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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 02/06/2008 The only thing that counts is real
time ... Before I
was so rudely interrupted by being snowbound all last week - I was doing a
comparison between my new Dell computer and the first cpu
I had bought 20 years ago. It was
no comparison in terms of performance, and my current price was 1/3rd
of the old cost. Today
I’ll talk about why I wanted to buy a new computer, and how it compares
with my not very old one I bought just 3 years ago. Many
companies like PC Magazine offered benchmark tests so you could compare your
new computer to your old one. But
a lot of those benchmarks were only useful for bragging to your friends.
Since the Pentium, computers actually have become so fast that benchmarks
seems to have almost disappeared now, and all that counts is real time
performance. PC Magazine doesn’t even offer them free now. As the pc
world has changed over the years, the tasks done on pcs have changed greatly.
In the
early 80’s a pc was an affordable way for an average small business to
have an in-house computer to do their accounting, word processing, and
spreadsheets, and a little communications via modeming or fax modeming at 300
baud. This saved the costs of
having an outside bookkeeper, although you always need to consult with an accountant , part-time typists, and other administrative
employees. Today’s
pcs can do all that easily, but they’re now used as communications
devices much more- as email has almost replaced paper mail in the majority of
circumstances, and communications includes websites and how them can
communicate for a company – to the world. High speed internet is the standard
today, and even a relatively slow 1.5 Mb DSL line is 5000 times faster than
300 baud modems. PC’s are also used to create and burn cd’s &
dvd’s, and they’re the standard multimedia
platform for creating movies and slideshows to be used in business
presentations and on websites. Ah, there’s the rub ... There’s
basic tasks you do on a computer that the real time end results would be the
same if you were using the fastest most powerful computer in the world, or a Windows
98 system running Word 97. Word
processing goes at the speed of the person doing it, their typing skills, and
particularly their ability to think and create new documents. In a contest like this even the Xerox
monk with his quill pen might be able to keep up with you. But in
the new role of a pc, as a communications device, there’s no
comparison. Image sending a
letter to 1000 of your clients in the old traditional paper mailroom
environment, the postage costs, the paper costs, the typing or copying of
1000 letters, stuffing the envelopes, etc. – as opposed to creating the
letter in Word – then clicking send – and choosing the contacts
folder that has your 1000 customers in it. And of
course consider distributing catalogs today on a cdrom disk, as opposed to
the old paper way. But in
recent years I’ve found myself waiting and waiting for my pc to do jobs
for me, and next week I’ll tell you about what’s been slowing me
down, and the real time results I’ve received with my new system. |
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For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2008 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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