Actually I was supposed to be going with R tonight, but I am ashamed to admit that there was a siren call I could not resist coming from the office.  Yesterday we got our HTC Vive VR set and I couldn’t tear myself away – it is absolutely brilliant.  It makes every computer game you have played in the last year look like pong on the Atari c. 1975….  Still very new, very first generation, and very expensive – but to me this is the first real generational change in recreational IT since the iPhone.

Now the only problem is that the downloads for it are huge (even worse than the Xbox One or Visual Studio and that’s saying something) so if BT are listening, we need the new fast broadband in pronto.  So get a move on before the Surface gets peckish again….

So 1992 – I am a junior support technician with an IT consultancy.

Business – nothing.  I am way too junior for a laptop which are still an executive preserve.  I am thinking about perhaps having a mobile phone but they are quite expensive and I certainly wouldn’t have one supplied with the job.  When I am on call I have a pager.

Pleasure – again nothing – I have a desktop PC at home and a server to practice networking – but no mobile kit.

1998 – In Server support for an insurance company.  Somewhat come up in the world because I don’t crawl around under desks any more.

Business – Nokia mobile phone – bought it myself but can charge calls to company.  Still too junior for a laptop but my boss has one.

Pleasure – The same Nokia mobile phone.

2002 – Messaging team for a multi-national Pharma

Business – IBM Thinkpad Laptop, Nokia mobile phone supplied by company.

Pleasure – The same mobile – they seem happy enough to pay for all my calls and I am not arguing about it.  I wouldn’t take the laptop because it is heavy and the internet is not that interesting.

2007 – Head of Messaging team for same Pharma Company

Business – HP laptop.  Blackberry.

Pleasure – Nokia mobile (my own because I don’t want the BB on holiday with me thanks).

2010 – Immediately before I leave corporate life – Associate Director with same Pharma

Business – Thinkpad, company IPhone (replaced BB)

Pleasure – IPhone, IPad (my own first tablet).

2011 – Starting our own company.

Business – Thinkpad, HTC Android (worst phone I have ever had for shortest period of time), iPad.

Pleasure – As above – can’t be disconnected on holiday with a new business

2012 – Company well established now

Business – Thinkpad, Lumia 800 WP7, Iconia W500 Windows tablet (my first Windows tablet with preview version of 8 on it)

Pleasure – As above but don’t actually need Thinkpad unless I need a machine with a lot of punch.

2013 – Company established and doing well

Business – Surface Pro, Surface RT, HTC 8X WP8.  I need to have both Surfaces because the RT can’t run all the software I need, and the Pro’s battery life is not great.

Pleasure – Surface RT, HTC 8X.  For pleasure trips I can get away without much desktop software as long as I have Office.

2014 – Now.

Business – Surface Pro 2.  Lumia 1020

Pleasure – Surface Pro 2, Lumia 1020

So the point of this very long post is that for many years the trend was ever upwards with kit getting ever heavier and more burdensome to carry about.  Even the advent of the IPad and other consumer type devices didn’t help that much if you were travelling on business with a need for full on content creation type software.  Then last couple of years along came Windows 8 tablets and matters were greatly improved.  But until the Surface Pro 2 I never had a single device I could travel with that fulfilled all the qualities of functionality, weight and battery life such that all I needed to go with it was a phone.  The last 20 years shows a graph where we started off carrying nothing because nothing was worth carrying, went up to a point where we were carrying tons because the tech was not very portable, and has now come right back down – to where we don’t have to carry much because a little goes a long way.

Many years ago I was working for Customs and Excise as a VAT control officer. My brother bought one of the early 486s and I saw a game called Doom which I didn’t think I would like. A few hours later, I realized I did like it. A few days later I discovered other games and how difficult it could be to get them to run in DOS (the infamous Master of Magic which needed expanded memory, extended memory and 600+ K free conventional memory). A few weeks later I discovered that I liked fiddling with DOS more than I liked playing games; chucked in the tax job, bought a PC and went back to College to study computing.

So that is the sort of sad geeky person I am. Over nearly twenty years I’ve worked on Windows Server and Workstation (all versions since 3.1), Novell Netware/NDS, Domino, OS/2, Exchange, SharePoint, AD, Solaris, Networking, Software Development (alas in the now unfashionable VB) and latterly Security testing. I’ve been everything from the person who fixes the printers to the head of the department.

This is really sad – I just counted my personal tech items.

• 1 Desktop PC, Quad Core 16G RAM. Running Windows 8
• Three monitors attached to above PC – one touch screen (more on that elsewhere)
• 1 Lenovo laptop, 8G RAM, Windows 8
• 1 Microsoft Surface RT (latest and greatest tablet)
• 1 Innovia W500 Windows tablet (currently out on loan)
• 1 Xbox 360 with Kinnect
• 1 HTC 8X WP8

R’s Tech items – just as sad.

• Desktop and Laptop as above
• 3 Monitors including an enormous 27″ monster
• iPad 3
• iPhone 4 S (you can see he is falling behind here – but more later)
• Playstation 3
• Rasberry PI

It gets sadder. There are two of us remember. In addition to the kit above we have:-

• Hyper-V 3 Server hosting Windows 2012 DC, sundry test VMS
• Linux machine spec’d as an ESX host (with all that entails) but now running Linux for a visitor who won’t touch Windows.
• Linux machine for Security testing
• Sundry pieces of networking kit supporting two broadband internet connections from different providers
• Solaris workstation
• Printer/Scanner/Fax
• Spare Android phone for testing
• Nexus Tablet for Wireless testing (honest)
• Apple TV and associated speaker connections
• Home NAS

In the house as a whole we have more than 30 devices with IP Adresses. That is very geeky – but I did say we liked Tech.