Technology Churn

There is constant technology churning. Just like making butter technologies keep mixing and mixing to transform into new products. Problems impact us when we encounter the “Bleeding Edge” and “Bad Patches”.

“Bleeding Edge” technological products are under a year old. There have design issues that are only identified and resolved when the product is sold to 1,000s and 1,000s of consumers. We see this most directly with new releases of Windows. Windows update is the Microsoft’s fix for those problems. Since Windows is the most attacked (similar to the U.S. being the most castigated country) software, patches are issued almost daily to improve security and fix other problems. Most Windows problems do not impact us, but security vulnerabilities are certainly a concern.

“Bad Patches” happen when manufacturers have a bad product design or have a bad manufacturing process. As a nerd I see this all the time. A big computer manufacturer whose name begins with a “D” has many of its systems particularly susceptible to surges from lightening. These surges kill the power supply and sometimes the main logic board and other parts of the desktop PC.

Similarly some of their laptops have a heat problem. This is a nasty one because unless the laptop is covered by warranty, you must send it to the “D” company, pay more than the warranty would cost and get a refurbished laptop sans your important Excel files and pictures. I cannot cost effectively perform this repair because I need the parts from the manufacturer.

One last bad patch problem this same manufacturer and others have used SATA drives from a major drive manufacturer whose name begins with “M”. I have used and preferred to use many of this manufacturer’s drives, but it seems that the new SATA technology drives had a higher than normal failure rate. They must some how know exactly when the warranty has expired, because a little after a year or perhaps two years they start failing. This makes the drive untrustworthy. To test any drive you use the Windows XP command prompt (Start button – select run – enter CMD) and run the CHKDSK command. If Windows XP says that there are any uncorrectable errors e.g. bad sectors then replace the drive ASAP. If other errors are found then run CHKDSK /F and permit it to run at startup to repair them. You can tell when a disk is failing because Windows starts exhibiting weird behaviors and eventually crashes. Sometimes data files cannot be stored on the disk. This is most certainly a hint of bad things to come.

Because of technology churn the cost of PC products looks like a “U”. The oldest products are at the left of the “U”. They cost a lot because they are at “End of Life” and no longer manufactured. The newest products are at the right of the “U”. They cost the most because they are “Bleeding Edge” and in demand. The other products from 1 to 4 years old are in the sweet spot middle and bottom of the “U”. They are plentiful and cost the least.

The final Technology Churn problem is that there are hot and cold products. Now geeks take pride in having the latest, hottest, fastest, most powerful PC stuff. Nerds prefer products that work well and do the most effective job. Nerds walk down the mountain and fix all the PCs. More importantly it is very difficult to separate advertising hype from good product features. This leads to purchasing that powerful “Bleeding Edge” bummer product that looks and sounds good but does nothing impressive.

No one can escape from “Technology Churn” so it is best to understand how it impacts us.