Wednesday, March 04, 2009

BYOM or techno bubbles bursting in air!

Car shows, they come, they go. So far I've never went to one because I hate to see all the latest stuff they managed to put between 4 wheels. Then I realize this dream car is one of a kind, not for sale, not coming to a dealer near you! Forget the car, what about the technology? Well when the technology finally comes, it in no way resembles what I saw in the show.

The all-in-one computer, like those TV/VCR/DVD combo units. I can see it on my desk now, sleek and poised. The computer built into the monitor because we are all duped into racing after the design pace set by Apple's iMac. I relax, kickback, want to put the keyboard in my lap, sit back in a creative pose, oh wait, I need to pop in a CD. I disrupt my posture for a moment to reach across to the display to put in the CD. It is so unnatural, I guess this is why laptops are so popular, it's all attached to the keyboard. But then I am stuck, I have this great laptop (not the latest) and the display is not a wide screen, not big enough for squinty eyes and I can't cop my creative pose, hang on to it and type too (new laptop needed?).

The answer to my dilemma is to rip the display off the laptop. With this all-in-one computer in my lap minus the display tethered by a cable, I can reach my CD slot in ease while striking my creative pose and mount the display on the wall, pole, stand or base. And use any display I happen to have (BYOM, bring your own monitor!!). But laptops are supposed to be portable! Hey, just because I want a desktop doesn't mean I must have a big energy sucking computer in a dust-bunny palace. Actually, netbooks are more portable and laptops are..........less portable!

You computer folks make convertible laptops where the display will rotate, fold backward into a tablet. Why can't you make the display an attachable option? I will buy the base unit as a desktop and use a separate display of my choice. I think you computer makers are trying to sell displays with the computer as the option. I think it's child's play to put the display and hinge assembly on say a port extender block and secure it to the laptop back with two thumb screws.

Personally, the laptop is too big and not nomadic enough to be truly portable for most people and why today, netbooks are hot. This is my expert advice, rip the display off the laptop, call it the new desktop, leave the PC case for gamers and servers. This gives us three distinct classes of computers, the netbook, the low power desktop and the mod case PC. There are too many crossovers in the market.

OK, the hottest thing in PCs is to boot from a USB drive. I can boot MS XP, Vista, MS W7 on my hard drive or from that 4-32 gig thumb drive with the Linux of my choice or vice versa (my preference!). This is like a throwback to Commodore 64 days, the program cartridge plugged into the side of the computer. But with these USB thumb drives being 4 to32 gigs in size, the operating system and installed applications can be put on one drive. I know there are security issues with thumb drives in business machines. So put encrypted locks/keys on the bootable ports and maybe a physical lock so that only IT can remove it or change it. Anyway the PC itself can be fairly generic but when the jump drive is plugged in, it becomes a MS windows machine or a Linux machine at will.

Hey IT folks, if your OS and apps are on the jump drive and something gets corrupted, you only have to swap a new loaded jump drive and that PC is up and running. You still have to scan/clean the files on the server but half the work is done. You can even keep loaded jump drives handy to copy onto the hard drive if that is your way of working. Think of this as digital inoculating injectors, pretty cool.

Sometimes it's not about new stuff, but using what we have already in a different light. Yeah, in Linuxville we are use to that!.

No comments: