When it comes to the machines I use everyday, to which I’m tethered every waking moment of my life, I embrace quality.

Every piece of consumer electronics I’ve ever purchased has gone in the garbage can after a lifespan cut short by substandard construction.

Computers? Hardware from myriad vendors cobbled together by myriad distributors and churned out to the seething masses. Garbage.

Microsoft Windows? Unusable crap. Too many options. Dumb interfaces. Unintelligible error messages appearing all too frequently. A bloated system built on an obsolete foundation. Slated for extinction.

Apple gives us the promise of something better. Something that works. Something that lasts. When first using an Apple product you become self-conscious. Ashamed. Surely you don’t deserve this. There must be some mistake. You’ve been conditioned to believe you’re not worthy of such a sublime user experience. After using it a year you’ll accept nothing less.

So no, I’m not a fanboy. I just appreciate machines that don’t totally fucking suck, which are rare in this age of disposable… everything.

I know, I know. That’s what you want, and how you want it. That’s the rule, how it must be done, I have no choice, etc. etc. It’s cool. I understand exactly where you’re coming from. To some small degree I even sympathize with your plight. But no.

Oh, I hear your exclamations of protest quite clearly! And yes, I comprehend what you’re saying and why you’re saying it. But again, no. Sorry.

See, now you’re just being silly. Even if I were inclined to submit to your demands (which, of course, I am not), raising your voice does nothing to propel us toward a resolution.

Then again, it would be disingenuous to suggest there is any “resolution” other than doing it my way.

Oh come on now! There’s no need for that sort of language. I harbor no malice and intend no harm. I’m merely stating facts here.

I’ve considered your way. Thought about it. Analyzed it. And yeah, no.

Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

Ain’t gonna happen.

Ah Blue,
I’ve had about enough of you.
It’s true.
You think you’re so cool.
Don’t you?
One time I did too.
Screw you!
It’s time for something new.

Give me bullet points, not paragraphs.

I want answers, not eloquence.

I need information, not narrative.

Just tell me what I want to know.

Give me something I can use.

Tell me what you want.

Say what you mean.

Don’t waste my time.

Get to the point.

Start at the end.

When I began my career in web design, a device like this could be only be found in the world of science fiction. Actually, the iPad, which became available for pre-order this morning, makes Captain Picard’s PADD devices seem clunky and antiquated by comparison.

The iPad’s imminent release, along with the 10th anniversary of NASDAQ’s peak at the height of the dot-com bubble, made me wax a little nostalgic about the “good ol’ days” of the late 90s and early 2000s. The internet was becoming mainstream and computers were gaining wider use. A brand new web design industry was born and I was privileged to be a part of it.

It was a fun era, and while I sometimes miss the adventure of it all, there are a lot of things I’m happy to leave in the past. Here are just a few:

CRT Monitors
These hulking beasts can still be found in many offices and homes, but they are becoming extinct as LCD screens have become more affordable. Moving these things around is real pain in the biceps, and if you stare at them long enough you can almost feel your eyeballs melting.

Floppy Disks
Slow, noisy floppies hold a measly 1.4 megabytes of data. They were basically useless for shuttling large graphic files around, forcing us to use larger capacity ZIP disks (or, god forbid, JAZ disks) because CD writing drives were still pretty pricey.

Spam
Until Gmail came along in 2004, unsolicited “spam” email was just something I lived with. When you receive 50-100 spams a day, the “new message” alert loses all meaning. Sure, there were client-side spam filters, but they needed to be “trained” for several months, and they were far from perfect. Gmail’s sophisticated spam filter restored that little bit of glee at receiving a new message in my inbox.

Beige Boxes
For a time I actually enjoyed tinkering with home-built PCs (though I often enlisted the help of my unofficial AV/IT guy, Voidious) but eventually I’d had enough. I remember the exact night, in fact. It was 3:00 in the morning on a very hot summer evening and my machine was in pieces. Sweat dripped from my brow as I struggled to troubleshoot a hard disk issue. Or was it a power supply problem? Either way, I was done with that shit.

Video Plug-Ins
Remember RealPlayer? Before Youtube and Flash video, we needed specific browser plug-ins to watch video onilne. It was slow, buggy, and the picture sucked. Incidentally, I recall my buddy Chuck experimenting with using Flash for video sometime in ’03 or ’04. At the time I thought it was radical and a little crazy. Guess I was wrong. :)

Viruses/Malware/Spyware
There was a time when security holes in browsers and operating systems were so rampant that it was practically inevitable your computer would become infected. Some of this malicious software was so insidious–actually, wait, some of you are still using Windows and Internet Explorer, aren’t you? Ugh, this is awkward. Yeah, nevermind, I guess this one isn’t a thing of the past just yet. ;)