Alas most of this hasn’t happened, we’re still stuck largely where we were at the end of the 1980′s in terms of the actual world we live in. We still drive from A to B, flying is still prohibitively expensive for some and whilst advances have been made in your Television and Telephone, if you took the TV and mobile phone changes out, the most significant change over the last 20 years is the fact we no longer carry around a Sony Walkman cassette player for our music needs.

Of course I am being cynical, there have been a great number of advances in technology, I just can’t help but feel they have been significantly slower than they should have been. I once remember a child in my school, back when I was 10 or even 9 years old, saying “they would probably have flying cars by the time you learn to drive”. Whilst that might have been a bit ambitious for a 7 or 8 year time gap, if you think about it, we all really thought something like that would happen. Remember the Slug concept car? Apparently by 2001 we were all going to be driving these. Homes would be knocked down and rebuilt with new ultra modern, low cost eco friendly buildings with mountains of technology in them.

Fabulous blade runner esq high rise buildings for people rich and poor containing hi tech homes and doors that opened with speech recognition and the whole world would either be covered in a dense smog like in Blade Runner, or as clear as the air inside the dome from Logans Run.

Yet despite this, despite the hope that we would move with the advances of technology, I still come home to a sixty year old house, with the same plugs, the same wiring and even the same door locks as we had then. The technology has advanced, but not quite in the way we’ve hoped. I have a computer sat on my desk, it just happens to be more powerful. I write letters with it and play games, like most people. We did this 20 years ago with the ZX Spectrum or the Atari ST, just now we do it in richer colour and slightly faster. I pick up my iPod instead of a walkman and watch television that comes through a cable instead of an arial. Yes the advances are there, but they are all just, minor upgrades. The same as twenty years ago I could buy a cassette that was 70 or 90 minutes long. The technology is the same, but just, a little bit better, more convenient.

And so this is my problem, on coming into 2010, instead of creating new technology, instead of ploughing through and improving everything we already have, inventing new things and new technologies we’ve bumbled around with silly things. Take climate change for example. We’ve been focusing for years on how to reduce the buildup of climate change by adjusting the things we use in the home, like light bulbs. Instead of perhaps doing that, or even tearing down the old unfriendly things in favour or rebuilding it with clean new eco friendly things and then inventing a machine that cleans the air for us so that the eco change is really reversed. Why I ask, even now are we still not considering blasting things into the sun? The ultimate waste disposal and it provides our sun with fuel?

Oh I know I am being cynical and perhaps even very unfair, but if someone asked me where we would be in ten years time, I would probably say exactly where we are now. Perhaps my phone will be the size of my thumbnail or even implanted into my ear. Maybe there really will be a rapid change in technology so fast that we enter a real space age, that we start entering a massive form of silicon revolution, the same way the industrial revolution of steam changed the world in only a few years. It has happened before and it can happen again, but I have to ask why it hasn’t happened yet.

And so I leave this slightly longer than usual post aimed toward you, the readers. I ask you to be open, and honest, and to think just totally about this subject and whether it is really fair, what your thoughts are on the next year and indeed the next ten years. I invite you as the readers to indulge me in this article or brush it aside as cynicism or nonsense. But never forget, I love the technology we have now and truly admire the work that has been done, and I see huge potential for the technology we have in ways I can’t even begin to describe but I am disappointed, annoyed and even angry, that we have not pushed ourselves as a race to become more than we are and push the boundaries every day, so I ask you the readers to turn around and put me in my place, put me down, put me out, put me up but most of all just to think about the things you have already and what they have done for you.

Indulge me. I’ll be waiting.

I am of course sat here now waiting for the next item of technology to break, but it does raise an interesting point about reliance. All too often in my job I hear the phrase “You don’t realise how much you need something until it breaks” due to people becoming reliant on technology, It’s an expression I never believed until recently, or at least, never half believed.

