Hi all.
Whilst listen to the click bbc news tech program today An article interested me greatly.
This was that children have not got the skills on how to know what goes on with their computers just to use word.
Its unfortunate to say but with the new tech there is no need to know what the system does anymore to use it.
This is good in the way people can usually get it going but bad because if it breaks they won’t know how to fix it.
In the early 90s and 80s, I was privilaged to have dos.
At an early age I was getting into my guts of my system and at least on the vertual level pulling it apart.
I know all I need to know about the old system interfaces and then some.
This has helped me keep things tidy here and know what some stuff does.
Later on I did a certificate in opperating systems including dos, windows and linux and my basic understanding of the command line which I had for the last 10 years or so has really helped me.
We are slowly losing that part of our society.
Its cheaper to replace things now.
The fact that no one even tries to learn keyboard shortcuts over mice is another thing I don’t care for.
The fact the system breaks you install a recovery cd, and you just run it and it fixes it all for you.
Unfortunately windows is a throw away system as far as I care.
If something breaks then its broken.
To fix it just reformat and the problem is solved.
Everything is linked to something else.
This is generally good though if something really goes which often happens it will take the rest of the system with it.
Ie if a wheel on your car falls off or something you will crash maybe.
Or something like that.
Or say a door is not closed properly the car will explode.
That is what its like now.
Though the interface for the modern system is good for fast use the need for even us blindies to even give a shoot about our systems really destresses me.
We should know what our systems do, and how they work.
With the modern systems like linux this is comming back into focus now.
THe fact that anyone with interest does use the command line is another.
However unless you used a full featured os like dos or linux you wouldn’t even know how to gut a pc right.
Ofcause being blind these days we are put with take your blinky accessable device and use it and thats about all you need.
On the surface it looks that way for the general user.
Internet accesss, facebook, or other social networks, messenging, skype, chat, email.
Word processing spreadsheeting, and thats it maybe a few poor blindy games.
My point, if thats all you know then its ok.
Sadly thats not just blind people all these smartphones are restrictive if you put your mind to it.
You can’t use anything except what the manufacturer puts on those.
Even with the advanced devices these are not cross platform.
When you use a normal windows system you can do whatever you want.
All programs, all functions.
I have often said this though.
If I was born today I’d skip pcs altogether.
THe mac system has all the features we would ever need.
No extra programs to buy, no extra software.
My issue is with things being simple is what if they are to simple.
Being the case, and I think it has already reached that case now.
Then sooner or later we will only be able to do what we are told to.
Not that I was imune.
When I started, I ran a computer, with normal blind programs on it.
I used it but never ventured outside the box.
One day I dropped it and descovered with some help that I understood how it worked and the language used.
I warry we we are losing touch with things in general.
In the old days for instance the only way somethign could break was if hardware failed.
If som ething crashed in most cases it could be bypassed.
In fact about 99 of the os could be bypassed if that was needed.
In win 95-98 this was still the case to some point, but later systems its harder to do that because of linking