K.I.S.S.

At a recent computer expo, Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 mile to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating, "If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

• For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.
• Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
• Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
• Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart. In which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
• Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "CarXP" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats.
• Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five percent of the roads.
• The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car fault" warning light.
• New seats would force everyone to have the same size body.The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
• Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
• GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them.
• Every time GM introduced a new model car, buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
• You'd press the "Start" button to shut off the engine.

But seriously, why should computers be so cumbersome to use? When you switch on the PC, it doesn't just come on. First you see some messages on screen about Windows booting up followed by a blank screen. Then the Windows logo shows up. After that, the "user-friendly" desktop come on, and icons start to show up one by one. There is a spate of programs starting up, while you watch all this impatiently. And finally, the wait is over, you can open up your email program, see that there's nothing but junk email in your inbox (the thought "Nobody loves me!" flashes through your mind), then you go through the same process in reverse order to shut down the PC.

We have gotten so used to the above steps that we now take it for granted. WHY? Why should PCs not be as easy to start up as a common TV? Just switch it on, it starts instantly, taking you to the channel you were watching last night. You want to switch to another channel, just press a button on the remote. You get bored, you click the red button and the TV is off.

Oh, so the PC companies are now launching "Media PCs" which will allow us to control multimedia content we watch at home, directly from our PCs? Wow. So now while the kid is wailing in the other room, we are going to be busy fiddling about with the mp3 streamed content on our wireless networked PC in the living room, so that the "Lullaby" playlist on our iPods can stream onto the surround speakers in the kid's room!

PCs should be even simpler to use than they are at present. This comes from the person who started his PC experience with DOS 3.3 which had a command-line interface with a blinking cursor! If you didn't remember the correct command, you couldn't do anything with the machine. It was akin to having to learn a child's baby language to communicate with it, instead of teaching it yours!

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project should be something to watch out for. A $100 laptop for every child! Check out the prototype pictures here: http://olpc.com/pictures.html

I like the look of those green machines! Don't you?