As is tradition, here is my final blog entry for the year - and this time, the final one for the decade.

Blogs all over the internet seem to be doing it, so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and take a look back over the last ten years, from a personal point of view, on how things have changed.

Back in December 1999, I was just 17 years old and awaiting the turn of the the popular millennium. (Of course this didn't really happen until 2001 but why let technicalities get in the way of a good party? The roll-over of 4 figures seems much more significant anyway). I remember all the comments: where's our flying cars, jet packs and silver suits so often dipicted in futuristic novels and films. Of course none of these came about, but a lot has developed in technology. Things that may have been unthinkable at the time.

I'm looking around my living room at the tech that sits in front of me. Computers, digital photography, a big screen High Definition television, blu-ray, Sky+HD ... Really all amazing things that probably most people would take for granted nowaday.

The Computer

Ten years ago, I didn't have my own PC - the most powerful computer system I owned was a Sony Playstation. The desktop machine was a shared family machine running Windows 98. I don't know what it's spec was but obviously it was nothing compared to now. Internet connectivity was via dialup modem - the cheapest way to get online was via congested 0800 services such as IC24. No networking, multimedia consisted of poor quality video and 128kbps MP3s.

It wasn't until 2001 that I could afford to build my first desktop computer - a measly 1GHz Intel Duron machine running Windows ME before changing to Windows 2000. There was still no networking so I had my own modem in order to get online.

2002 was the year I first became connected to broadband at the seamingly blisteringly fast speeds of 512kbps down/256kbps up. Of course nowadays these speeds can be achieved by mobile phone and the thought of speeds like this on a fixed line would be sneered at. It was 2002 that the connected world meant I could start properly developing my website.

From then it's been more computers, the addition of wired and then wireless networks leading to the sitation now where I operate a home server, a desktop machine used as a media centre, a desktop machine used for amateur radio and general use, the laptop computer and a 3G/WiFi connected mobile phone.

Gaming

I've always been a bit behind the times when it's come to computer games. I've never had a machine of high enough specification to seriously consider PC gaming bar the odd game here and there, so it's been left to the games console. In 1999 I'd saved up enough to buy my own Playstation and I remember being amazed at the visuals of games like Tomb Raider, Resident Evil and Final Fantasy VII. Of course by now this machine was already aging - the Playstation 2 was only two years away.

The later machine I didn't purchase until 2006 and it is this machine that sits under my TV. As of now, I'm still working my way through Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Even comparing the PS2 to the original machine though, the visuals are vastly superior and the games more immersive. I know the Xbox 360 and PS3 will be a huge leap again but I don't intend to get the latest Microsoft console until later in 2010 - 5 years after it was originally released.

Talking of the players in gaming ten years ago, the likes of Sony, Sega and Nintendo where the big three. Since then Sega has dropped out of manufacturing, and Microsoft came onto the Scene with the original XBox machine. Nintendo looked shaky with it's first machine of the noughties (Game Cube) but was now stormed ahead with the Wii - the first mainstream machine to feature motion control.

Multimedia

The CRT was king for television back in 1999. I had my own personal 14" TV/VHS combi and the family unit was a 28" (I think) beast. Over the air signals were mainly analogue with me not experiencing Freeview until 2002.

Now, my screen is a 32" LCD and I like the idea of upping the size to 42". Such screen sizes would not be possible ten years ago - imagine how much room a CRT of such a size would be!

Of course VHS just didn't cut it anymore. The DVD was released in 1999 and I got my first disk in 2002 which I played through my first computer - not a dedicated player. Now I barely touch the old tapes. I have however bought myself a Video Recorder for the pricely sum of £2 in order to dub some old cassettes.

Now I'm again experiencing a format change with the move from DVD to Blu-ray. Okay it's not as dramatic since I can still play my older DVD collection, but the appeal of High Definition video is too great to resist. Sky HD provides superb broadcast picture quality compared to the often poor standard definition equivalent.