Of course with the camera being irreparable without prohibitive cost, this leads me with the option of having to replace my darling little baby 30D and insuring it. My iPhone breaking means it has to go off and be replaced / repaired as I can’t repair it myself, and of course my car has “a fault”, meaning that no matter how hard I try to diagnose, I can’t find it, and I’m reasonably competent with engines and electrical systems. If I could repair each and everyone one of these myself (and I stress that I probably could repair my camera, if I ordered the parts, tools, and had an antistatic clean room to do it in) it wouldn’t be so bad. I wouldn’t “miss” it as I would know that I could repair it.

In the case of my iPhone, it’s gone off somewhere in Tamworth, leaving me completely cut off from the rest of the world when I’m out, although this is a slightly pathetic thing to say, I need my e-mail on the move. I really do! Not having access to emails is stupidly prohibitive and I will firmly maintain that once you get a smartphone that is capable of receiving email, you will never ever go back to a regular phone.

And now we’re onto the camera. Do I loose it for a month and get back a camera that, whilst repaired, will never function in quite the same way? Yes I know that cameras are supposed to be resilient et al but the last time my camera went in for repair, it came back with a new pentaprism, but has under metered the light ever since, meaning I have to slightly over expose every image. When the camera comes back, I can be assured that I’ll be able to see out the viewfinder, but it means that there could be another issue. Similarly the replacement camera is £635 and of course I was too stupid to insure it when I got it.

I’ve become so reliant on these bits of technology that I cannot bare to be without them! True I should have insured certain things, and for me and photography, having a “spare body” is always worth having. The trouble with technology I guess is that we use it. I know it sounds silly but we really do use it. A Phone now is never just a phone, it has apps and email and extensions and things and doo dahs etc etc . A car is no longer merely a form of transport, it now has electronics, entertainment, it becomes a central part of our lives where we can get angry, relax or enjoy ourselves, and of course, a camera is not just a camera, for me it’s a livelihood, it gives me pleasure, it stops me spending a lot of money on other things and gives me great opportunities, it’s not just a camera, it’s my night out or weekend off.

The trouble I have with technology, is that I use it for exactly what it’s intended, and I get so used to having it.

I know it sounds strange, but how many of you actually still write? Or keep a little notepad or book?
I have an iPhone, and the ability to dictate, export my memos to transcripts, and even sit here and type my emails and notes yet I still have a little notebook that I carry around and set a to do list, note down important information, maybe I havnt gotten into the habbit of picking up my phone, maybe I just prefer the tactile feeling that writing gives.

Ok so maybe it’s because I was in the habbit of it before, Maybe I was in the habbit of actually picking up a pen and paper and writing. True my hand would get sore after a while and I’d have to stop. Something I don’t tend to get with a keyboard, but even then, there was something nice about the cold steel nib of a pen against some thick linen paper.

But when it comes to reading what I have written, it’s the computer everytime. My handwriting is atroctious, no question, yet on a computer it’s neat, organised and clear. On paper, it could be filled with crossouts, blobs of tipex or faint little scribbles where the words have just secombed to that horrible thing called writers block.  Yet on a keyboard, and on a computer screen, Theres just no evidence of this at all. People have the chance to and the ability to clean up their text, choose a suitable font, and settle nicley on a look thats more visually appealing and functional than anything that could be handwritten.

Which brings me on to those funny little things called Kindles. They havn’t really taken off in the way I would have thought. Granted the cost of them is extortionate for what they are and it’s kind of prohibitive for that matter, but still ebook readers have been out for many years. I even rememebr my local staples selling them. But maybe theres something about holding paper and card than there is holding plastic.

I did an experiement once on an old palmtop I had for notekeeping. A monochrome screen and a big chunky design. It was the Philips Nino, and it was perfect for this. So I paid for and downloaded a copy of “War of the Worlds”. Given it’s a book that flows, and is very hard to put down. Yes it was easy to read, and wasnt nearly as much of a strain on my eyes as I thought I would be, but actually, I preferred flicking the pages of an old tomb. Yet when it came to school learning and university learning, I simply could not absorb the information from paper. I found it easier to absorb from a computer screen.

There’s so many things to consider here, but it’s worth looking at it yourselves. Could you permently switch to a digital device for your note taking and reading? Do you already? I know I’m trying, but I’d be interested to see what everyone else thinks….

