm does this). Imagine all the music you own, available on the internet for you to access anywhere by any device. No more worrying about whether that iPod will have enough hard drive space to carry all the music. Because everything will be in the "cloud"

Having music online is just part of the big picture of cloud computing. The gist of cloud computing is that instead of using a computer to do work and entertain, all you need is a portal or device to connect to the world wide web. Once there you can perform all the normal task one does with a computer such as listening to music, watch movies, word process, do projects, play games, etc. The single biggest benefit is that all your content and things will be available anywhere there is an internet connection. No more having to put things into thumb drives and having multiple devices to do different things. 

Some say it is the future of computing. In a ever connected world (if only US will catch up to Asia in terms of Internet speed) where people are as mobile as ever (cue the lady that fell into a fountain while texting), it makes sense to have the computer be on the internet, while only needing a device to connect to it for access and use. This all sounds absolutely awesome and great, but there comes the big question: do you want all your media and documents uploaded online? 

It is not hard to tell that people like to own tangible things. The digital revolution sort of blurred that line in that instead of things we can touch like physical discs, our movies nowadays are streamed to us, or in a computer file if you purchased it digitally. Cloud computing will fulfill the prophecy in that a person technically won't own any of his or her media at all! They will only have access to it since it is all stored online.

Are you going to be comfortable will only having "access" to your files? Now in the grand scheme of things it makes no difference since that same piece of music will still be able to be heard by you whether you have it on your computer of you are accessing it through the internet. But as the cliche goes, shit happens. The internet is manmade after all, and manmade things sort of not work perfectly from time to time. Anything and everything digital in essence is just ones and zeros. If a "1" suddenly gets misplaced then boom that movie file stored online no longer works. Bottom line, I am not sure if people are comfortable enough to allow the internet to keep their files and keep is SAFE.

There comes the question of accessibility as well. Not at the user end, as people are as connected as ever. People in metropolitan cities have high speed internet at home, mobile broadband on the road, and many establishments carry free wifi. Connection from the user is not the problem. The problem is the hosting end. As we all with a cell phone know that data cost money. Thus having media and things on the cloud takes up a lot of space. Having to transfer everything you connect also takes up space. Who is going to pay for the bandwidth? Everybody's favorite cloud syncing software Dropbox starts charging once a user uploads more than 2gb.

Not to mention all the computer serving power to host everything on the cloud (Watson?). Remember, just because it is off your computer and on the internet does not mean it does not have to be stored at least somewhere.

So it is still quite cost prohibitive for cloud computing to happen for anything other than documents (Google Docs), pictures (Picasa), music, books, etc. Things that are relatively small in terms of file size. Definitely won't be seeing movies anytime soon (movie editing and sharing right on the cloud? can only dream for now), much less high definition.

I don't need to mention how absurdly easy would be to SHARE stuff if things were on the cloud. Want to borrow this movie I have? Oh here is the download link. It's that easy.  

Perhaps it is the minimalist in me, but I for one welcomes cloud computing and the future it brings. The convenient and accessibility is just too damn good to not utilize. Ever have that one paper you've spent all night on but forgot to print and brine to class? Had you have done it on the cloud, then all you need to do is find a computer at school and print it out! No need for USB thumb drives or emailing it to yourself (which by the way is the one the first and primitive forms of cloud computing: it replaced physical mail).

I would love to have all my music and pictures and movies online to be accessed anywhere. Do I trust the cloud to keep my files safe from sudden acts of god? HELL NO. As with anything digital, you should always have a backup plan. Anything valuable and irreplaceable should have a second copy somewhere safe anyways. Even if things were not on the cloud, valuable files should be backed up regularly. For example my entire music collection has mirroring copies on two computers, one iPod, one backup hard drive, and another hard drive that is somewhere that is not my house (in case acts of god happens to the house, knocks wood). If that is does not guarantee the safety of my music then I deserve to lose it (and then cry).

True cloud computing for all facets of actual computing has ways to go, but I am liking the way it is headed (I dropbox all my documents and projects). People should embrace it too, and not just because Microsoft decided to use "to the cloud!" as a marketing gimmick. It has real and substantial value to the end user.