Keep It Simple, Stupid!

I've just spent the last few weeks trying to re-establish a wireless connection in the flat in which I live. We recently changed broadband providers and the migration from our old set-up to our new one has been less than smooth. Much less.

My competence with computers falls into the category of "enough knowledge to be dangerous". Like weekend fettlers who disassemble the carburettor of their Ford Sierra only to call in the AA on a Monday morning. Or DIY plumbers who proudly finish their new bathroom before receiving agitated reports of leakage from the downstairs neighbours.

If you ask me to fiddle with my network settings, I'll naîvely wade into my Mac's System Preferences and start fiddling with IP addresses, DNS servers, TCP/IP, PPPoE, MTUs and the like. I just wish I understood it all. Or do I? This is no fun. This is not what computers are for.

For a non-techie like me, it's like entering a bizarre world. It looks like OSX, but gone is the logical simplicity of files, folders, buttons and sliders which usually makes using a Mac so idiot-proof. (On a Windows machine, of course, I'd be patronised beyond belief. "Do you want a 'Wizard^TM' to help you set up 'My Computer^TM' with one of 'My Special Network Places^TM'?")

It seems that Apple, smart as ever, already know that things should be easier, so I read with interest that they are working on a cunning plan. I don't fully understand the technical details, but the story on the MacRumors site suggests that plans are afoot to use RFID technology to help networking products exchange basic information with each other, enabling them to then automate the rest of the process. RFID is the whole business of little tags whose embedded information can be simply read by a nearby device. The kind of thing that's currently used to automate regular payments on toll bridges, or to identify stray pets and bicycles to police and thereby reunite them with their owners.

I don't understand the technical intricacies of this RFID idea any further. But that's the whole point - I don't want to!

Imagine if your computer, partner's computer, router, printer and everything else just introduced themselves, Bluetooth style, to each other so you didn't have to worry about IP addresses, manual, DHCP or otherwise. I want setting up my computer and that of my housemate to be as simple as downloading pictures from my camera, deleting some music, or adding to this blog.

Let Apple handle the questions of how that stuff actually works. That's their job - I have better things to do.

Macworld - All you need to know...

Steve Jobs.
How does he do it?

Once a year, he gets up on a stage in San Francisco, in his jeans and baggy grey roll-neck, and absorbs the adulation of the masses as he tells us what he and his busy workers at Apple have been dreaming up.

All over the world, millions of Mac fans pore over websites, eagerly monitoring his every revelation like disciples hanging on the words of a religious guru.

Here, courtesy of MacRumors.com, are the abridged (yet genuine) highlights from Steve Jobs' Macworld keynote presentation:

9:08 am - crowds cheer
9:14 am - Steve on stage
9:14 am - heavy applause
9:21 am - growth, now sell more than amazon - applause
9:22 am - applause
9:42 am - widescreen ipod
9:42 am - crowd goes wild
9:42 am - mobile phone
9:43 am - crowd goes wild again
9:43 am - shows comedy picture
9:43 am - crowd laughs
9:49 am - shows software
9:49 am - applause
9:59 am - it is very fast, just like on a laptop
9:59 am - applause
10:02 am - best ipod they ever made
10:02 am - applause
10:08 am - just touch to add callers
10:08 am - crowd is impressed
10:21 am - full screen view or preview mail
10:21 am - crowd impressed
10:27 am - presses a button and calls starbucks
10:27 am - orders 4000 latte's[sic] to go - crowd laughs
10:37 am - crowd begging steve for iphone

That's as far as it had got when I starting writing, but no doubt if I had continued watching, it would have gone something like:

10:41 am - Steve unveils another clever gadget
10:41 am - crowd goes wild again
10:45 am - demonstration of 'on' button
10:45 am - crowd goes absolutely mental
10:51 am - Steve cracks a joke about Windows
10:52 am - sound of manic laughter fills San Francisco
10:59 am - price of shiny gadget will be $199
10:59 am - widespread pandemonium in crowd
11:01 am - woman climbs onto stage bearing sick child, begging for laying on of Steve's hands
11:07 am - child cured
11:08 am - crowd fall to knees in adoration
11:09 am - the clouds part and Steve is raised into heaven...

What a guy...

Update -
Just saw this on the BBC News website's Macworld report:

"Outside the building, BBC News Online happened upon Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, who was leaving the keynote on his Segway transportation device. "

Superb.

Welcome to Spamworld

We all know about spam. We're all fed up with the constant deluge of crap in our inboxes. But recently, I seem to have passed a significant threshold. Over half the email messages I now get, on my work email, my Gmail and, of course, my ageing and increasingly Viagra-sodden Hotmail account, are now unsolicited crap.

For every email I receive from a friend or colleague I receive another one or two from random hijacked email accounts trying to sell me online dating, prescription medication, bodily enhancements, fake Rolex watches, ink cartridges and all manner of adult entertainment sites. And that's before we even mention the lottery notifications or the Nigerian regulars.

Spam is now reality

According to my inbox, there is now more spam than reality. How did that happen? Spam is now more real than real email. The real communications of my life are disappearing from view under a sea of spam.

I foresee the birth of new world, Second Life-style in which our 'real' existence is usurped by growing hordes of timeshare salesmen and share tipsters. Every street corner is a pharmacy and old men never see a reason to leave the bedroom, much to the bemusement of their wives.

All the women (and most of the men) are unbelievably well-endowed, yet have notoriously inaccurate wristwatches which give them nasty rashes.

Everyone is incredibly rich; some through Dutch lottery winnings and some through minding the funds of various African dignitaries killed in a spate of tragic air crashes.

And the girl next door?

What do you think? She wants me. Who wouldn't? After all, I am a man whose inkjet printer will never, ever run out of ink.