There’s a few things I can think of. In fact there’s a few things I’ve found out recently, owing largley to unemployment. Yes indeed I was chucked at one of the worst times in the last 30 years. Still, I have managed to discover certain things that have impressed me, that force me to beg the question, why did these things not catch on?

Let’s cut to it shall we?

Internet Radio

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been…indulging, shall we say in what my iTunes has to offer under the “radio” tab, and I’ve found some fantastic music, live streaming & even some you can join in with.  In fact I’ve been so impressed with it, that I’ve hardly bothered listening to normal radio while I’m at home. I’ve found myself tuning into clanbase, or even some of the millions of other services out there, but I can’t seem to find out why this hasn’t taken off.

True there are, devices that are out there, that allow you to hook up your home amplifier to an internet radio system, which, frankly is incredibly complicated, and based on the reviews I have seen, even the tech savvy can’t seem to set these things up properly, or have so much difficulty that it isn’t worth it. Perhaps that’s why it hasnt really taken off. But then the way thing’s are these days, it’s completley possible for someone to create the system, that would make it completley seamless. But no-one has taken interest, certainly at least not in the UK.

Let’s move onto the next one.

Getting your news online

Let’s not be too quick to judge this one. Google, and many other sources are hailing the death of the newspaper, but let’s not also forget that in Britain especially, the newspaper is still a very common sight. The Metro which is given out freely on public transport, and in the street, but also the major tabloids like the Sun, The Mirror, The Telegraph. All are simply the single source of information for 90% of the people.

Yet we have the wonders of the internet at our hands, in our fingertips. We have the BBC news site, Live online stock reporting, incredible advances that allow us to see the news in video, in high def. We can get our daily dose through RSS feeds, compiled neatly into one application. I know because I do. I get my daily dose of news through services like Newsgator. I read my horoscopes, watch the latest news, all on my phone or on my PC. I simply have no need to watch the news on television anymore, because it’s just so out of date. If you want an example, take a look at the recent “state of emergeny” that was issues in Pattayah in Thailand. BBC reported it as Thailand having a state of emergency (rather than Pattayah) almost 6 hours after it had been issued. Worse only a few hours later, the state of emergency was lifted. At this moment in time the BBC have not reported that.

These are just two of the many things that I can think of to go in this list. But isn’t it a shame? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But, still, it does make me wonder. Just what else is lurking out there, that I should know about.

Are we so desperately hooked on technology that we can’t live without it? Are we so desperate to stay connected and have the latest gadgets and gizmo’s that we simply can’t see beyond them or even consider living without them? Why is it that ten years ago we were perfectly capable without a Mobile Phone, yet now, if we loose our’s we simply cannot cope without it?

Take me for example. Back in school, everyone had a mobile phone. I didn’t. But it was by choice, I didn’t want one, I thought they were over complicated and unneccesary. True I had a PDA (ok I was a geek I kept my appointments, class diarys, homework assignments etc in there)  but I didn’t neccesarily need it. I liked it, but I didn’t need it.

After a few months, I decided to get one, I kind of needed it for my parents to keep in touch with me as I started going out. But I soon after became dependant on it. I liked the freedom. Now a few years on, I have an iPhone. On Monday, I had to send it back because of a fault… at which point I panicked, I suddenly realised I would be without my precious iPhone, my contacts, my applications and god forbid I would be without a phone for possibly a week.  So much so, that I immidiatley went out and brought a cheap unlocked phone (got a great deal by the way, 15 quid… but that’s not the point) anyway, I was consoled, relieved, but it got me thinking..

Are we so dependant on technology that we cannot live without it… How would you be if you lost your phone, or your computer, or your laptop, or you were told you had to live without the internet, or the computer? Could you really do it? Could you really honestly say you would be able to live without technology for the rest of your life? or even a week? How addicted are you to your phone, or the computer. Face it if your reading this, your on a computer, and you probably found me from twitter, so you subscribe to services, you subscribe to twitter, you probably have facebook. Could you go without? Could you honestly put your phone down for a week, a month, forever?

I don’t know if I could. Technology is a neccesary part of todays life, and it’s coming into our lives and our homes weather we like it or not, but do we really need it? Go on, comment, just how addicted are you? and would you really be able to give it all up?

