'User-Friendly' only a Buzz-Word

Long ago, some short-sighted individuals held their hands across their hearts and sincerely promised that technology would make our lives easier. Then they gathered around the tribal campfire and together tried to figure out how to put this hot, orange stuff out.

When technology was born, it was followed almost instantaneously by the birth of something sinister; something which would become an eternal struggle, as man tried to tame and manipulate his surrounds to his own gain, much to his own folly.

To this day, crusty grey-haired men in oversized lab coats work tirelessly in spotless, white labs all around the world, striving to come up with smaller (such is the trend) and better ways to make our lives easier, more convenient, faster, quicker, more productive, less stressed, fat-free, and carbon neutral. And to a great degree, their efforts are to be commended. Science and progressive thought has produced everything from gadgets to ways of thinking, which reach these lofty goals.

Of course, there's a lot of crap too.

But recently it seems we have become saturated in all the latest 'must-haves' and their promises, and we are now looking for more multi-functional, cooperative, all-in-one means of taming our lives, to try and reduce the amount of clutter we have to carry around, as we strain our backs and harbour an almost instinctual fear of magnetic devices.

We've seen the 'all-in-one' remote, which with the push of a button can which between controlling your TV, your DVD, your stereo, your airconditioner, your microwave and your neighbours' pet rottweiler (that day flew, I can tell you). For Harry Potter fans out there, it has to be the closest we'll ever come to a magic wand.

We've also moved to Internet-powered refrigerators. I'm sorry, but.. 'Why?'

I have no idea what this was about, but surely it deserves a mention.

And now we come to the magnificent Apple iPhone. You can make phone calls (receive them, too) check email, send texts, listen to music, watch TV, surf the internet, order a pizza, book cardiac surgery, take photos, navigate cities (with some great, half-hour exceptions), notify you when you have appointments, tell you the temperature in Romania, calculate the square root of Pi, play games, manage your finances, buzz incessantly when you hold it too close to any kind of speaker, make your decisions and generally make your friends feel inferior and envious.

Yup. It's pretty much everything I want in life.

If it could find me the perfect relationship I'd buy two. (Not because I'm looking for polygamy, but because I'm a realist and I'd probably screw the first one up.)

That said, this last week has handed me a basket-load of technological quandries and dilemmas, which I intend to discuss in my next post as an attempt to maintain my sanity, and save Mrs Jones from next door from a bloody, sadistic encounter with a Rottweiler at my hands.

To be continued.