Changing technology

We all know that technology is always on the move, always changing. And that's hard on us.

People who love books love them because the stories change but the technology has been almost the same for hundreds of years. E readers work, when they work, by acting like nothing has changed. If you don't think of words on a page as technology, revisit the difference between hand-writing and the printed word.

I decided this week to switch from my beloved but very slow iPhone (it was one of the original 2G models) to a Blackberry. Of course I wanted an iPhone 4, but I didn't like the way I was being played by the Apple/Rogers combination and I didn't have time to haunt an Apple Store for the privilege of upgrading. I am in business, and BlackBerry is a solid product that was ready for business.

But. . . it's a big switch. And it's not seamless. I'm pretty good with tech, and I have a good handle on what problems I can solve (resetting my router on its webpage at 1 in the morning after using the 'push button' setting on my Blackberry and locking out all my other computers) and what problems need to be solved by Rogers (so far, my BB is convinced I have an enterprise email account to set up). As I go through the layers of frustration, I realize two things:
1) Apple has done an amazing job of making it easy to move to a new computer and I haven't experienced frustration as I move through their product line
2) This is probably good for me. The struggle with something new keeps my brain awake and strong. It's roughly as much fun as doing crunches, but it's probably every bit as useful.

Changing technology is probably good for me because change is good for me. Most of the time.

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