A decade of geek life

In a few short weeks, I will have been in the punk rock IT biz (at one level or another) for ten years.
Wow.
Ten years man! Ten years!

I remember when a 1 GB hard disk was something special. I remember the web dev station we installed at the coop at Laurier; Pentium MMX 200 MHz. It was a screaming fast box for the time, with 128 MB of RAM making Windows NT4 SP3 supa-dupa responsive.

I think most modern BlackBerry handhelds have faster processors. I'm positive most PalmOne devices do.

I now carry 1 GB of solid state memory around with me in a form factor so small I constantly fear losing it. Did I say one? I meant two... I forgot about the iPod shuffle I am currently listening to.

Upcoming gaming consoles (*cough* PS3 *cough*) will support dual layer blu-ray optical media, with a capacity of up to 50 GB per disc.
So much, so fast... it doesn't bug me unless I look back on it.

Here's my bit of "grumpy old man" after ten years: the current media hoopla over converged devices (which has been going on for years, but seems to be picking up speed again of late).
Seven years ago a group of 6 3rd and 4th year business students at Laurier sat down around a pitcher in Wilf's pub to figure out what their research project would be for their MIS class.
A small faction of us pitched convergence. We were shot down as it was a "pie in the sky" idea.

Hah.

Yeah, listen: I get my email (work and personal) delivered to my phone handset, my work email comes in on an encrypted connection. I can check my outstanding tickets on this handset as well, over a 3DES encrypted wireless connection back into the office network.
Oh yeah... it's a phone too.
I haven't needed to power on a laptop to communicate with the office when I am away or off site in years. I know guys in UNIX shops who run SSH clients off of their handhelds when they have to quickly make an adjustment to a server, or verify that a process is still running.

So yeah... the past decade of geek life has seen concepts that were once dismissed as "nice, but..." become daily reality.

I am not sure what the next step is, though Robert X. Cringley has something to say about that (eh, I can't find the link).

All I know is that consulting life beats the hell out of the helpdesk.