Technology We'll Miss When It's Gone

[Night Hawk]

Technology We'll Miss When It's Gone

As tech speeds inexorably forward, many gadgets and services will be left in heaps on the roadside. Problem is, we'll truly miss some of them.

Christopher Null, PC World
Nov 16, 2009 9:00 pm

The times, they are a-changin'. When haven't they been? But change isn't always good. Here are ten tech items whose days are numbered, and we're going to miss them all--though some more than others--when they're gone.

More at: Technology We'll Miss When It's Gone - PC World

"What will we do, what we will we do without our MP3 players and no programmable mouse?!"

 

[pparks1]

Sometimes I find myself missing the simple things. For example, in my car...I have a little servo motor which controls one of the flaps for my vents...which is glitching a bit and is making a very minor noise... Although it's not very loud, it drives me nuts. I took the car into the dealer and they quoted me almost $1,500 to fix it...90% of which was labor (they have to remove most of the dash and center console)...but their suggestion was to to turn up the radio and drown it out because there was a high risk of the dashboard rattling more noisily then that servo motor once they put everything back together.

 

[smarteyeball]

I have to echo one of the comments on that page -

I miss spelling and grammar. Trying to read some of the crap on the net today gives me a headache while trying to decipher the often unintelligible drivel that passes for communication.

Written Language has always been dynamic and constantly changing, but what passes for net speak feels like a devolution rather than an evolution.

 

[Darryl Licht]

I miss not being able to avoid a phone! Remember the good old days... if you were not home people tried back later? If you were on vacation, you were unreachable!

 

[Zidane24]

I miss not being able to avoid a phone! Remember the good old days... if you were not home people tried back later? If you were on vacation, you were unreachable!

No freaking kidding...I purposedly let my cell phone die and stay dead for as long as possible...

If I don't...I will be hounded to death by calls

 

[Lordbob75]

7. MySpace

We hasten to say: MySpace is horrible. We certainly won't miss the gaudy wasteland that fills 99 percent of MySpace space. Rather, we're going to miss the original idea underlying this social network--of a place where in theory you might go to find out where your favorite band is playing, listen to their latest tracks, hear a comic try out a few new jokes, and maybe keep in touch with your friends. Instead, MySpace has become a useless (and dying) magnet for spammers, clueless preteens, and attention addicts, none of whom seem to be in on the joke. Good riddance.

Dear god, YES.


~Lordbob

 

[pablogener]

I miss not being able to avoid a phone! Remember the good old days... if you were not home people tried back later? If you were on vacation, you were unreachable!

No freaking kidding...I purposedly let my cell phone die and stay dead for as long as possible...

If I don't...I will be hounded to death by calls

I do this once a week. I work at a union, I know what you're saying. If I don't turn my cell phone off at least once a week, I'd have to throw it to the steet so that a truck would run over it!!

 

[jimbo45]

I have to echo one of the comments on that page -

I miss spelling and grammar. Trying to read some of the crap on the net today gives me a headache while trying to decipher the often unintelligible drivel that passes for communication.

Written Language has always been dynamic and constantly changing, but what passes for net speak feels like a devolution rather than an evolution.

Actually it's not so much "Netspeak" but horrible "Text-ese".

Why on earth will people write u for you and ur for your -- these are written forums where there's no reason to type like you do in a mobile phone.

Clear concise unambiguous prose should eb the order of the day -- also leads to less misunderstanding of posts.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Night Hawk]

Despite all those gadgets that eventually get replaced by something newer I never could quite come to part with some old pc games. Well besides Duke 3D I was able to get the 8bit original going on the 64bit 7 by way of DOSBox when you look at the MS Windows part seen there showing 95.

Looking back however I probably won't miss 3.1, 95, 98 that much since seeing 7!

 

[bigmck]

One thing I miss are the BBS's that were around in the early 90's. Most of them were pretty "plain jane" setups, but they were all we had and were alot of fun. I am in Houston and all the BBS I called were in Houston (to avoid the long distance phone call). I met alot of people through them that have become long time friends. That is not possible on the internet since people are all over the world.

 

[smarteyeball]

Actually it's not so much "Netspeak" but horrible "Text-ese".

Why on earth will people write u for you and ur for your -- these are written forums where there's no reason to type like you do in a mobile phone.

With todays switched-on, connected youth - there is no longer a dichotomy to it's usage

But you're right, it's understandable when using a phone - but not when you have a keyboard in front of you.

Unless they are browsing from their phones...

 

[Zidane24]

Actually it's not so much "Netspeak" but horrible "Text-ese".

Why on earth will people write u for you and ur for your -- these are written forums where there's no reason to type like you do in a mobile phone.

