Why Would I Write

Category: Technology

  • Sex in tech

    Apple does a lot of things I don’t agree with, but there’s one thing I think they’re brilliant at: not using sex to sell their products. As far as I can remember, Apple has never used any sexy ladies to market their products. Their ads, while sometimes ridiculous, are clean and wholesome. But what’s important is that they focus on their products. And when there’s a plethora of parodies available online, you know they’re doing something right.

    At launch events, they don’t have sexy women parading around holding their devices. Instead, they have old men on stage talking about what’s good and new about their devices.

    The lack of sexy women holding their devices allows consumers and the media to focus on what’s important – the products that they are selling. Not the scantily clad women holding them. Sure, you don’t see media writing about the women, but on social media and event photographs – they’re there. If they’re not the focus of the launch event, then why hire them in the first place?

    Also, what are sexy women holding gadgets supposed to achieve? Today’s tech world is pretty different from what it was like many years ago. There’s no need to cater to basement-dwelling mouth-breathing neckbeards who dream of being in the company of such women – technology is now embraced by everybody.

    Sure, sex sells. It’s been proven. Evocative imagery draws attention. But they’re irrelevant when it comes to technology. Sexy women for alcohol, fashion and beauty products makes sense, but tech? Unless they’re selling high-tech sex toys, I don’t see the connection.

    I’m not against using sexy women to sell tech – people should be able to do whatever they want to. I’m just questioning the decision to do so. Never have I seen a device being used/held by a hot girl and thought to myself ‘oh shit, I need to own that product!’.

  • Farewell to Internet Explorer 8, 9, 10

    For those of you not in the know – Microsoft recently announced that they will be ending support for older versions of Internet Explorer (8, 9, and 10). IE 11 will still be supported, as well as Edge which is actually pretty good, but I’m too much of a Google user to give up Chrome. Last year, I upgraded to Windows 10 and used Edge for the first time – to download Chrome. And I haven’t used it since. But my experience with Edge wasn’t bad – it didn’t stop me from downloading Chrome. That would’ve been funny/annoying.

    Anyway, for most people, this won’t mean a thing – and to people who are still on those old versions of IE, it probably won’t mean a thing to them either since they haven’t bothered to upgrade till now. I doubt any modern businesses are still running on those browsers either, so it’s not as big of a deal as its been made out to be.

    I haven’t used Internet Explorer in a long time. I remembered it used to be the go to browser way back when Netscape was still a thing. I was on Netscape Navigator 3 or 4, I can’t remember, when there was a talk in school and they handed us CDs with IE on them. I remember getting all excited and pumped, installing a brand new web browser on my home computer (via a CD-ROM!). I think it was on that day I signed up for my Hotmail account as well (which remains active till this day).

    IE was faster than Netscape (believe it or not). It was my browser of choice for the longest time. I can’t remember when or what it was that made me switch back to Netscape. I think I used Opera for a while, and then Firefox for a few years until Chrome came along.

    I remember reading the newspapers at the time – Microsoft was labelled unfair and was using its position as the no.1 operating system provider to spread Internet Explorer by bundling the browser with Windows. Microsoft had to face antitrust lawsuits and shit. While Windows is still popular, IE isn’t anymore (though it’s probably still one of the most used browsers worldwide) and Windows Phone is barely staying afloat (correct me if I’m wrong). Oh how times have changed.

    Anyway, I think Microsoft will probably kill of Internet Explorer 11 once they’ve developed Edge enough. I don’t see any reason why they would want to continue working on two browsers unless they both have very different uses.

    But for all the years of surfing IE has enabled me to partake in – thank you. Welcome to browser heaven.

  • The aftershave: my initial post-electric shaver experience

    The aftershave: my initial post-electric shaver experience

    shaver

    Exactly one week ago, I decided that I was going to buy myself an electric shaver. I picked it up on a Friday night and since then I’ve been a member of the electric shaver club. I picked myself up the Philips AT750 because – according to what I read online, a rotary shaver would be better for my needs (infrequent shaving, longer facial hair). I got the AT750 because it can be used wet or dry – since I had no idea if I would be using it wet or dry more.

    Anyway, life with an electric shaver has been pretty good since then. Because it is so much faster than shaving with disposable razors, I’ve been able to shave more often. My face isn’t too sensitive, so I’ve also been able to do dry shaves.

    I’ve only shaved wet with the AT750 once – my first shave, since I didn’t know how my face would handle it. I used the shaving cream which came free with the shaver and got rid of all my facial hair. It felt alright, except for my mustache which stung a little probably because it was quite long (in case you didn’t know, electric shavers pull the hairs on your face before cutting them off).

    I haven’t had to charge the shaver yet since it has a 40 minute battery life and my shaves last only 1-2 minutes. It does take 8 hours to charge though – so I may or may not have issues with that in the future.

    Regardless, after almost a week of using it, I don’t have any complaints and can wholly recommend it to anybody who feels that shaving takes too long to with analog shavers. Sure, it doesn’t cut as close as a regular blade but I feel that it does a good enough job. I’ll probably report back in a month or two if I have anything else to say but I doubt it’s going to be anything negative!

    BTW this isn’t a sponsored post/advertorial. In case you guys were wondering if I turned into a shill of some sort. I’m just writing about my initial experiences with an electric shaver.