If you like this, tweet it, comment, tell your story.

True It has given me much time to reflect on things, plus begin work on certain things that I am vastly behind on (like sorting out my website) but other than that, its pretty sucky.

Unfortuantely my blog this week isn’t that insightful. True I have found a new love for hobby and crafts, and am currently awaiting a plaster cast to set for a chess set I’m making, but my other projects have gone a little stale.

Firstly my website. Unfortunatley, I’ve hit a snag. I desperately want to move this blog onto my site, but because I created my own, in rather poor HTML, I can’t seem to get anything integrated into wordpress, and my frustrations about the gallery are starting to manifest.

Do I develop a whole new site? Or Do I sit and suffer with the site I have? Do I change things over? Or Do I use a completley different system. I jus’t dont know. I’d love to be able to do so much more with my site, but It’s getting rediculous…

When people say going retro, they usually means something like flared jeans, bad nightclubs, big hair styles, strange guitar riffs & are highly wasted trousers that quite literally go up to the neck.

When you say the word retro, people tend to think of the seventies or even the 80s. The time when FedEx was King and an apple was a fruit.
To me the word retro wrote means something completely different.

In fact as of late I’ve been thinking about many past memories and experiences, have me yearning for some of the times in my youth.
Don’t ask me why, but over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking an awful lot about my past. Like the time I lusted after that big bulky cassette player, or the time when I came home to reckless Rick playing on the record player. Yes even I am “Just” old enough to remember LP’s!

In fact I still have a good bunch of them downstairs underneath the old record player that my father owned. In fact I still have that old cassette player that I saw on television. I still have my first MP3 player! I’m pretty sure I even have a few floppy disks still laying about.
But why is it lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about my past. About the old technology I used to have and lust after?

Perhaps it’s because of a new job in IT. Perhaps it’s because every day I’m surrounded by the latest technology with more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick at. Perhaps it’s because every now and then, I still pick up that old cassette player, plonk in a few AA battery’s and listen to an old cassette.

Perhaps it’s because every now and then I wind up the turntable, and played Jeff Wayne’s war of the world’s. In all its musical Glory, bellowing out with that soft muted Dolby tone.
I’m not sure I can completely explain why I feel the way I do about technology these days.

I’m not sure I even want to understand why I feel this way. All I know, is that I am enjoying reliving some old experiences.

Sometimes it’s nice to listen to that old tape I recorded off of the radio, with all of its crackling and hissing, and though soft imperfections that you can only get whilst listening to a tape.

Don’t get me wrong, I love listening to my music in high definition. I love the way that MP3 players have made things easy for us, and that you can listen to even the most audacious song in crystal clarity.
It’s never really been an issue for me until now.

A few years ago, I would have complained if someone gave me the option of listening to a tape rather than listening to my MP 3 player or even my CD player.

I would have wanted that crystal clarity that comes with a CD, the somewhat sterile sound that you can get sometimes. I would have preferred playing the latest game like quake, rather than playing an old retro classic like tetris. I would have preferred to be playing again on the latest technology that I had in my computer, and picking up the archaic game boy that sits in its bag even today.

True, had I been forced to I would have played with it for some time, before getting bored and moving on to the more high tech stuff that I owned.

Even now with my car, I sometimes lust after the simplicity that came with my old car. With its big carburettor, spark plugs and distributor rather than the precise fuel injection I have today along with its glow plugs and coil pack.

Even though the new technology is far more reliable, and far safer, there’s something about old technology that just, feels, like it should. I suppose that’s why over the last few days, the Tetris theme has been running in and out of my mind.

Those four or five simple chords, running around over and over again almost begging some childish instinct in me to play. I even found myself the other day, wanting to write rather than type or speak.
True things like voice recognition have come a long way, I’m even writing this entire blog Post now using voice recognition.

It’s also true that keyboard technology has come a long way. Gone are the days of notchy keys, strange brown or yellow stains and the tendency for the odd key to simply not work.

