Upgrade anxiety. Neo-laptop phobia. Computer complacency.
Call it what you want, but the fear of a new computer afflicts us all. Specifically, the distress we feel when faced with the prospect of transferring all of our files from the old PC to a new one.
Admit it: a new computer intimidates you.
At no time of the year is the notebook trepidation more severe than now. Many of the self-employed among us are scrambling to spend money on a new PC in order to qualify for a tax deduction before the year runs out. Some of us suspect that we’ll find a new computer under the tree come Christmas, Kwanzaa, or whatever your holiday of choice happens to be. And it scares us.
In many ways, switching computers is like breaking in a new pair of shoes. You really don’t want to stop wearing that comfy pair of loafers that fit just right until the soles are worn thin, the stitches are starting to come undone and the soles are peeling off.
So a lot of us wait, preferring to use outdated technology than having to transfer the contents of one computer to another. We make excuses. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard road warriors insist that their four-year-old laptop, which weighs about 15 pounds, “works fine.”
Yeah, tell that to the chiropractor.
There are more effective remedies than procrastination, of course. PCSync ($79.95) which is manufactured by the same folks who make the LapLink suite of connectivity software, offers a way to exchange data between computers. I just finished evaluating PCSync, and I found that it lived up to its promise of easily moving personal files out of your old computer into a new PC.
The first thing you notice about PCSync is that its designers have a sense of flair. The enclosed USB cable is a translucent purple, and the serial cables are sky blue. Installing the software takes about an hour, plus another 15 minutes to configure everything. Unless you’re running on Windows ME, your PC will demand that you reboot frequently. Multiply that by two and you’re talking about a lot of booting and rebooting.
File transfer times between computers vary depending on the kind of connection you choose. I opted for the USB cable, and response times were lighting-fast. In fact, you probably spent more time waiting for this Web page to download than it took to move a 100K file from my Dell workstation to the Gateway Solo 3350 CS. The PCSync interface presented a little bit of a challenge, but thanks to my trial-and-error approach to computing, I figured it out.
I liked PCSync’s price and ease of use. Considering my directions-be-damned approach to computing – otherwise known as the “for dummies” approach – this program performed admirably. I didn’t care for the user interface that lets you designate which files to move between computers – it struck me as counter-intuitive and difficult to navigate at times. But once I got around that, I could move all the data I wanted to with a minimum of fuss.
In previous columns, I’ve also mentioned Fusion One, which offers a free “Internet Sync” application that lets you access and synchronize e-mail, contacts and calendar appointments, among other things. It is by no means the only Web-based application for file transfers: I-drive.com a service that allows you to share files across the Web, gives you 50 megabytes of free personal Internet storage space.
Whether you use a PC- or Web-based file transfer system, you’re probably aware of at least two truths: first, these are less than perfect solutions; and second, they don’t simplify our computers – and by implication, our lives. (If anything, they complicate them. Just download PCSync to see what I mean.)
Why?
Seriously, why are these flawed, cumbersome systems even necessary? Why do I have to wait for I-drive’s mercurial servers to respond to my request to transfer data? Why do I have to tussle with PCSync’s clunky front end? Shouldn’t computer operating systems be smart enough to talk to each other without divine intervention, or at least a competent programmer?
I wonder. Not to stoke any conspiracy theories here, but doesn’t the PC industry have a vested interest in keeping these systems so complicated that only a computer science major can figure them out? If “plug-and-play” applies to our peripherals, why can’t it extend to our networks?
A few months ago I bought an Ethernet mini-hub, hoping to let all of the computers in my office “talk” to one another. Spent good money on it. Within a week of my purchase, I realized how much configuring and rewiring I would have to do, and that even if I managed to tie my PCs together, the network would be an on-again, off-again affair. I abandoned the project shortly thereafter – another victory for the network engineers of the world.
But here’s my point: No one ever lost a customer by making technology easier to use. Why can’t our newest operating systems permit simple transfer of data – or perhaps even real networking – without us having to hold a gun to the programmers’ heads?
If only file transferring were as easy as turning a computer on, then maybe fewer of us would hesitate before we upgraded our laptops.
And who knows, maybe the industry could sell more of its products.
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