Alone, ranting and raving of older technology

I have mentioned it before, but I am convinced that many technological innovations are far from being displaced.

I fail to find a utility to the tablets. Maybe I should try the interface, but a keyboard, one that I do not have to look at because the tips of my fingers know where the keys are, is maybe best. Perhaps they will show that gaming, browsing etc are best on the tablet, but a resolution of 1024 x 768 is really too little. I was initially satisfied with screens whose resolution was widescreen, but only 768 height makes it difficult to set two pages side by side while still being legible.

New standards should be for higher resolutions, making text and images crisper. Once you get used to HD, it is difficult to go back to something less. AM radio is out, but it will not die for a long time, as it travels so much further than FM... I should play with my short wave radio more often!

Submit in Word DOC format

Although Microsoft Word is the defacto standard in many offices, it is changing. OpenOffice Writers, and a number of other editors, can do what Word does. There is no reason to request that a document be submitted in Word, unless, it requires editing.

I am determined that institutions should require that documents be submitted in a format which does not require the purchase of a specific software when a number of alternatives are free. But if you really want to have a Word document, here is how to do it:

Using PDF FIll http://www.pdfill.com/ print the document into a multipage TIFF. This will make individual pages as raster images.

Convert the TIF to PDF ( I could not find a converter to DOC !!!)
Convert the PDF to DOC

Voilà you have a DOC which will certainly retain the page format. It will prevent users from copying and pasting, but pages can be deleted or inserted.

iPad, tablet, Blackberry, smartphone -

Whatever - could I use a more outdated word than that? Well, I still do not find much use to a iPhone, iPad or whatever other form of portable computer. Ergonomically, the old keyboard, with it's tactile response, is still much better than what I have tried on an Android, iPhone or eBook reader ( nook I believe).

Maybe the best option is the netbook - smaller than an average LCD screen, USB ports and HDMI to connect a screen and keyboard. If you ever need to bring it around, it should not take more than 30 seconds to disconnect the devices, and off you go.

As for battery life, nothing will ever compare to a paperback.

Are cars really any diffrent than computers

The motorized vehicle is not that much older than the computer. Increased efficiency would have been possible, but there were other priorities. New processors boast of more processing power, but they also require a lot more electrical power!

Computers used to be isolated large calculators, but now they have become an essential tool for communication. Although the internet since the late 1990s has developed substantially, I find little to no great improvement is the use of computer in the past decade or so. It is true that newer machines can handle high definition video, be used for video games with more detail and vivid images, but for the average user, with a 768pixel screen using Skype, a word processor, browser and Acrobat Reader, there have been few real improvements.

I find that my 2003 Dell Precision, is probably better than some of the new machines that come out today. Here are few reasons why :
6 hour battery life
Dead silent ( I replaced the hard drive with a compact flash card)
good keyboard
1920x1200 WUXGA screen
all the ports I need ( I have yet to use eSATA or Firewire)
Still really fast in comparison to some new systems that I have seen!

Where is a the great improvement!!!

I looked at the new netbooks with "8 hour" battery life, webcam etc. but I found that the store models had the fan running all the time!

Nevertheless, there is a way to get your older system, even if it has a Pentium M, to play full HD video. The solution is simple : reduce colour depth.
I can play 1080p with Media Player Classic at 24 fps. No audio lag. The subtitles are not quite rendered correctly, but I will look a way around it.

I cannot make sense of it, but it seems that 8-bit video resolution (yes 256 colours) looks better that 16-bit (65536 colours) ! ( I actually forgot that number so I used my calculator 2^16 = 65536 ; 2^32= 4.29 Billion colours ...)

Nevertheless, when you reduce your colour depth, the GPU also drops considerably in temperature!