14 October 2011

Technology will be our downfall

Anyone who has been on-line in what ever form will have experienced some incredible changes in the last 10 days.
  • The announcement of the new iPhone
  • The sad death of Steve Jobs (Former Apple CEO)
  • Blackberry Messaging system failing for three days
  • The release of iOS5 - the new iPhone, iPod, iPad operating system
  • Release of the latest Ubuntu 11.10 operating system.
The announcement of any Apple product always brings an avalanche of press comment. This was closely followed by the sad death of the co-founder of Apple Steve Jobs at the young age of 56, not old at all.

At the start of this week the messaging system on that Blackberry phones use suffered some failure or other for over three days... it would be quicker to write a letter and post it in most countries!

The release of iOS 5 globally at the same time nearly brought the internet to a grinding halt with people trying to download the latest release.

The release of Ubuntu 11.10 will have less of an impact I'm sure, but it's still a sizeable download.

At home here in France as well as all of the above, although we don't use Blackberry thank goodness... my wife's PC suffered a problem the other night after a Windows update. So she is now using her netbook with an external keyboard, monitor, mouse, until we can get her a replacement machine (most probably an iMac).

So I sit here on Friday night thinking back over this last week or so and think how crazy all of this is. Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. Judging by the messages I have seen on Twitter this last week from Philofaxy readers and from some of my old friends in UK, it's hardly been a 'walk in the park' with downloads failing and devices not updating.

Then, I opened my bag after a day over in Angers and take out the paperback book I've just finished reading today, then I pulled out my Malden and I unsnap the closure and open it at my diary page to think of a few notes to jot down about my day. The rich aroma of the leather wafting out of the bag. I look at it... then I look at the various electronic devices I have around me and I think....

Thank goodness for Filofax
  • You can update it at any time in the year with a new diary, 
  • You don't have to rely on some hidden central server somewhere, 
  • The only delay in updating it is the queue for the cash till at a Philofaxy meet up, 
  • It's a pleasure to hold in your hand and be seen to be using. 
I mourned the death of Steve Jobs last week... I will not be mourning the death of my Filofax for a long long time to come.

11 comments:

  1. Here here. That is very true. Although I don't know what what Ubuntu is?? Will google it now! Lol.
    As much ribbing as I get from my other half for my love of Filofax, I love carrying them around and being seen with them.
    Long live the Filofax!!
    :)

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  2. Everything you said is true....but if not for the technology that we have today - there would be no Philofaxy group!! LOL

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  3. Too true, @mywormy! Thankfully was not impacted by any of these events. Must have been maddening to lose the messaging functions of one's blackberry, or try to update your iphone only to have it become a very expensive paperweight.

    I embrace technology, and as my boss said once of my filofax, "filofax is a technology!" I totally agree with her. I spent years avoiding paper only to find, when I finally switched to filofax, that it works perfectly for the way I do things! So easy to use, appropriate to bring to, and use during, meetings. Utterly reliable. I still love my laptop and my blackberry, but I don't know how Ilived so long without filofax!

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  4. Steve, just want to tell you that I think this post is fabulous. Thank you.

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  5. Love your timely post. The more I read about updating iPhones, the longer I can tolerate my clunker Blackberry.

    I still know people who eschew Filofax yet fail to keep their online calendars updated. Or, worse yet, do not keep a proper planner at all!

    Off to Google Ubuntu as well... ;-)

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  6. hi Steve

    May I also add my 100% agreement. Yesterday afternoon, my laptop was compromised by a trojan, and as a result I've spent hours reconfiguring and migrating to another machine. If I change Filofaxes, at least it's a matter of choice! Like you, I will mourn the passing of Steve Jobs, a true visionary and inspirational speaker, but rumours of the death of the paper organiser are happily completely false!

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  7. Steve that is so true! I will never have my diary held hostage to an electronic calendar. Also while we spend so much time on technology, many of us forget to actually live life which is actually quite sad.
    Fabulous post.

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  8. The recent BlackBerry outage affected me - for email messages, mostly. I use my BB for texting and monitoring emails when I'm away from my laptop. My calendar, even though I have it on my BB/Google doesn't really matter because I use my Filo for all that. Contacts are on the BB, but I could access those while the outage was going on. So while it didn't impact me in a huge way, I still did pause for thought, and was happy for my paper-based Filo!

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  9. Hi Philofaxy, Iv only recently found you after trying to hunt down the perfect diary for my domino in 2012(why are weekends always smaller??) it took me 3 days to read your entire Blog and I'm hooked. Since last week I have
    1. Successfully tried printing my own pages
    2. Purchased a hole punch for my pages
    3. Subscribed to your blog
    4. Found new Filofax related blogs
    5. Purchased a new Filofax (butterfly in my local W H Smith £73 but with current offers and money off vouchers Iv purchased it for £45!!!) so glad Iv finally got a leather Filofax

    Thank you for your inspirational blog and keep up the hard work. (will be doing a post on my blog about my new Filofax in the next week!!)

    Louise

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  10. so true! my email account (my personal one) got hacked recently and i was without email for 2 weeks and it made life hell!

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