Given the increasing complexity of software and its decreasing user-friendliness, I think 1984 has arrived. We are supposed to follow robotically through the latest commands of the software designer, aka Big Brother. And like in 1984, we have no idea what we are doing or should be doing.
I have almost 59 years of computer experience. I started with a summer job in which I used a textbook to learn to program an IBM 650. That was a set of large refrigerator size boxes with punched cards in and punched cards out.
Over the next twenty-plus years I went on to program and debug larger and larger computers. I was often an advocate of newer techniques, like using compilers instead of machine code or using email instead of typed memos.
Then personal computers appeared on the scene. Some of them easy to use, some of them opaque to use. In 1984, the Macintosh appeared. It was a real break-through in ease of use. Many laughed at WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pictures). They preferred the complex set of coding that had to be done for the simplest tasks.
I was hooked and became a Certified Macintosh Developer. I was eager to get the latest Mac with many great features: color, faster and smaller storage devices, and more.
Then OS-X (operating system 10) appeared. It had many nifty features except ease of transferring older programs to it. I never got around to rewriting my genealogy program and have lost all that data (except that which I had printed out). On the other hand, there were many new features that were a delight to use.
But as one OS X after another followed, the Mac started being persnickety. Printers that were easy to use became a nightmare. Where is the setting to print an envelope. Why does the scanner work well with an old OS but gives dark blobs on a newer OS?
Then sin of sins, without asking me, Apple decided I should install the latest operating system just because I was using wi-fi at a coffee shop. Not only did Apple decide that I should upgrade, it decided that all my files in the Document folder should go to iCloud. But that was more data than my free 5GB. It asked me to upgrade my account to 50GB. The extra $0.99 a month was no big deal, but I still haven’t completely reorganized my Document file so that I don’t need be hooked up to the web to use those files.
The same increasing difficulty has struck many web-sites. I now subscribe to four newspapers. Most of them generally work well with only a few quirks that take awhile to figure out. Just like the print versions, the newspapers are filled with ads. Generally you can just scroll past them.
But sometime last year, the Star Tribune began to have intrusive ads. They would take over the computer with no obvious way out. Not only would the ad page take over the tab slot on a browser, there was no way to get out of it except close the tab or follow it on to other pages in the ad chain.
A similar annoyance is a side-bar ad with a misleading message: “Log In”. It is not a log in to the newspaper, but an ad for using a Google product for signing in to web sites.
A friendly guy at Star Tribune’s support department helped me try to clear things up. But it was drastic, including resetting my iPad. Guess what that did? It wiped out all my cookies so that I had to enter saved passwords all over again. Good thing I have the passwords stored in an obscure place.
Rather than making my life simple by easily accessing my bank accounts, reading the latest news, and sending email to friends, I seem to have gone into standby debug mode.
Unfortunately, one of those pop-ups appeared again this morning. That’s it. I asked the Star Tribune to cancel my subscription. Bye to “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee” and many other comics that are not in the Duluth News Tribune. Good-bye to many in-depth state stories and editorials.
I do have relatives who spend a small fortune calling Geek Squad every time time they need to make some software change. Do you think the Star Tribune would pay me for all my efforts? Do you think your phone will run forever without re-charging?
P.S. Well, maybe I'll keep the Star Tribune subscription for a few more days. It worked fine this morning.
