When my internet went down

Vuyiswamb
Posted by in Others category on for Beginner level | Points: 250 | Views : 4556 red flag
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These are my thoughts about today's age on how internet dependency has changed us.

When my internet went down


Introduction

It has been long since I started using a computer. I remember my first computer, it was a 486 machine which had an embedded memory and also a big floppy disk. I also remember the first time I used internet on a dial-up connection which was super slow. At that time the excitement of having to communicate or see what other people in world do or leave their lives, was amazing.

I remember the first thing I wanted to search was images of Soccer players like Maradona, Romario and also some American musicians. We heard about Americans but we never saw them in person. That was because Africa and South Africa was still recovering from the oppression regime which colonized the continent. We were fortunate because the life changing inventions when it comes to technology came into action in the early 90’s and by that time we were near the end of oppression. 

We had an opportunity to learn technology when it was introduced than trying to catch-up. Not all of us jumped into technology, some were scared of something they don’t know, and others like me, jumped into the boat and learn and mastered different technologies.

Today for some reason my Internet router stopped working. Before I check the reason behind its behavior, I thought I should share with you how it was when the internet age was new or in non-existence. The reason I wrote this is to try to open your eyes on the events that might happen if my internet or the whole world stopped the interaction via internet.  Three questions that came to my mind. 

 1)    What will happen if the internet could stop working?

 2)    What will I loose?

 3)    What will I gain and how will I continue to do software Development? 


What will happen if the Internet could stop working? 

I have developers who are working in foreign countries that I have never been to and the first thing I will loose is the money i invested in these developers. Projects that I financed and never completed because of lack of internet.  Imagine the number of transactions that take place or waiting to happen daily in banks. It is more than one can imagine. Billions of transactions taking place in the stock markets or Forex market. imagine if all this can end , it means some people will die immediately when that happens , some will realize that they have lost more than they have gain, some would not have withdrawn their foreign investment and there will be no way to get hold of the profits.

Is this what we want?

Are we not too depended on something that is out of our control?

Should we allow something we don’t have control over, to run our lives?  

Many developers spend too much time away from their families, the age of internet has taken over their lives and also their fear of being behind has filled their hearts with energy that keeps them away from their loved ones.

Some of you people will loose your Jobs because there won’t be a need for them to be around. This is what could happen if the internet decide to stop working. The possibility of this happening is 1%.  Well one might say if there is 1% then there is a possibility that it could happen, well it is true.  It is always good to think of the opposite side of things every time.

What will I loose?

My next question, was “What will I loose”. As I stated above I will loose of money, my paid subscription to websites which made life easier for developers, all third party controls that we purchase to make life easier for us as developers will be lost. Instant news, Online Share Trading profits that one accumulated, valuable friendship with friends from other part of the world will be lost, my online hosted databases, my unity assets that I bought for my project and dropbox files that are valuable to me. As you can see, I will loose a lot things. Maybe your loss is worse than mine.

I am getting older and there are things that I actually don’t worry about anymore because of the experience I gain from Life, but a person younger than me would actually have a list which differs from what I have.  I am more concern about things that can make me gain financially than things that can amuse me. I know that there are a lot of people who are addicted to social media, instant messaging like whatsup, Facebook and other popular platforms. Well if I forget my phone at home driving to the office , I don’t turn back to get the phone because my phone will never run my life and also if there is someone who is urgently looking for me, they will find a way to get hold of me if God permits them. I don’t get worried. I still have a small percentage of sanity even though I am like everyone who is diving in the techno dependency. 

What will I gain and how will I continue to do software Development?

The first thing is that I will save money, gain sanity and also be free from negative news that I can’t directly change, get to spend more time with my family, get a chance to be a better man.


These days we are surrounded by news and all other information that is overloading us. We struggle to know which information is good for us and which information is not good for us. With the internet out of the picture, one have time and peace of mind to make the right decision.


In this case it does not mean software development is dead, but we will be now stepping away from web development and back to windows development, but still the intranet can continue to embrace web, but that will be on a minimal basis. The Desktop application will rise again. This will bring painful days that developers who are coming from my age who have endured the pain of desktop applications, Days when developers could think and develop without help of the internet, when developers put their mind to what they did.


The purpose of a technology is to make life easier, but not to make people to stop thinking. Developers today have stopped thinking, if they encounter a problem, the first place to start solving the problem is the internet. Well I am also guilty of this. Lately I was working on Kinect for Windows V2 project. As you know this is a new technology so the internet will barely help you. I could feel the pain of trying to do something many times and getting a breakthrough after 4 hours of trying to get a solution on my own. Every time I get stuck I knew no one has come across this and there was no way I could get the answer from the net because of the uncommon requirements i was working on.

Conclusion


It is a choice that we are free to make to move away from dependency. I still want a face to face conversation with someone than a whatsup communication or Skype communication. I have recently stopped using whatsup because it’s a door to many things, some are good and some are bad. I also realized that people have lost their morals grounds because they can now communicate with someone without looking them in their eyes. Many families are broken today because of that, many companies lost their client because of instant messaging. What is important to remember is we all can choose to walk away because if you convince yourself that you will be discipline and never deviate, you are addicted and you have blinded.

This is was my thoughts when my internet went down, if you see this article online, you then know that my internet router came back to life.

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About the Author

Vuyiswamb
Full Name: Vuyiswa Maseko
Member Level: NotApplicable
Member Status: Member,MVP,Administrator
Member Since: 7/6/2008 11:50:44 PM
Country: South Africa
Thank you for posting at Dotnetfunda [Administrator]
http://www.Dotnetfunda.com
Vuyiswa Junius Maseko is a Founder of Vimalsoft (Pty) Ltd (http://www.vimalsoft.com/) and a forum moderator at www.DotnetFunda. Vuyiswa has been developing for 16 years now. his major strength are C# 1.1,2.0,3.0,3.5,4.0,4.5 and vb.net and sql and his interest were in asp.net, c#, Silverlight,wpf,wcf, wwf and now his interests are in Kinect for Windows,Unity 3D. He has been using .net since the beta version of it. Vuyiswa believes that Kinect and Hololen is the next generation of computing.Thanks to people like Chris Maunder (codeproject), Colin Angus Mackay (codeproject), Dave Kreskowiak (Codeproject), Sheo Narayan (.Netfunda),Rajesh Kumar(Microsoft) They have made vuyiswa what he is today.

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Comments or Responses

Posted by: Sheonarayan on: 5/5/2015 | Points: 25
Very well said, the last part of answer is very correct "What will I gain...". The most important thing we will get is peace of mind and control over ourselves. Despite that no body forces us to use internet we are so helpless and addicted that it has become a food for life. Without this we can't even think 1 hour either in office or home.

Thanks for sharing dear Vuyiswa.

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