There is no denying that technology has become far more than simple transistors or valves. Technology has become intelligent, refined and usable for everyone.
But every now and then, it’s still nice to pick up that old cassette player and push the button that physically moves something inside the machine. Sometimes it’s nice to hear that tape whirr into action as the familiar hiss comes crackling through your earphones.

When I think of retro I’d tend to think of all things like this, rather than big hair, boom boxes & very bad hair styles. I’d still prefer kitt from Knight rider, to any of the new technology that comes out in the real world to prove certain things are possible. Retro for me, was all about technology and fantasy, rather than drugs or disco.

The technology for me, was in those old cassette players, or even those old record players. The fantasy for me was feeling like that piece of technology was alive. Even when I first started photography, my first camera was an old Russian machine. It was beautiful. It was a mix of leather and cast metal. It was a piece of technology that I knew if I had thrown it down a gorge, or dropped it on to the pavement, I would still be able to feel the shutter snap open as the spring bounced inside the button.

New technology simply does not have that. True you can make an iPod feel chunky and stylish, you can even make it feel heavy and recapture some of that old machinery with a hard drive sitting inside it that whirrs into life. You can make almost any piece of new technology feel a little bit like the old days. You can give anything chunky buttons to move fake switches to try and recapture some of that old technology feel, you can even make games in the older retro style. Complete with eight bit sound and cheesy graphics.

You can even make movies that had the sense of scale older films like dune or the old stargate film. You can give them that sense of perspective that you just don’t seem to get in the new movies. Everything nowadays seems to be controlled, clean, sterile.
I work in technology, and so I know how important things have become. I know how important it is to have a touch screen technology, or a phone that will do everything for you. I applaud it! I even support it and want to see more of it.

But even now, on this home built computer, I still miss my old Atari and the way the keys would clunk and click. Right now I am sat here with an earpiece and microphone attached to my head, as I dictate this blog Post. But I will never forget the feeling of writing something on paper.
I know it sounds silly, perhaps even a little worrying. But there are many things that I miss. I would never give up some of the technology that I have gained, or the things I have learnt. I would never give up my expensive keyboard or mouse. I would probably never go back to a cassette player or the days when making something to listen to in my car would take an evening’s work at the very least!

But I think it’s all right every now and then to think about the things in the past that inspired us. But for me when I think of retro I think if everything I have just mentioned was what everyone thought of, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing, maybe it is. One thing I do know however, is that the moment I finish writing this post, I will more than likely go on to twitter, put on my expensive headphones and open iTunes whilst selecting new music that inspires me in other ways. I somehow doubt that I will get nostalgic, and pull out at old cassette player and listen to the old tape I have of the Moon landing or that album by the shadows.

Technology has taken us far and it’s a good thing. But it’s nice to remember some of the technology that we used to love and lust after.

On to the title of this post. A Lesson In Memory Cards.
In my last post, I promised to be taking pictures of the Winter Wonderland in Cardiff. And I did! I was treated to an array of spectacular scenes which I happily snapped and shot, getting some of my best work yet. Unfortunately, the memory card I was using, went bad. Thanks largely to the cold, and condensation, which effectively wiped the card or at least destroyed anything usable. Thankfully SanDisk were excellent with their service as usual, and replaced the card free of charge. Unfortunately however they were only able to retrieve two of the 300 or so shots that were on the card. The recovered ones were, unfortunately, ones that I decided I could not use, and the remaining photos, were badly damaged, completely irreparable or otherwise, trashed. So, a lesson to all. Shoot twice, and spread over different memory cards, rather than just one. (Which also means I’ve invested in a few more cards to see me through the year)

It was not a total loss however. The winter season did in fact bring me a treat at the local park, where a fountain, had frozen solid midstream. I’m still making final adjustments to these images to make them web friendly, however I’m very pleased, and look forward to displaying these new pictures.

The christmas landscape did not go to plan. Couple client and server issues, and that means the render has only just managed to complete. At half the quality I wanted it at. Nevertheless, I am re-rendering the image now and will be uploading that in the next few days to the site.

So, despite learning a very hard lesson, I’ve been rewarded with some spectacular pictures, because thankfully, I remembered the camera whilst walking the dog.

Happy New Year!