[clug] The end of the personal computer age is nigh !

[Bryan Kilgallin]

George:

This is a general topic--my response will be personal.

> Call me slow if you want, but I am trying to come to terms with the understanding that we are seeing "the end of the personal computer age", and a new age of "Internet computing" is emerging.

All compounded things are impermanent. [Buddha]


My home PC usage is wired. And I don't use my mobile phone to access the 
Internet.

> I enjoyed the Personal Computer age, with Personal Computers I was able to edit my photos and videos, write my files, my own programs, etc, and only share that which I wanted to share, and even then only with those who I wanted to share with.

I remember in academia, staff objecting to sharing a networked printer!

> I do not want to share my personal identity with large corporations who will then on sell my personal identity with many other commercial companies.

You had better disconnect!

> Nor do I want that which is personal to me, the photos of my holidays, my family, my interests, my hobbies to be shared with everyone in the Internet, e.g. with my friends, and the friends of my friends, and the friends of the friends of my friends, etc.

Privacy is dead!

I publish photos on my Web site below. Click on Art, then on the Art 
page, click Photography. A friend has advised me that it was stupid for 
someone concerned with privacy, to publish on the Internet. But people 
maintain public façades.

> I do not want my tax papers, my plans for my new home, by purchasing habits to be general information to anyone or any company that now has access to them via the Internet.

For the first, keep only paper, and lock it in a filing cabinet. And for 
the last, pay cash!

> I want a Computing device that is Personal.

I have built a few microcontroller projects.

> I don't mind connecting to the Internet to get email, upload something when I want share it, or download information that I want to learn.

All of that is public, unless you go to special lengths (as in a spy's 
training)! One can read news of local events on community poster silos 
and notice boards.

> But I want most of my life (90% ?) to be private.

I don't believe that. So buy a private island.

> I do not expect that Apple will provide me with a "personal computer" for long, they are already into iCloud, and iPads.

This is what I mean; you are already requiring to sell your soul to a 
multinational corporation!

> Google Chrome books are already, all about online storage and computing.

That is a Faustian pact!

> If you have not realised, Microsoft is moving from local data and apps to internet based data and apps, at least that is how I see it.

I am trying to live more do-it-yourself. So I grow my own organic fruit 
and herbs.

> I had hoped that Linux might provide me a Personal Computer OS, but I have concerns and doubts.

When you depend on others to provide for you--then you are lost to Hades!

> Ubuntu are trying to introduce a "Cloud Store", and when I installed CentOS 7 server it had a Tablet touch screen swipe screen before the logon screen.

I try to lock out all that cloud stuff.

>  From what I can see, the "Cloud" and "Internet" infection has invaded Linux users and developers as well.

You claimed to want to be personal, so don't join the sheeple!

> Anyone want to make comment, or catch up with me and have a good chat about where personal computing is heading?

I have the most independent personality type. What others do is only of 
concern to me to the extent that fashion changes the availability of 
components.

> Is everyone happy with the idea of moving all your photos, files, likes, behaviours, ideas, etc, into the cloud where it is no longer going to be personal?

I personally reject that. With the exception that I post propaganda to a 
social network.

> No outside code at all was allowed on the phone; all the software on it was Apple’s.

My mobile phone is open-source!

> We counted on computers to be open platforms—hard to think of them any other way—and understood phones as appliances, more akin to radios, TVs, and coffee machines.

I pursue consumer research.

-- 
www.netspeed.com.au/bryan/