The end of a year, and the subsequent beginning of a new year, brings reflection of the past 12 months, whether a certain plan was stuck to, or if performance (at work, hobby, etc.) was up to one’s expectations, or what could have been done better and how to change that going forward. The changeover from 2019 to 2020 certainly brought all the above into sharp relief for myself. More importantly, how did this affect my technology habits?
Reflection
In 2019, I started pivoting away from “collecting” smart phones, due to being satiated with the sheer amount of phones I currently own, and that I’ve had to tie my main phone to crucial work services and thus keep it stock. That means not being able to use new phones as a daily driver and not daily driving new ROMs.
(There will be a few posts that are interesting/weird caveats to the above.)
My intake of new laptops surged last year, though, culminating in a grand total of 10 bought within that time frame. While a couple are ripe for posting about, this surge was quelled before the end of the year. Again, the sheer number of laptops, coupled with the problem of storage phones don’t really have, also satiated my want for more. They also had their various reasons for upgrading and “fixing”, which started to burn me out.
Learning
Given the above, I was left with a few takeaways:
- Phones are increasingly becoming a commodity item at the low end, and becoming good there, too.
- Specs are not the best indicator of performance anymore. From experience, a 7-year old laptop can run faster than an IT-deployed 1-year old workstation laptop, depending on what you’re able to do and what you’re running. In the basic, day-to-day stuff? Age doesn’t matter anymore.
- That said, more value for the dollar matters.
- Some technology matters way more than others.
- I’ve started to value my privacy more and more, online and with the technology I interact with.
- I’ve neglected this site for too long.
2020
Going forward, I’ve started planning for new posts and updates to old posts. There is enough for both column A and column B, however my schedule will likely minimize my time to write them.
Regardless, a lot of the issues I had in 2019 I’ve been overcoming in the beginning of 2020. Some I may not be able to completely overcome by the end of the year, but if I stick to my current plans, I’ll be able to better tackle them in 2021. Until then, happy new year!
Amatuer Techy 