| Why
the digital society isn't working
Technology may be changing us
but we need to change the technology
1995 Archive article for historical interest:
Even the simplest things bring the whole digital society
crashing down around us.
First the software itself is bugged, and always will
be since the hardware changes before the operating systems are proven
and reliable, while software using those operating systems is usually
completely rewritten before all the original bugs are sorted out.
Therefore expect your programs to crash at any time. Believe
me, they will. If you're lucky the data may survive. If not, then
it may be corrupted in subtle ways which you may take weeks to discover.
 What
can you expect when the power of computers is doubling every eighteen
months and when today's computers are already so powerful that it
would take every programmer in the world at least thirty years to
realise their full potential? Companies are under huge pressures
to kick out unproven products - every computer and software company
in the world is doing the same which is why they all get away with
it.
Secondly most PCs sold today are completely unfit
for use, for one simple reason: backup. Machines are still being
sold with hard disks so large and floppy disks so small that it
would take up to 2,000 floppy disks to contain just one (daily)
backup copy. The cost of one backup set alone would come to
more than the entire machine - plus labour.
As every manufacturer knows it is an absolute law
of physics that every hard disk will fail, and that failures
can happen at any point in the life of a machine. As every user
knows, major hard disk failure usually means total catastrophic
loss of all data. That can mean the end of a small business
or a personal career. But theft is commoner than failure.
 It
is completely immoral for companies to sell machines with no proper
backup - hard drives greater than 200 megabytes in size (and
that means all machines today) without a tape streamer included
in the standard package. Most new users are naive, and assume that
their machines are complete. Therefore they slip into a "no
backup" routine with a few floppy disks lying about for working
files such as documents. But a machine without a proper backup
device is a disaster waiting to happen.
Manufacturers tell us that recovery is easy - just
insert their software CDRoms and it all happens automatically. And
the same with any other bought software. This is a wicked lie. Every
piece of software you buy inserts unique code into the registers
of the machine to run under Windows 95, and many programs require
hours of fiddling about with special settings to make them work
properly with everything else. All this set up work is lost,
plus all the time making the original installations. Even worse,
all the help that was around for free at the end of the phone will
now cost you a bomb - even assuming that the helplines for those
programmes or hardware add-ons are still in existence.
The whole thing is a mess.
And don't kid yourself that a daily backup routine
will save you. It won't. Especially if you have been backing up
each time onto the same few tapes and a major corruption slipped
onto your disk some weeks ago in important files without you realising.
Unless you have a well organised system of archiving you will find
that your copies are all far too recent, and all contain identical
problems.
 And
there's another issue. You can make all the backups you like but
unless every one is checked for errors you may find as others have
that when you need them, the tapes you have been using were faulty
or there were errors in the backup programme. Restoring from
backup is the one function that most users only test once - when
it's too late.
Finally you may find that instructions to backup every
file have left you with useless tapes because they failed to
include hidden registers that you don?t see on your hard disk,
without which nothing will work.
A common digital disaster is the one-desker, who keeps
his or her backup tapes and disks in the same desk or office as
the computer. One night a thief comes and steals the computer
- and the tapes. Or there's a fire. Theft is very common, and
sometimes they take everything.
So what's the answer?
 |
Don't throw away
all paper - it could save your life |
|
Be careful to
make digital copies of all important changes at least once
a day |
|
Give each copy
a different name and date so you don't write over earlier
ones |
|
Make a full disk
copy plus registers using a reliable brand tape streamer or
duplicate hard disk device - and check data for all errors |
|
Keep at least
one set of recent copies off-site altogether |
Problems are nothing new. I was amused to stumble
across the following article I wrote for the Independent several
light years ago (April 1995).
Patrick Dixon explains
why he won't be going out without paper and a printer (1995)
"Some conference centres and hotels are still
in the Dark Ages when it comes to computers - as I discovered when
I tried to send an e-mail message recently. For a start there was
no phone in my room at the conference centre. A neat row of pay
phones was no help. They offered to fax the article for free. But
how do you produce a paper copy with no printer? (1998 update: I
stayed recently in a five star hotel with phones in the rooms fitted
with computer jacks ? but no power sockets within fifteen feet of
any phone extension. How stupid can you be?)
My Orange mobile phone has a fax and data socket,
but they say it will only work later this year. Anyway, the reception
was so poor that I would have had to fax outside in the rain, with
the computer in one hand and the phone plus umbrella in the other.
(1998 update: I now use a Nokia
9000 dataphone with combined e-mail, web access, fax, phone, diary,
word processor. But bad reception can still be crisis-inducing.)
So I bundled into the car and drove 12 miles to a
large Forte Posthouse hotel. The receptionist was full of smiles
but said it was impossible. It was a common problem, she said. Almost
every week someone staying in the hotel tried and failed to connect
a computer to their phones. There was no suitable socket anywhere
in the hotel. She was so sorry. (1998 update: still many phones
in hotels are hard-wired in with no access points and only a bare
handful have ISDN lines ? even
then only in a Business Centre. Some of us need serious bandwidth
and would pay extra for it in our rooms.)
 I
turned back with my hand on the door - what about your own fax machine,
which must be on a direct line? Couldn't we unplug that? Just for
five minutes? I'll pay whatever you want. I was getting desperate.
Absolutely not, she told me. It was needed for bookings. Try the
petrol station. I took one look at the line of cars and gave up
that idea.
A shop? A small office? Excuse me, can I use your
phone - unplug it and shove my fax modem into your socket? I passed
an estate agent's, chemist, post office, supermarket, bicycle shop
...
Clutching all my electronic bits I pushed open the
door. There was no sign of life apart from a tiny dog, which was
pleased to see me. There was a room at the back and I heard a cistern
flush. An old man wandered in. The only technology he seemed to
have was a solitary light bulb. Was there even a phone? Could I
fax from here?
He was puzzled but friendly and pointed to a phone
socket on the ceiling. A stool would reach it. My next problem was
power. The computer battery was fine but the modem needed a transformer.
So we perched the modem on the stool, half suspended from the jack,
then unplugged his kettle and trailed leads across the shop.
 I
knelt down on the carpet between inner tubes and powered up, watched
by the dog and the old man. In my haste, I abandoned e-mail for
a simple fax. Next time I'm away from home for any length of time,
in addition to the laptop, power supply, fax modem, connecting cables,
mobile phone, phone charger and pager, I'll take a printer, headed
paper, parallel port cable, mains extension lead, adapter and phone
chargecard. And they say teleworking is easy.?
Original article published in the INDEPENDENT 3/4/95
P23
Update: In April 1998 it is still the case that most
newspapers in Britain require stories to be filed by fax because
their systems cannot cope with e-mail from outside. It is also the
case that hardly anyone in BBC TV
or Radio has any access to the Internet at work ? unless it
is a direct line to their own domestic service provider. Dinosaurs.)
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