Ever feel like technology has passed you by?

Ever feel like technology has passed you by?

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Discussion

MrBig

Original Poster:

2,637 posts

128 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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I guess as I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm 40 in 3 years time, I now have reason to consider all the things I used to be able to do, but somehow just don't quite 'get' any more.

For example, I used to build my own PC's... nowadays a Windows service pack update sees the laptop going out of the window; but by far my biggest headaches are home automation and music sharing. I don't know whether it's because these things are in their infancy and common 'standards' have yet to fight their way out of the quagmire or just that I'm getting old and can't work it out any more.

My current insomnia-driver is trying to figure out a NAS solution onto which I can copy my itunes library, rip my CD's and DVD's to, and then access from any of the laptops/iOS devices/smart TVs but I just cannot get my head around it.

I bought a Foscam from ebay the other week, so far I've spend 6 hours trying to get it set up. Thought I'd cracked it, but now it seems windows built in firewall is blocking the IP address for the camera so I can't actually access it.

I'd sign up to be Amish if they'd let me keep my car!

j4ckos mate

3,009 posts

169 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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Im quite similar to you
anodroid boxes and iphones all over the place, but some stuff i jsut dont get

one of them is definitely i tunes, i cant get my head round it

AClownsPocket

899 posts

158 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
3 years behind you. Understand what you mean.

Regarding the NAS. Look at the Drobo 5N. Simple to setup and use. Plug it into your router with an Ethernet cable. Point your devices to it and map a network drive to rip CD's to.

It also installs Drobo Apps, so if you used a cloud backup like Crashplan, you can install it directly to the NAS and it uploads changed files automatically. Fire and forget.

boyse7en

6,671 posts

164 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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Don't think its anything to do with your age, as most teens/20-somethings I know are completely flummoxed by anything that goes wrong on their laptop/iphone/tablet.

I think the biggest issue is the divergence of 'standards'. In the old days there was a standard connector for linking two parts, and that was that. Now, even if you have the right connector there is no guarantee that two parts will talk to each other due to specialist configuration.

dickyf

807 posts

224 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
i tunes is the most uncoordinated useless piece of software i have ever come across. i asked a much younger person to explain it and they shrugged 'no one know how to use it!' Just accept that and its all ok again.

colin_p

4,503 posts

211 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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Can't help with the dilemma but came here to say;

I don't own a smartphone and couldn't care less.

MrBig

Original Poster:

2,637 posts

128 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
Well I feel a bit better now, thanks! I packed up my life's collection of CD's the other day to go into the loft as I need the space for other things and they don't get used anymore, but I was hoping to 'rip' them before they make the long trip upstairs.

Maybe I should just give up with the idea of a central library and let Spotify and Netflix take the strain.

steveo3002

10,493 posts

173 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
im 42 and dont understand half of what you said lol

ManFromDelmonte

2,742 posts

179 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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iTunes has to be one of the worst and most unnecessary pieces of software ever.

Why can't you just keep your files in a folder somewhere and drag them onto the device like any normal human would like to do?


roboxm3

2,414 posts

194 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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I'm as close to 30 as you are 40 and haven't got a clue what half your post was on about, if it's of any consolation.
I don't want to give up my iPhone 4S and I've never tweeted, Instagurned nor Snapchatted.

RizzoTheRat

25,083 posts

191 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
I quite like iTunes but I just wish they'd leave the fking thing along and not update it every bloody week, have a system where it keeps your preferences when updating, or at the very least keep all the bloody buttons in the same place when they release a new version.

It's easy enough to store all your music on a network drive, and if you start iTunes while holding shift it should ask where you the database file is so you can point the second computer at the same data the first one's using.


ETA: I'm 42

GroundEffect

13,818 posts

155 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
dickyf said:
i tunes is the most uncoordinated useless piece of software i have ever come across. i asked a much younger person to explain it and they shrugged 'no one know how to use it!' Just accept that and its all ok again.
bks. It works very well, particularly on Mac. Think of it as the frontend of your phone/iPod not just a File Explorer. It consolidates all music from your computer in to one UI. You can't use it like your old school drag-and-drop systems.



Pickled

2,051 posts

142 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
MrBig said:
Maybe I should just give up with the idea of a central library and let Spotify and Netflix take the strain.
Makes life so much easier.

