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Buzz: Gizmo Attack
Life wasn't meant to be easy
By
ERIC ELLIS
July
4, 2000
Web posted at 1:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, 1:30 a.m. EDT
My scanner malfunctioned the other day. It wasn't Hewlett-Packard's
fault -- it's a perfectly good scanner. It was my fault. And the fault
of the clueless shop assistant I bought it from for telling me it
was Windows 2000 compatible when it wasn't.
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Now don't get me started on Windows 2000. Upgrading has meant the
various bells and whistles -- CD Writer/DVD/MP3 player on my groovy
new mega-fast desktop (that I bought before I upgraded to Win 2000)
-- that were Windows 98 compatible only, are useless. Uninstall Windows
2000? Microsoft? It'd be easier getting Chinese President Jiang Zemin
and Taiwan counterpart Chen Shui-bian together for dim sum.
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Why am I telling you this? Because as I wasted a sunny weekend ordinarily
spent around the pool trying to get my various gadgets to talk to
each other, I rued the fact that I needed a personal CTO. And I
did that as I was throwing one of my gizmos against the wall in
frustration. That sort of solved a problem, but it wasn't a good
look, personally.
CTO? It's one of those terms like B2B, B2C and CDMA that have emerged
during the tech avalanche that we, the Average User, are supposed
to know, instinctively understand and talk knowledgeably about lest
we be ostracized as Luddites. It means Chief Technology Officer,
the highly paid geek hired to design and manage your I.T. platform
that every business magazine says you need -- or become toast as
the cliché goes. It's a growth business and CTOs are suddenly becoming
board members on fat salaries. They are corporate Asia's new best
friend.
That's all great at work but what about at home. As I was grappling
with my various tech dramas at the weekend, I figured I could use
an HCTO (a home CTO) when it all goes wrong. Someone I trust --
not a shop assistant in search of a commission -- to tell me that
if I buy that scanner, it won't work with my laptop and my office
will end up being a bit like the Malaysian military; lots of great
hardware from lots of sources but a real headache when it comes
to maintenance.
I looked around the debris of my home office and rued what a sad
figure I had become, what a hostage to technology. And it was raining,
so, no swimming for this boy. There in the 'Global Headquarters,'
as my friends call it, my wife and I have enough equipment to power
a good-sized business; a month-old P3 desktop, three laptops and
another in service, a scanner, CD writer, laser printer, Zip driver,
cable Internet access, two fax machines, three telephone lines,
a MP3 player, DVD, CD, TV, two Palm Pilots and two other PDAs, a
digital camera, two mobile phones. And I haven't begun with software:
Real Jukebox, Napster, four online accounts, seven (seven!) e-mail
addresses, our own domains, blah, blah, blah. They are all supposed
to talk to each other. As Sun Microsystems' Scott McNeely says,
"it's all about the network?" What he didn't add is, "when it works."
O.K., most of it works fine, but I'm sure I could finesse it all
further, streamline it seamlessly. I know I can do it, but I haven't
yet downloaded movie files, burnt them to a CD and played them on
the television. For free. And the reason I haven't is because it
takes time to figure out the process, buy the cables, do the file
transfer.
The time I spend troubleshooting my gizmos is time not spent elsewhere.
O.K., so the pool will always be there, but I wanted to get my "Global
HQ" functioning efficiently for the days when I'm not supposed to
be around the pool. The days when I'm trying to earn a living, in
order to pay for all this paraphernalia Bill Gates tells me is necessary
to simplify my life.
Dire Straits sang "I Want My MTV" a decade ago, and Wired recently
adapted that to the Internet Age with, "I Want My MP3." Right now,
I Want My CTO.
Eric Ellis is Southeast Asia and Technology Editor of the regional
finance portal AsiaWise.com
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