Wednesday was move in day for my youngest daughter. She was scheduled to be at her college for 8AM to secure her dorm and move in her belongings. Luckily for her she was the first through the door to her four bed suite so she was able to land the premier spot.
After all of her personal effects had been put away by she and her mother it was my time to finally shine. I was in charge of connecting all her technology including synchronizing the printer with my daughter’s laptop and other devices. I puffed out my chest, looked around to make sure all eyes were on me and made the final connection between devices with the USB cable.
My ego was popped when her Apple discovered and installed the printer driver automatically. My ex-wife’s husband turned his head and went on to another project and my daughter turned and walked away with a simple “thanks Dad.” I kept wondering why connecting devices couldn’t be this easy for everything. After all, a year or two ago I would have had to download and install drivers that may or may not work.
The job was easy because I installed a new piece of equipment onto a new piece of equipment. I ordered the printer last week and the MacBook Air was purchased in May. New equipment simply works flawlessly with other new equipment. My delicate ego was blown because the stupid new hardware and operating systems makes it easy.
Microsoft and Apple have much better databases of drivers than were available with previous operating system versions. Basically, the two vendors each maintain a large stash of drivers making it easier for users to get their work done. Drivers, by the way, allow hardware and the operating system to work together. Without drivers computers would be a box of parts that wouldn’t be very functional.
Back in Windows XP days the internet wasn’t that fast. Well, for its time it was fast, but in comparison to today’s speeds it was slow. The idea of a company like Microsoft hosting a bunch of files with the possibility of clogging their bandwidth was preposterous. Slow computers combined with extra slow bandwidth made the reality of indexing every driver seem silly.
Nowadays it’s normal to download large files. In fact, we don’t even think about large files being a problem anymore. A file that would have taken thirty minutes to download ten years ago now takes a minute. Companies like Apple and Microsoft can afford to hold these files because they know the data won’t clog them up.
Every device has an identifier called it’s hardware ID which is basically the fingerprint. Computer people reading this are cringing now because I just lied to you a little bit. Hardware ID’s are unique to the device but are the same in every computer. My daughter’s printer has the same hardware ID in her computer as it would in any other Apple.
To make our lives easier, reduce operating system issues and pop my ego manufacturers have started automatically installing drivers. Every time a new device is plugged into the computer the unique hardware ID tells the operating system what driver is needed to make the hardware function. If everything goes as planned, the new device will function properly. On the other hand, if things don’t happen automatically my ego may still get popped if I can’t get it connected.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)