Tag: software

Automate It!

Daily writing prompt
How has technology changed your job?
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I’m retired now, but…

Back in the 1980s, desktop computers began coming on the scene, along with some useful software. I was in the military at that point, part of the Air Force, involved in command and control.

We loved our reports in the military, especially in the Military Airlift Command – MAC – where I spent some time, but also in the covert reconnaisance world and war readiness reporting. All these reports had predefined fields. Typing them out was a true pain and a challenge for many people. White out and correction tape were not authorized. Along with these were flight orders which we needed to prepare each day, and operations and situation reports to report critical and often classified matters to command authorities on the theater or national level. They had names like SITREP, Red Rocket, White Pinnacle, and OPREP-3. We used these to report on matters such as aircraft accidents/incidents, the movement of nuclear weapons, or the impact of a local natural disaster or international incident.

When I was introduced to the first TRS 80 personal computer, I realized almost instantly the time that could be saved by developing computerized report formats to predefine the fields. Besides saving time to prepare the reports, errors could also be reduced by simple built-in quality checks. Once I found a commander and organization to support these efforts in the late 1980s, I set about acquiring the hardware and software and then setting up every format that we used. Word of what my unit was doing soon spread; others came to us for help on doing the same for them.

Computers truly revolutionized the way we did business by the time I retired in the mid 1990s. I can only imagine how it’s changed since then.

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Ambitious? Just Back Off

Daily writing prompt
Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.
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When it comes to DIY, ‘ambitious’ isn’t in my vocabulary. Honestly, I keep it simple.

I miss the old days, when part of my DIY routines were working on the car. Changing oil, cleaning or replacing the spark plugs, setting the ignition timing, rotating the tires, installing new brakes, bleeding that system, replacing the radiator coolant, etc. Those were fun and rewarding DIY projects. Then, though, cars became complicated. Engine bays became packed so tightly that reaching spark plugs was an ordeal. Getting to the oil filter was a nightmare. I’m reduced to installing a new battery in the car and topping off the windshield wiper fluid.

Around the house, I’ve done multiple small jobs. Replaced the furnace’s control board. Installed new thermostat. Replaced the filters, installed capacitators on the air conditioning, along with some other pieces on it. I’ve installed new light fixtures in various rooms, took the dishwasher apart and fixed it, and did troubleshooting on the microwave, replacing fuses and different parts. Likewise, I’ve done some plumbing work but I keep it simple. I’ve painted all the rooms except two, installed a blower in the gas fireplace, and do all my yard work. Yes, I’ve installed some shelving and assembled furniture.

On my computers, I’ve swapped out hard drives, processors, fans, video cards, and power supplies, and added or changed memory. In many ways, I think of them as the modern equivalent of working on cars back when cars had mechanical systems. I’ve installed and replaced routers and modems, replaced keyboards, added different streaming devices and printers, and did basic troubleshooting on software and security, uninstalling, reinstalling things as necessary, and took apart the keyboards and cleaned them.

Many of these things are driven by being cheap. I don’t want to pay others for what I think I might be able to fix. I’m also driven to understand these things more. I want to know how they work, how the parts interact, etc. These systems are mature and demonstrate ingenious engineering solutions. Finding how they work amazes me, and the Internet is a useful tool for that purpose. Then, to restore them when they’ve died is such a validating process.

That validation process is a big component. In a complex world, where so much seems beyond our control, it’s satisfying to take something broken apart, and make it work again. Just keep it simple.

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Obsolescence

8/31/2014

That’s the date on my laptop’s shipping box. I discarded it yesterday. The box, I mean. Cut it up and tossed it in recycle. The box, I mean.

Looking at that shipping date, my personal laptop is almost ten years old. Although state of art when purchased, it’s now considered a weary old piece. I should replace it but I don’t wanna. One, I’m used to its foibles. Two, it does everything which I need done. Three, waste. This machine works and I’d be forced to get rid of it and its materials, adding to the piles of consumer trash.

I don’t wanna do that. That’s why I have five old computers waiting for disposal. One is a tower bought in 1998 that I haven’t used in years. One is an old personal laptop. Two are my wife’s old Macs of different vintages. One is an old business laptop which they told me to keep when I left the company.

Getting rid of them is on my list of things to do. Pull the hard drives. Find somewhere which will scavenge whatever they can for repurposing, and responsibly dispose of the rest.

I absolutely hate this cycle. My laptop’s software has been updated as far as I can take it with its current hardware. Microsoft provides the OS. Yes, I’ve used others but I succumb to convenience. Yeah, shame on me. I’ll research what MS needs for its next OS and see if I can update my hardware to keep it working.

Ten years is just too early to get rid of something. Just look at my cars. Both are ICE. One is nine years old with 48K; the other is twenty years and 108K. Both run fine although the newer one needs rear brake maintenance. But both look good, run well, and live in a garage, so I’ll keep on keeping on with them.

Just like my ‘puter.

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

Twenty-nine minutes.

It doesn’t seem like much time.

It was how long he waited for Microsoft to update.

MS updates always seem invasive. Waiting for it to do its thing is the norm. This is helpful, he reminded himself. New features. Updated security. Bugs fixed.

But he was on a writing schedule. This was twenty-nine minutes of not writing, of sitting and stewing, impatience and irritation growing, while the computer did its thing. Icons didn’t appear on the taskbar. No notice was given about how much longer was required or what was going on. All he could do is sip coffee, tap a finger, and wait.

Eventually, it finished. When the browser finally opened after twenty-nine minutes of waiting, it displayed a message.

He wasn’t impressed. MS had to make up a twenty-nine minute deficit before their updates would start saving time.

Rant over. Back to the normally scheduled program.

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Floofware

Floofware (floofinition) – Major items of equipment or components intended for use by animals.

In use: “Although laptops and keyboards are not floofware, many pets like to believe otherwise.”

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A History of Writing

The Atlantic provides a perspective of writing software. It fascinates me because of my personal history. I began with WordStar on a CPM 86 machine with a small green screen, and two 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drives. WordStar worked well for me but bundled software forced me to a switch to WordPro. WordPro was set up on a Zenith 150 with a 20 meg hard drive and two 5 1/4 floppy drives and an EGA 16 color screen. The colors didn’t matter but the resolution still wasn’t great. Switching to a VGA screen with 256 colors enhanced the experience. I still wrote in tablets and notebooks with a pen and then typed it all up.

Having a natural bent toward being a geek, I used to be really proficient with those programs, learning formatting, editing and saving secrets on my own. Friends and co-workers would come by or call me, asking for help about setting margins, centering, pagination, headers and other matters. People then wrote these insights up and made money off them by publishing books about these secrets, which never entered my mind to do.

Eventually, Microsoft became the Godzilla that wiped everything out, leaving me with Word. I adjusted to Word well in the early years. But modern improvements have made it less friendly. Word offer a gazillion templates when I use two. It’s odd how selecting File versus clicking on Open takes you down different paths. Adopting from version to version as the operating system changed has been a major irritant. I also eventually switched from a tower to laptops and notebooks, discarding the notebooks. I was sad to let them go. They, along with pens, were friends and companions, pets of sorts, for a struggling writer.

I honestly thought shifting to writing directly onto a computer instead of paper would be challenging. Perhaps using email and filling out computer forms over the years helped, but the change was easier than I expected. I even came to recognize the many advantages of using an electronic media to create.

I still read books in paper formats, though. Although I read and edit my own online, almost everyone else’s is printed out or purchased in a hard format. Yes, I have devices to read them, but that change is surprisingly taking me longer. I’ve seen articles about fonts and colors and the impact on reading on a computer but to me, it seems to be that I like shifting the book around for different angles, and that still doesn’t work well with the electronic devices.

Of course, it really doesn’t matter to me whether I’m reading a book online or a hard copy, as long as I’m reading. I guess that was the lesson for the transition from paper to computer, from WordStar to Word, it doesn’t matter, as long as I’m writing.

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