Upgrades...
Normally I build a new PC every two years or so, just to keep up with technology and what not. But with times being what they are (economically) and no real need for upgrading the speed of my PC, I decided to just go with a few minor upgrades. So yesterday I received in the mail a new Samsung 750 MB hard drive and a i-Rocks 12-in-1 USB 2.0 card reader.
I got the new hard drive because a lot of the new content available now is in HD, which makes it four times as large as before. And I got the card reader because 1) I broke the front USB ports on my computer case a while back and reaching behind the case to plug in my jump drive and iPhone is a pain and 2) so I can finally get pictures off my camera. That means as soon as I fix my PHP scripts that automatically resize my photos for my image galleries, AGO should have new pictures again. Yay :)
The hard drive was OEM, which stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. It basically means barebones. All I got was the hard drive in a plastic case, no cables, no manual, not even a box. I pulled out my case, slid open the cover, pulled out my hard drive bay, and attached my new drive. I booted it up and nothing. BIOS recognized it but Windows didn't. Doh! I forgot I needed to partition and format the drive first. So I pop in my Windows CD, set my BIOS to boot off CD, and commenced to format the drive. After that it was smooth sailing. Luckily I knew what I was doing.
But during the course of the installation, I got to thinking, how is a lay person, that is someone who is totally computer illiterate suppose to know to do all that? In this age of Plug-and-play, I forget sometimes that certain tasks still require a moderate degree of computer knowledge. I tend to think of computers are fairly simple puzzles. Problems are easily fixed if you know what you're looking for. But what if you have no clue? They must seem like indecipherable black boxes. Things work or they don't, but they have no idea why. Of course, I face the same kind of challenge when staring at an automobile. We all have our blind spots I suppose.
I got the new hard drive because a lot of the new content available now is in HD, which makes it four times as large as before. And I got the card reader because 1) I broke the front USB ports on my computer case a while back and reaching behind the case to plug in my jump drive and iPhone is a pain and 2) so I can finally get pictures off my camera. That means as soon as I fix my PHP scripts that automatically resize my photos for my image galleries, AGO should have new pictures again. Yay :)
The hard drive was OEM, which stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. It basically means barebones. All I got was the hard drive in a plastic case, no cables, no manual, not even a box. I pulled out my case, slid open the cover, pulled out my hard drive bay, and attached my new drive. I booted it up and nothing. BIOS recognized it but Windows didn't. Doh! I forgot I needed to partition and format the drive first. So I pop in my Windows CD, set my BIOS to boot off CD, and commenced to format the drive. After that it was smooth sailing. Luckily I knew what I was doing.
But during the course of the installation, I got to thinking, how is a lay person, that is someone who is totally computer illiterate suppose to know to do all that? In this age of Plug-and-play, I forget sometimes that certain tasks still require a moderate degree of computer knowledge. I tend to think of computers are fairly simple puzzles. Problems are easily fixed if you know what you're looking for. But what if you have no clue? They must seem like indecipherable black boxes. Things work or they don't, but they have no idea why. Of course, I face the same kind of challenge when staring at an automobile. We all have our blind spots I suppose.
Labels: personal, technology
posted by Z at
10:44 AM
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