Destroy The Computers
by Adam M. Anklewicz

Technology drives me mad.  Day in and day out I sit in front of a computer for nine hours a day.  Eyes strain to read the type, waiting as the screen refreshes, putting up with terrible programming and a terrible interface.  I understand it, however, and that keeps me with it.  Wouldn’t it be nice to watch a CRT implode after you shatter the tube with a baseball bat?

At my day job I use one of the worst sales systems.  The designer works with me, runs our service department.  After all the hints my co-workers and I have dropped you’d expect that he would understand.  If a button is in one place in one module wouldn’t it make sense to be in the same place in the second module?  Simple concepts of user-centric design should not be so foreign to a program. The usability of their software will determine the success of it. Yet the work is faced with Windows, yes it was more usable than DOS but that doesn’t say much.

Should it be so hard for intelligent people to use computers?  I know many people who are very intelligent but cannot operate a computer.  Obviously something is wrong at the foundation.  Perhaps we could start from scratch, create a new concept to envision files and folders.  The virtual desktop has been around for twenty years, an eternity in computer time.  I’ll admit right now that I’m not smart enough to envision this new system; however, there must be people around who are better suited for this.  Someone out there was able to create a new method of listening to music and the compact disc was born.  The same can be done with computers.

Perhaps we need to clean out what we have of computers and try to get back to paper.  It might take more time to retrieve the information, however someone’s signature and handwriting is easier to identify and harder to forge than a computer record.  At least we won’t be faced with days when our computers give us a flashing question mark. Having to format the drive and reinstall everything from scratch is not fun and happens too often.

I’m not the first person to question the paperless era filled with paper.  If we’re going to cut down trees to make hard copies of our lives then why can’t everything just start on paper?

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