Software
Well, we finally got around to upgrading our Creative Suite where I work to CS4. We've had it sitting around for at least a month now but have been too busy to get down to doing the install. I guess you could say we're a little behind the 8 ball, but that's fine by me. That's how I like it, saves me the headache of helping the greedy software companies work out the bugs. Besides, when your forté is speed, sometimes there is a learning curve that you don't want to deal with in the heat of battle.
But this is a curious thing, all these updates and upgrades all the time. Financially it is a money pit. You can buy this or that software on any given day, walk out of the store, go home, install it, and you STILL have to update it. WTF? I thought it was brand new. Then it takes a couple of hours to get these auto updates downloaded from the web. Today we had to do an "update" to the updater. Sheeet.
When I worked at a leading software manufacturer here in Denver (rhymes with dark), I remember hearing horror stories of the programmers just trying to hit a release date when the software wasn't ready. Needless to say, they hit the date, the software was super buggy, and two of the three guys reputedly left to go to Adobe – that was the beginning of the end for this page layout giant. Seems it's always about the bottom line in this country.
I swear these software and hardware companies are in cahoots. After a few versions of the Adobe Creative Suite, I had to get a new computer because CS3 ran poorly on my Power Mac G5 (maybe 2 years old). CS2 worked great. But, I can't afford to see that spinning wheel of death even once a day, and I was seeing it all the time. I was under some pressure at the time to get the new upgrade by a couple of designers who deemed it necessary. It gets really ridiculous to set aside a perfectly good computer so you have some new bells and whistles in your Photoshop program. I guess you can use it to store your zillion MP3s, but that's another blog. The landfills are getting full while the middle class is disappearing.
I remember the days too, when you could bootleg your roommates software without having to call the software company and lie about needing a re-activation code cause you just bought a new laptop.
This leads me to another gripe. We in America are loosing all sense of reality. Who says you have to have the latest and greatest thing all the time? The real talent is the artist behind the monitor. You could still be working in Illustrator 11 and blow everyone else in town away. It still works fine. If I were an independent contractor I would think twice about getting into the rat race as far as software goes. I heard a guy once say "Are you ready to sign up for the program" when trying to convince a PC user to go to Apple. But what I don't understand is that in this economy, the media never mentions America's obsession with technology as being one of the biggest money drains on the average family. When I was growing up, we were lucky to have a color TV. Now you have to have HD TV with digital cable, an iPhone with texting capabilities, a home computer with Internet service, a game console, yada, yada, etc, etc. This shit is expensive and if you have kids they need this stuff to stay ahead of the curve too. Damn, no wonder everyone is living on credit.
Which leads me back to the software companies. They're the ones getting rich. You can't even use some of their devices after a couple years because there is no support. Sometimes I think I should move to the country and spend my time planting a garden and fly fishing like they used to do in the old days. Makes a lot more sense. Sometime I think all this technology is making me loose my mind. Probably is.