Despite owning apple products for over a decade, iTunes is the most annoying aspect of Apple - I gave up

Shaoxter

4,048 posts

123 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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Forget iTunes and CDs, just get a Spotify Premium subscription. Saves you the hassle of organising everything and has lots of playlists if you can't decide what you want to listen to.

However may not be ideal if you're a Taylor Swift fan hehe

vixen1700

22,665 posts

269 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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They laugh at me in work when I say I've just bought a CD. frown

49 Year old.

james_tigerwoods

16,287 posts

196 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
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I'm 39, I'm an IT Architect/Consultant yet I am more than happy if my device works - I used to want to know how it works and how I might improve it, but my Android phone works as does my Android tablet and gone are the days of Custom ROMs on my phone and GUI RHEL.

I use Windows 7 - I've never used 8.1 and my brief foray in to Windows 10 went south after a number of BSODs that I couldn't resolve.

I don't have, nor do I ever want, a games console so the PS4/XBOX references that many friends share just go way over my head.

I've stopped making electronic notes, I've got a fountain pen, I listen to Radio 4 and I'm a grumpy old git.

Well - that was more soul bearing than I'd planned smile

Munter

31,319 posts

240 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
james_tigerwoods said:
I'm 39, I'm an IT Architect/Consultant yet I am more than happy if my device works - I used to want to know how it works and how I might improve it, but my Android phone works as does my Android tablet and gone are the days of Custom ROMs on my phone and GUI RHEL.

I use Windows 7 - I've never used 8.1 and my brief foray in to Windows 10 went south after a number of BSODs that I couldn't resolve.

I don't have, nor do I ever want, a games console so the PS4/XBOX references that many friends share just go way over my head.

I've stopped making electronic notes, I've got a fountain pen, I listen to Radio 4 and I'm a grumpy old git.

Well - that was more soul bearing than I'd planned smile
I'm a few years behind you. But I remember a time where one person could understand everything going on in the datacenter. Now there are so many layers of abstraction/virtualisation, and so much intricate detail involved in those, it's not possible to properly understand all the technology in place. Scary times.

andy-xr

13,204 posts

203 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
There's not much that's complicated when you get to the nuts and bolts of these things, where it goes to st is where companies have let product marketing take over the descriptions and how to's so you just get a feature and a tick box, with little to no explanation of how they've implemented it

That's what pisses me off - I'm happy enough with iTunes, XBOXs, streaming anything, running a NAS and a media centre, it's front end stuff where you just need to wire things and click things.

AClownsPocket

899 posts

158 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
james_tigerwoods said:
I'm 39, I'm an IT Architect/Consultant yet I am more than happy if my device works - I used to want to know how it works and how I might improve it, but my Android phone works as does my Android tablet and gone are the days of Custom ROMs on my phone and GUI RHEL.

I use Windows 7 - I've never used 8.1 and my brief foray in to Windows 10 went south after a number of BSODs that I couldn't resolve.

I don't have, nor do I ever want, a games console so the PS4/XBOX references that many friends share just go way over my head.

I've stopped making electronic notes, I've got a fountain pen, I listen to Radio 4 and I'm a grumpy old git.

Well - that was more soul bearing than I'd planned smile
Hmm, you sound remarkably like a luddite friend of mine smile Do you enjoy smashing things with shovels and painting garage floors with creosote per chance?

daddy cool

3,996 posts

228 months

Thursday 26th November 2015
quotequote all
39.5 year old semi-Luddite. I built, and periodically upgrade, my PC. Its mostly used for gaming, and downloading a huge amount of pirated material. Said material necessitated the purchase of a QNAP NAS, setting up of which did stretch the limit of my IT skills. I would say i use 10% of the functionality of it.
The NAS streams to a Sony pS3 which is almost exclusively used as a media centre (rarely use it to play games). No need for a PS4 as it cant do anything my PS3 cant.
Bought my first smartphone 18 months ago. Sometimes i can get 4+ days use between charges, its used that infrequently. I have a couple of "apps" on it!
Car is 16/17 years old, and apart from the addition of a CD player that accepts USB drives, the only modern feature it has is electric windows.
I dont really have any other gadgets/technology bits... well, a few G-Shock watches which do cool things like sync with the atomic clock, but even saying you wear a watch nowadays is likely to mark you out as someone middle-aged...