Victims of Technology I believe we are all victims of technology in one way or another. I consider myself knowledgeable in technology for an old guy, but every once in a while, I will hit a problem I have a hard time solving or maybe can’t solve. Most of the time the problem is caused by something I had no control over, but on the rare occasion I caused it. I believe things have to be more simplified. We could use more software built in to some of this stuff that contains trouble shooters which can repair all errors in a way which looks simple to us even though it might be very complicated. The last couple of updates to Windows 11 have caused me problems that I was not able to fix. People who go on this website noticed I am sure, that I have a button on my articles which allows them to listen to the article. This process is based on a part of Windows 11 software known as a virtual machine. The last update broke this and rendered that software inoperative. When I save audio files they were saved as what is known as mp3s. These are compact voice files. My website is not a commercial one, but is a hobby right now and has absolutely no income and costs me money to maintain. I was forced to find a new voice program but it had to be free, because I had to run the site on the cheap. None of the voice software I could find which created mp3s was free and some were quite expensive, but I found one which produced wave audio files, which were bigger but worked with the voices I had purchased years ago. That’s correct, I had to purchase those voices. The difference is not obvious right now except the voice files may take longer to load because the are about twice as big. I am very disappointed in Windows and Microsoft for not detecting this flaw in the Windows update. One might think that such a company would be testing their updates against the programs people are using before releasing these updates. I realize this is a monumental task, but isn’t this what most of us expect from our software, getting something that doesn’t seem to have so many problems. The strange part is while the update for my desktop, on which I do all my writing, broke the virtual machine, the update for the laptop still works with the virtual machine. This all goes along with other complaints I have such as my other desktop, a Thread Ripper desktop not being able to officially be updated to Windows 11 even though it is fairly new and newer than some others which can be updated. The computer didn’t have the necessary Trusted Platform Module known as a TPM version 2.0. I have been told by people this was the fault of AMD. I am sorry but when Microsoft saw some computers were missing this software, they should have gone down a different road so as not to render these computers useless in the near future. When I did update to Windows 11 on a new computer I had to purchase, I lost the use of a few pieces of software that no longer operated. Again, this had been very useful to my website, but I guess it is unfair to blame Microsoft for all the problems. I have to share the blame and I hereby complain about the Hyundai car company. I had purchased a top-of-the-line turbo Sonata with every option at the time including things like remote start using an app and other things. A little wile later they switched to a different cell carrier and the new service rendered their Blue Link service inoperable on my car. These are services I had paid extra for. It was a low blow to people in my position who not only lost the built-in navigation, but all the vehicle management services. The road to technological advancement has been riddled with bumps, right from the very beginning. It has especially bad for senior citizens, since they were much more used to simpler times. I can tell you that I have helped many of my old neighbors with their computer problems which would have been simple for today’s kids to solve, but baffled them. Many had to do with email. I remember one person who was so disgusted with a simple email problem he wanted to throw out his computer and get a new one. I saved him from that. Another problem I have once in a while is I might buy something and for some unknown reason there is a problem with it. It can be a big item or a small one. Buying things online is very convenient. There is a problem sometimes with clothing. With all the technology we have, we still don’t seem to have standardized sizes. Take shoes for example. One man’s size 8 may not be the same size from a different manufacturer. The same is true for sizes in clothing. Even worse I ordered a pair of shoes once and got one right shoe the right size and one left shoe a couple of sizes smaller. I would have thought technology would have solved the size differences across manufacturers. One of the annoying things which has happened lately was a rash of icons disappearing from my desktop. Well, it is not actually the software being deleted but the icon is replaced with a folder icon. I did a little checking and noticed the directory which held my custom drawn icons is no more. When one has many software programs which are used every day, it is easier to recognize them by their unique icons. Yes, I could have chosen different Microsoft icons, but I have used custom drawn icons for many years and have gotten used to them. I only used them on special programs. Rather than fight city hall, I replaced them with the Microsoft Icons. I notice as I get older, I get more impatient with these problems, but as I said I can usually solve them and when I can’t, I try YouTube videos. Sometimes they disappoint me because I cannot understand what the person is saying, but it is hard to complain about a free service. If I get to the point where I cannot find a solution I try and work around the problem. When I lost the navigation on my Hyundai, I used Google Maps on my phone and was able to send it to the car’s info screen. I do the best I can.
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