The Vistas of expansion in a Personal Computing Environment

As a technologist, I have come to realize over the years that upgrading one’s personal computing environment is a bitter sweet process. Having to recently go through a replacement of my notebook computer, I couldn’t help but to provide some highlights of the event. With the thousands of computers sold on the market today, I am certainly not a pioneer here, but there are a few observations that I thought were worth posting on the blog that centers around the infamous computer upgrade.

In keeping with the theme of the blog, I’m not going to compare Product A to Product B (although I will comment on a few disappointing challenges and lack of features that I ran across). What I will do is discuss the sociological aspect of the event. I know, this sounds deep but it's really not. So - follow the links below to get the story. The sections can stand on their own if you want to go to a specific point, but I would recommend reviewing all of them since it tells the whole story.

Since all of us must go through this seemingly undesirable process at one point in our lives, I thought it was a worthy blog topic. Actually, according to my estimates the average person has to deal with this undesirable process at least 11 times in their lifetime. That is of course if you don’t count any of the upgrades for your wife, kids or other relatives that were smart enough to pawn it off on you.

For me, buying new technology is like being a kid again. It starts by imagining how wonderful it will be to finally got your first bike and be able to race around with the rest of your friends only; to find that you need to build your skill level a bit before you can keep up with them . As with anything, you need to stop and think - is owning the new toy (or in my case latest technology gadget) as good as the anticipation of owning it). Will I gain the productivity advancements that they claim comes with the purchase? I can’t help but to think about this especially when it comes to Microsoft Vista.

I’ll admit that the marketing campaigns that must have cost the Microsoft millions to produce probably had an effect on me. If they didn’t I most likely would have stayed with XP a bit longer before I made the jump. However, being the technologist that I am, my curiously got the best of me.

Making that decision, I was well aware of what I would be up against. After all, I have already been through 50% of my life expectancy of upgrades. I was ready for the excitement of getting a fresh new technology and all the rewards that are claimed to come with it. On the other side, having to give up a comfort level that was established over much time with my current system (even though it did have its problems) was concerning. Although, I’m not one to coin corny phrases, this is an obvious lead into one; there are always two sides of the coin. In this case the reality of upgrading one’s personal computing environment especially with a new operating system often dulls the anticipation a bit.

Outline
Taking the jump into new computing territory takes a little planning. Other than the obvious configuration bits and bytes that you need to decide on (See Guidelines for selecting the right Tablet PC); one other consideration that is often overlooked is evaluating your current personal computing environment. That is, understanding what you clearly are trying to achieve by buying a new computer or moving to a newer technology like Vista (See Identifying your commuting environment). In my case, it started out simple. My laptop was about 5 years old and was starting to run into more and more configuration problems that was effecting my work. Since I was staying with a portable, my choice was a Toshiba tablet based system using Windows Vista and Office 2007 (See Can you see the Vista?). For some strange reason I have been curiously patient in buying a tablet PC. This was odd since for many years now I have felt very strongly about the major benefits that tablet based systems can bring. The Tablet PC’s evolution has been slow, but significant developments have helped to bring its computing capabilities more mainstream (See The evolution of tablet computing). With this, it seemed to be the right time for my needs to make the move. More importantly, this supported one of my personal goals that I have had for quite some time of trying to achieve a paperless environment. I’m not sure if I am entirely there yet, but I am certainly closer than I have ever been (See Microsoft OneNote - Is it the death of the pen and yellow notepad?). Tablet computing still has it challenges today and the manufacturers may need to rethink the way they are delivering these systems to the market. More importantly, they need to take a closer look at how people can effectively use them, something I call "the personal integration factor" (See The Personal Integration Factor).