Think about it: have you seen anything really take hold since the CD-ROM became a standard issue item for every machine sold? We have variations on that, such as DVD and the CD writers, but they’re only refinements. The same for new ways to attach add-ons to the basic machine, such as USB ports and firewire, the up-and-coming faster standard.

High speed Internet access remains, for the vast majority in this area, limited to cable, which is really a variation of being a node on a fast network. This is wonderful when it works, but the technical support here is somewhat spotty; you know you’re in trouble when the first question they ask is: “What cable system are you on?” It’s obvious that the support is a contracted-out service that could be in Arizona or Alaska for all you know.

DSL phone lines are still more of a promise than a service, and will remain limited because they can only be run a fixed distance from the particular central office that serves them. It’s an untold secret that your service quality and speed will also suffer the further you go from that office. Until the number of stations is increased that serve this, and until the competition heats up and prices thus come down, they will remain marginally recommended.

Internet access through your mobile phone is limited to text-only versions of sites, and so seems more of a gimmick than anything worth development. It reminds me of a story my father told of a particular radio that was sold in the early days when TV was rumored to be on the horizon but had not actually come out. It had a plug-in jack on the back marked “TV,” so some people thought it on the cutting edge. Disassembling the radio revealed the jack to be connected, of course, to nothing inside.

The industry is now hot on wireless networking, which means you are using a low-power radio connection to hook into your private network. This saves wiring inside your walls and allows laptop users to roam where they will, but there are significant technical and security problems that need to be worked out before it should become popular.

Remember that CD’s became popular for two mutually reinforcing reasons. First, the hardware portion became cheaper and faster when the drives were revised to hook to the same cable as the hard drive, instead on having to go to a sound card or separate interface card. This reduced hardware prices. At the same time, the price for software manufacturers to burn a CD version of a program fell to far less than the price to copy multiple floppy disks. This was their incentive to push CDs by shipping the CD in the box, requiring you to send in a coupon (and pay shipping) for the floppy version. Anyone who had to feed the 26 floppies required to load the earlier version of Microsoft Office (without all the clip art available on the CD) also loved the speed and convenience of CDs. So far, I don’t see any combination of win-win-win like this for the fledgling technologies mentioned above.

So what is needed is a compelling new idea or two (I refuse to use the word “vision” since it has been over-hashed by corporate fog-makers). There is plenty of technical talent out there to make something happen if the motivation exists, such as making life with computers easier. Good ideas are always harder to come by.

Cliff Feldwick is president of Riverside Computer Consultants, Inc., home of “Mobile Rescue for Your PC.” He provides networking, repairs and upgrades, when not out searching for visions, and can be reached at 410-880-0171 or at cliff@feldwick.com.