With todays switched-on, connected youth - there is no longer a dichotomy to it's usage

But you're right, it's understandable when using a phone - but not when you have a keyboard in front of you.

Unless they are browsing from their phones...

Entirely possible if not probable...

 

[Lordbob75]

Actually it's not so much "Netspeak" but horrible "Text-ese".

Why on earth will people write u for you and ur for your -- these are written forums where there's no reason to type like you do in a mobile phone.

With todays switched-on, connected youth - there is no longer a dichotomy to it's usage

But you're right, it's understandable when using a phone - but not when you have a keyboard in front of you.

Unless they are browsing from their phones...

No, not even then....

I text in FULL REAL WORDS AND SENTENCES.
Imagine that, and I'm even a TEENAGER.

Haha. When people send me text speak, I tell them to write it the hell out.

~Lordbob

 

[Night Hawk]

One thing I miss are the BBS's that were around in the early 90's. Most of them were pretty "plain jane" setups, but they were all we had and were alot of fun. I am in Houston and all the BBS I called were in Houston (to avoid the long distance phone call). I met alot of people through them that have become long time friends. That is not possible on the internet since people are all over the world.

Now you have Windows Live as well as other messengers including Skype that can be used for voice and video calls as well as simply texting quick messages. You can hold a conversation for hours and pay nothing more then your monthly ISP bill there! Change of times also brings in advancements. Those do tend to replace the "olden Goldies" however!

 

[pablogener]

One thing I miss are the BBS's that were around in the early 90's. Most of them were pretty "plain jane" setups, but they were all we had and were alot of fun. I am in Houston and all the BBS I called were in Houston (to avoid the long distance phone call). I met alot of people through them that have become long time friends. That is not possible on the internet since people are all over the world.

Now you have Windows Live as well as other messengers including Skype that can be used for voice and video calls as well as simply texting quick messages. You can hold a conversation for hours and pay nothing more then your monthly ISP bill there! Change of times also brings in advancements. Those do tend to replace the "olden Goldies" however!

you can still access bbs services using the telnet protocol...
google that, dude!
the 'advance' is these bbs's can be literally ALL AROUND THE WORLD and you don't have to make a long distance call to get to them!!

 

[blackroseMD1]

you can still access bbs services using the telnet protocol...
google that, dude!
the 'advance' is these bbs's can be literally ALL AROUND THE WORLD and you don't have to make a long distance call to get to them!!

That's true...but back then it felt more...I don't know, like you belonged to some kind of secret society or something. These days almost everyone has the internet in their homes, at work, on their mobile devices etc...and it's just completely lost that feeling.

 

[Night Hawk]

To show just how fast moving things are has anyone seen the latest on one free service? eBay sets Skype loose at $2.75 billion valuation | Digital Media - CNET News

Now the question will be if that will remain a free service or only be available if you subscribe to one particular ISP? With that particular free messenger you can hold live group chats from all over the globe free of charge as well as direct pc calling options. That's more of a desktop gadget that would be missed if things were changed there.

 

[Mercurial]

We'll miss you most of all, Clippy!

LMAO I miss you too clippy ;( and don't forget the search dog... ;O

 

[Lebon14]

My answers to the PCWorld article...

#1. MP3 Players : I agree. More and more, those simple media players are disappearing. What a shame! But I still have my good ol' Sansa e200 w/Rockbox. It fully fulfill the function it was made for : play music.

#2. Optical drives : Yeah, on laptops. On desktops, not too sure. But, USB flash drives sure are replacing them.

#3. The mouse : In my opinion, there will always be mouses. There are stuff we can't do with our hands...

#4. Dumb Phones : IMO, I would love to have a cellphone if it was only a cellphone. I soooooooooooo agree with PCWorld here!!! LOL @ last "function".

#5. Digital Cameras : You would take ALL of your vacation pictures with your cellphone?!? No, seriously. A cellphone cam is good for on the spot moments but if you're going to take a lot of pictures and need quality, better plan a digital camera.

#6. Windows :No. Seriously. Don't agree at all...

#7. MySpace : LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL Go disappear Go!

#8. Pay Phones : One day, yes, but now there's still a lot of them.

#9. Packaged Media : Oh god, yes, I will miss those. I prefer having my good ol' media. Proof, I still prefer having physical bought CD-A over digital download.

#10. Good manners : This is the INTARWEBZ. What do you expect. But in real life... yeah. For grammar, I like using shortcuts when I'm tapping but not always damnit. I agree that I will miss this one a lot...

 

[Dave76]

I remember earlier this year a long discussion on the floppy drive, some people refused to give it up.

Some things just out live their usefulness.

Optical drives are next.

To each there own preferences.