Yald - Patrick Grote's Technology Notes - Top 25 Technologies

Linux is born and hackers everywhere rejoice

Patrick Grote — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 09:51:21 -0400

I can remember when Linux started making waves. Netware was still king, and Windows was a laughable me too runner in the network world. The big argument at the time wasn't if the operating system was worth playing with, it was how do you pronounce the damn name.

Working as a consultant I had to keep abreast of all changes in the technical world, and Linux was no different. I can remember the first time I installed it and thus began the learning of all the Linux jargon.

Having worked to productionalize several ATT Linux installations, I was familiar with the basic commands and the structure of the kernal. What I wasn't familiar with was the customization that Linux allowed.

Apple Macintosh revolutionary hardware for sale

Patrick Grote — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:21:48 -0500

The number 8 top technology in the last 25 years is the Apple Macintosh. I'll tell you straight out that I am a PC guy, but I can remember when the Macintosh made it's debut.

It was 1984 and I was a steadfast Commodore 64 user. I was in my teens and the only places that sold computers were computer stores, toy stores and department stores. Yes, department stores.

The local mall had a department store, Famous Barr, which is is now Macys. They sold computers, but only high end IBMs. They did get into the Apple Macintosh business and set up three you could play with. I remember that the number of Macs set up was three, because each was connected to a printer. My fascination with the machine was drawing pictures using Mac Draw and then printing them.

Pretty good privacy as a top technology

Patrick Grote — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 17:20:16 -0500

PGP, otherwise known as pretty good privacy, comes in at number 9. I can remember when this hit the world and it was pretty inspiring. For the first time, people like you and I had a chance to make sure our electronic communications weren't read.

See, up until this point only governments had the ability to encrypt their electronic data easily. Phil Zimmerman's creation allowed anyone to do this.

It's a pretty easy to use and now you pretty much never know when you're using it. Most of the VPN solution use PGP or something similar to ensure your data is protected. Without it, anyone would be able to see your data.

How Compaq portable sales took over corporate america

Patrick Grote — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 20:54:43 -0500

The tenth place on the top technologies list belongs to the first Compaq portable. Well, portable is a generous term. We called it a luggable when it came out.

The Compaq portable weighed in at 34 pounds, had dual floppies and a nine inch integrated monochrome screen. Yes, it was advanced for the time, because it was the first truly portable IBM compatible machine.

Now, many people think this was the first portable computer. They'd be wrong. Osborne and Kaypro had machines out prior to this, but they ran CPM.

How did PDF files become so big?

Patrick Grote — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:20:30 -0500

Our 11th top technology is the PDF file format from Adobe. PDF stands for Portable Document Format and was created by Adobe in the early 1990s. It is a subset of the Postscript language, which is a printer language designed for layout. PDF was designed to bring the layout specifications to the screen.

What many people don't remember is that the PDF format really didn't take off when it was first introduced. It wasn't until CDROMs became popular, and later the internet, did the PDF take off.

Lotus 123 - put the business in personal computers

Patrick Grote — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 20:08:01 -0500

The 12th top technology is Lotus 123. Lotus 123 is a spreadsheet product released by Lotus. It wasn't the first spreadsheet for the IBM PC or even the first spreadsheet in existence, but it was the one that was the most popular.

You could tell someone used Lotus 123 because they spoke with SLASH "/" and then a command. For instance, /FS was for file save.

The real power of Lotus 123 came from that command structure. It was easy to standardize and someone could pick up how to use it very easily.

Why was CISCO IOS so monumental

Patrick Grote — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 17:58:20 -0500

CISCO IOS comes in at 13 in the list of the top 25 technologies. This is an interesting choice, because I feel it is probably the biggest advance in terms of communication in the last 25 years.

CISCO IOS is the operating system for their routers. Originally written by William Yeager, it brought configurability, expandability and more to the CISCO routers.

When wide area networks where first coming to the business world, we were very excited. There were two main players in the business, Cisco and 3COM. I was exposed to both technologies and I'll tell you, CISCO scared me.

dBase II brings databases to the masses

Patrick Grote — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 06:00:18 -0500

The 14th top technology is dBase II, the program responsible for making databases accessible to non-programmers. Heck, it even created an industry standard that has withstood the test of time.

The amazing thing about dBase II is that before it was released for microcomputers the segment of data management really didn't exist.

Brought to life by the company Ashton Tate, dBase II was a command line driven database program. I can still remember the first time I used dBase II and was presented with the prompt. You felt so small and insignificant until you started creating data entry screens.

Why the Palm Pilot worked

Patrick Grote — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:30:30 -0500

The Palm Pilot comes in at number 15 in the top 25 technologies. The Palm Pilot was the first electronic organizer that was a success. The Newton had come out earlier, and many would more powerful, but the Palm Pilot was priced right, easy to use and had just the right feature set.

I remember buying my first Palm Pilot and being less than impressed. Sure, I played with it for four weeks or so, but I just couldn't get into keeping all my lists electronically.

The Palm Pilot wasn't powerful, but then it wasn't designed to be. It was meant to be a simple, easy device with very few features. The power was in the simple letter recognition program it used.

Linksys 802.11 Routers - the routers that kick started the wirless revolution

Patrick Grote — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 06:25:31 -0500

We don't know how luckily we have it when it comes to wireless networking. Prior to the Linksys 802.11 router coming into the marketplace, wireless solutions were hodge podge and proprietary. This is the main reason the Linksys 802.11 comes in at number 16 of the top 25 technologies.

Back in the day, if you wanted wireless connectivity you had to buy cards and software from a particular vendor. Even though there were wireless standards in place, very few manufacturers followed them. What you ended up with were dead end product lines and very frustrated customers.

Linksys came to the table as a small company out of nowhere in 1988. They adopted a standards based model very slowly, but one they did the wireless revolution was started.