Things don't work properly anymore - discuss
Things don't work properly anymore - discuss
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Furbo

Original Poster:

1,401 posts

47 months

Friday 25th July
quotequote all
Thirty years ago, everything around the house worked. At least until it was worn out.

Tonight, before I could relax with a beer, I had to spend time updating the firmware of the mesh network because no one's computer was working. Earlier today, I had to mess around to get this website working because it suddenly didn't like the VPN I have been using for years.

Next week, I've got an IT support bod coming to sort out our IT in the office because Microsoft's insistence that we use Onedrive has messed everything up. Microsoft cannot find the files that it insisted it could look after better than we could locally. Multiple conflicts between Mac and MS are beyond my skills.

Our "smart" TV is as thick as two short planks and doesn't work properly quite often.

I've teenage children who have had IT training at school and just accept that their Microsoft computers are flaky. Go back forty years and we would simply not have accepted devices that didn't work correctly.

Modern technology is brilliant. But it doesn't work reliably and it requires everyone to be quite IT savvy. I am currently fine, but I know a lot of people who are not. I hope I can keep up with everything until I don't need to anymore.

Modern tech is not adequately reliable or user friendly.

Discuss.








Monkeylegend

27,786 posts

246 months

Friday 25th July
quotequote all
I have a 15 year old laptop running Windows 8 and it still works properly, as does the TV,

I do have a couple of leaking taps though which I am about to replace.

Furbo

Original Poster:

1,401 posts

47 months

Friday 25th July
quotequote all
Monkeylegend said:
I have a 15 year old laptop running Windows 8 and it still works properly, as does the TV,

I do have a couple of leaking taps though which I am about to replace.
I've got a PC running Windows 7 that works properly. I've got two running W10 that don't.

Monkeylegend

27,786 posts

246 months

Friday 25th July
quotequote all
Furbo said:
Monkeylegend said:
I have a 15 year old laptop running Windows 8 and it still works properly, as does the TV,

I do have a couple of leaking taps though which I am about to replace.
I've got a PC running Windows 7 that works properly. I've got two running W10 that don't.
My other half keeps telling me I should update mine but just can't bring myself to get rid of this one until it finally packs up if ever.

The trouble is it's made in Japan so works reliably as do their cars generally.

I also have her hand me down old Motorola mobile phone which also seems to always work properly, unlike our 2 year old BT Digital Voice phone which packed up a few weeks ago and had to be replaced.

My Camray oil boiler is also over 30 years old and refuses to stop working and the guy who services it tells me to hang on to it as the current latest technology boilers are crap.

Warhavernet

174 posts

2 months

50 years ago even a new car would regularly throw a huff when the weather was damp and wouldn't start due to points, distributor caps, and moisture on high tension leads, cold weather starts with the choke was a delicate process that only men could do [ women, bless 'em, would flood it by overuse of the juice pedal ]. It's a wonder anyone got to work in the 1970s.

In the last 20 years, in various makes of cars, in all weathers, not one has ever failed to start after one crank, not one, so I'll take 21st century technology anyday of the week.


Furbo

Original Poster:

1,401 posts

47 months

Warhavernet said:
50 years ago even a new car would regularly throw a huff when the weather was damp and wouldn't start due to points, distributor caps, and moisture on high tension leads, cold weather starts with the choke was a delicate process that only men could do [ women, bless 'em, would flood it by overuse of the juice pedal ]. It's a wonder anyone got to work in the 1970s.

In the last 20 years, in various makes of cars, in all weathers, not one has ever failed to start after one crank, not one, so I'll take 21st century technology anyday of the week.

Hmmm. New cars generally started fine fifty years ago. Older ones not so much.


stevemcs

9,494 posts

108 months

I agree, 15 years ago you could buy a printer, connect it up and away you went, now you try and print and it cannot find it on the network, or your using the wrong paper feed or you have have printed out 5 pages and now need new cartridges

Then the internet and it’s flipping cookies or where the top banner takes up a third of the page and it’s like looking through a letterbox to view

Andeh1

7,322 posts

221 months

Printers! fk me, if they ever work. Hateful machines

gt40steve

1,070 posts

119 months

Junior doctors.

shirt

24,399 posts

216 months

I have been working at my desk all afternoon just fine.

Opened this thread and my computer froze, then made a serious of error noises, and is no longer outputting a video signal.

Thanks OP

Belle427

10,659 posts

248 months

Printers really are dreadful things these days, the last 3 I have used from different manufacturers have all been utter ste.

Furbo

Original Poster:

1,401 posts

47 months

shirt said:
I have been working at my desk all afternoon just fine.

Opened this thread and my computer froze, then made a serious of error noises, and is no longer outputting a video signal.

Thanks OP
I am a virus.

Furbo

Original Poster:

1,401 posts

47 months


With regard to computers.

Is it the case that, thirty years ago, manufacturers were most interested in gaining market share, now they are more interested in monetising a mature market. So stuff working properly is not as important as it was thirty years ago, and being able to charge monthly for cloud storage is their key driver?


JuanCarlosFandango

9,002 posts

86 months

I think this sometimes, and get frustrated with it. But in calmer moments I think it's a phase technologies go through. Go back to the post war era aand TVs were crackly temperamental things which needed to be retuned. Cars were cumbersome things which refused to start, cut out, needed carburettors fiddling with and so forth.

In the 70s, 80s 90s things were relatively settled and developments incremental so it became easy to build things reliable.

If you think of the enormous leap in technology over the last 2 decades to make nearly everything in the world available on a mobile phone in your pocket, it is little wonder some of it is a bit Morris Minor.

Furbo

Original Poster:

1,401 posts

47 months

JuanCarlosFandango said:
If you think of the enormous leap in technology over the last 2 decades to make nearly everything in the world available on a mobile phone in your pocket, it is little wonder some of it is a bit Morris Minor.
Is it doing anything, really, that early versions of Windows did reliably?

I don't think it's the size of the hardware that is the issue. I think it is the manufacturer of the software losing the way and prioritising residual revenue over market penetration.


2Btoo

3,661 posts

218 months

This is probably not going to help anyone on this thread but I moved to Linux (Mint) about 15years ago, and haven't looked back.

Everything works.
All the time.
And doesn't stop.

It runs on very old hardware, it does everything I need it to (which is admittedly a low bar), I built a Mint PC for my wife 5 years ago and she's used it with very few problems (OK, MS Teams took a bit of jiggling before it chooched but it's been fine for the last 4 1/2 years).

I know people perceive it as a jump to go from MS -> *nix but it's a tiny jump, and a huge step forwards.