'Loose Talk'
By Benjamin Benedict

Cybersuckers

One of the most noticeable traits with ‘tecky’ computer types, is that they always have so much to do, and so little time to do it. Busy, doing nothing? Well, maybe not, but certainly not with a grip on life. ‘Life’ as they know it has a grip on them.

I know, I know, ‘biting the hand that feeds’ and all that. But those guys find it so hard ever to come up for breath that I am beginning to lose sympathy with their all-consuming busyness. ‘Puters are a great tool, but so are others I could mention.

A ‘Pandora’s Box’ has been opened, and the snag with this one is that ‘puters are always letting us down, and when they do work, they require so much software adding and refining that at the end of the day, it’s hardly worth the candle.

This is very much the pot calling the kettle black, in the sense that I am always the one asking for more from my machines, but it is like wading knee deep in sewage not to be left for dead because you don’t have the up-dated version of so-and-so, which you need just to keep doing what you already have been doing for a good number of years.

There’s one guy who says “I’ll call you back in a few minutes.” Not even in a few days, does he. I know the ‘rush of life’ has simply driven it out of his mind. I asked another guy to acknowledge receipt of an attachment, but he forgot because of the pressure, and another has been two and a half weeks getting back to me on stuff which should take a few minutes to sort, and yet another is ‘buried’ because, ‘two guys are away’- having nervous breakdowns, I bet.

Common guys! You are meant to run these things. They are not meant to run you. You have been sucked in to the Cyberworld; mind, body and maybe even soul. You are victims of Cybersuck, and it can be fatal.

My laptop is seven years old and I use it on the road. One day, it worked fine in the morning, but wouldn’t go online in the afternoon. Various arms length diagnoses followed and eventually the modem was thought to have blown. ‘Power-surge on the phone line, most likely’, I’m told. ‘Sure, it can happen. Major variances.’ And this kit, which cost $1,000.00 back in 2002 is not protected from this? ‘No mate, you’re up shit’s creek – without a paddle! Best get one of the new ones – cordless, plays DVD’s. Does everything other than, well you know what I mean.’ And is it protected from phone-line power surges? ‘Ehh, I’ll get back you on that, ole buddy. You maybe need another piece of kit for that.’

Then it turned out that it wasn’t the modem. It was the wire between the modem and the phone line. ‘Hey, sorry pal. Your model (it’s a Dell) has been discontinued. They don’t make those wires anymore. New model’s the answer. Getcher going, lickety-split, believe me!’

To cut a long (eight weeks long) story very short, I have an outside modem, plugged into my old laptop, and everything works well enough. Not quite as well as it used to, but well enough. Trading standards will be hearing from me when I get back to parts where there are such things exist and the guys at Dell will have one more reason to run around like headless chickens.

When you buy a new piece of kit, it should come fully loaded with flash player, security, acrobat reader and writer, outlook, the works, and you should also be able to specify your provider and have that software installed before picking it up. And it should be internally protected from ‘phone-line surges’. After all, doesn’t it use a phone line? Yes, it does. Well then, you guys should have thought of that. All the software could be installed in milliseconds if the manufacturers had a mind to, instead of expecting John Public to carry the can. The retailers should also be obliged to provide a data transfer service, rather than leave us to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

When you buy a car with SatNav, they don’t expect you to install it, and when you have had the car for seven years, they don’t tell you that spare parts aren’t available. With ‘puters it’s almost like going back to the days when you bought an electrical appliance, that didn’t have a plug.

Now you ‘puter honchos, I know that you are in the trenches and the last thing you need is some friendly fire up the chuff, but maybe, just maybe it’s not the friendly fire or the Cyberbeast you are up against, that is your biggest problem, but the enemy within. These ‘puters are not what they should be, and if they were, you wouldn’t be so hard pressed. Root out the cheese-paring manufacturers of this un-user friendly machinery. Don’t be cybersuckers all your life.

   

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