Friday, November 09, 2007

Usability

There's progress being made each year in ease-of-use of computers, despite their growing complexity and usefulness. I well remember nightmare of getting a modem to work in the mid-nineties, the various "modem scripts" one had to try out and then call the ISP to get another obscure code to try. Similarly the first time I tried to connect via ethernet to a broadband modem a few years later. Very complex, I needed a lot of help.

But today I did the same thing after years of only using wireless. (I changed to ethernet partly for security, partly because the wireless connection has never been reliable.) So I plugged in the cable and waited a couple seconds, and boom, I was on the Net. That's just lovely.

(Note, I use a Macintosh, I don't know if it's that easy on Windows Vista, perhaps it is.)

2 comments:

BlankPhotog said...

As someone who's been in tech support, it really has gotten easier. Now if only cameras were that easy...

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

It may come. Digital cameras are 15 years behind PCs in development.