Poet Ponders the Digital

MacBook Pro Available in 15.4- and 17-inch diagonal size. MacBook Pro (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley April 9, 2012 Deadline May 2012 Issue The End is Near: Deciding to Replace a Computer There comes a time in every computer’s life when, regrettably, it can no longer keep up with the demands of work. We grow attached to our computers, accepting their quirks and (at least some of us believe) their personalities. I love my Apple MacBook Pro notebook, but it is starting to struggle with some tasks compared to the new kids on the block. It is time to consider a replacement. It won’t be easy to replace this loyal companion, but I must. Because I teach technology-based courses, I need to keep up with the latest software and hardware peripherals. That doesn’t mean the MacBook Pro won’t have other uses; we’ve managed to keep a few computers in the family for a decade or longer. I recommend using a computer until it absolutely, positively cannot suppo...

I'm preparing for the 2011-12 school year, which this year means learning new software systems, university philosophies, and everything that goes along with any new job in today's connected world. I hadn't really thought about the comparisons until this month, but I am noticing how my issues at work aren't that different from those of my wife at her office. Group scheduling and management software varies from okay to horrible. I've used several different "groupware" platforms. The new employer uses Novell GroupWise — at least until school starts. Right before school starts the university will be switching to another platform. Not the best of timing, but that's reality in any organization. The university is also migrating to new learning management software, new Web servers, and a new collaboration platform. What could go wrong? It's strange how dependent we've become on our networks. My wife and I have struggled with synchronizing calenda...

I am in the process of upgrading my MacBook Pro to a 500GB hard drive. (Let's not get too technical, since I know it's not "really" 500GB.) The one thing digital media do well is consume hard drive space. This is the third or fourth time I have updated a PowerBook or MacBook hard drive. As with all new laptops, you wonder, "How will I ever use so much space?" The excitement of having twice or three times whatever you last had soon fades as iTunes, GarageBand, and iMovie eat the bytes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. InDesign, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Flash are there to help, too. A colleague said, "Why not just store it all on the campus servers or on Google Docs?" Okay, this entire cloud thing is nice -- for sharing some files and for backups -- but I am not about to put my projects out in the cloud. I'd never upload confidential files, and I certainly don't want some company to have my student projects. No way. Plus, I'm no...

Sometimes the technology wins. The reality of computers is that they are still machines. This means that parts wear out — hard drives certainly come to mind. We rely on fragile little boxes, in my case a MacBook Pro, to store our daily work, our family memories, and much more. Even the "non-moving" parts are technically moving on an atomic level, with heat slowly taking a toll. Memory chips start giving "exception errors" and video cards make abstract art of our virtual desktops. This is why I make lots of backups. It is why I have three external hard drives, and hope the digital demons never cause all three to die at once. One drive is a clone of the MacBook Pro's drive, so if disaster strikes my current work is ready to be revived on another system. The other two are archives, saved for those "I think I did something like that before" moments. With the preceding in mind, I now admit that even following good, defensive habits is not ...