Whilst broadcast picture quality may have decreased with the introduction of digital to terrestrial broadcast and Sky; the number of channels available now is staggering. Compare Freeview today to analogue television a liittle over 10 years ago, featuring just 4-5 stations. For better or worse, no-one can argue that today we are all spoilt for choice.

Photography

Taking photographs has had such a radical change over the last decade. Ten years ago the idea of having a digital camera was completely unrealistic - much too expensive. I had a compact Praktica camera taking 35mm film allowing for 24 or 36 exposures per film. Photography was not a cheap hobby for the casual photographer. The cost of film and development had to be considered each time that shutter was clicked. I like to think that this forced me to consider each shot more carefully but I don't really think this is true - I didn't know what made a good picture so just took the snaps that appealed to me.

Nowadays, there is little if any choice in film cameras for the casual photographer. Many compact cameras now are digital, small and cheap. Where the digital cameras of ten years ago featured perhaps a maximum of 2mp, todays cameras range from 8mp upwards. We are in the situation where those who don't know just believe more megapixels equals better quality photographs. The camera in the mobile phone has now reached 8mp and more despite not having the optics to support it.

My first digital camera was the Sony DSC-P200 - a high end (at the time) 7mp camera. This suited me until 2008 when I bought a Casio Exilim EX1080 10mp compact camera. It features little in the way of manual control, but is good for quick snaps. It was also in 2008 that I bought my first DSLR - the Nikon D80, and started taking photography much more seriously than before. I'm sure I've got a long way to go but my picture taking is vastly better than pre-2008 and a world away from 1999.

Digital photographs have also led to the reduction of printing (for me anyway). Most of my pictures are on my server's hard drive and are shown in a slide show on my general computer screen. One of my presents to my partner Kate was a digital photo frame. Ten years ago, I never would have thought that by the end of the noughties a device would exist that allows easy viewing of those files - a complete album or more on show on a bookshelf with pictures changing every 15 minutes. That's so much better than a static printed picture in a frame.

The Mobile Phone

I don't know if there is another device that has changed so much in ten years that it is almost unrecongisable compared to the earlier devices.

Ten years ago, my experience of the mobile was a device with a monochrome screen, simple games like snake and the best ways of communicating with it were by voice call on the 2G GSM mobile network or by SMS text message which became popular in the late 90's.

Within a year I had experienced the first stage of mobile internet connectivity via WAP. Looking back, this was pretty pointless but at the time I thought it was amazing. I could get online and look at websites designed solely for the mobile phone. I remember speaking to a work colleague in the early 2000s who simply did not believe that getting online via a mobile phone was possible. Yes it was crude and slow but it did work. Of course HTML browsing didn't exist on the mobile for a few more years, but by using a PDA such as a Psion Revo to connect via the mobile using it's infra-red connection did allow access to the full interent (albeit in low resolution monochrome).

Nowaday's my mobile has an always on internet connection either over the 3G mobile network or via WiFi. The phone (HTC T-Mobile G1) features a full colour touchscreen display, can play high quality audio files, play certain video files, take photographs and low quality video, automatically poll my Google account for emails, calendar updates and RSS reader updates and automatically receives updates to Twitter and Identi.ca. In short, the full internet is accessible via the built in browser with very few exceptions. Nowadays, a significant percentage of my internet time is via mobile phone.

Honourable Mentions

Obviously I can't talk in-depth about every technological development, so just to mention other things that have developed in the last decade:

Music downloads; online on-demand media (BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD etc., spotify, last fm and others.); worldwide internet gaming via consoles; casual online games such as flash games; the portable media player (NOT just the iPod, but all of the others); eBooks; and presumably many other things that have slipped my mind

Technology - Where next?

I'm not going to fall in to the trap of trying to predict what technology and the 21st century lifestyle will be like in another 10 years. I think the last decade has proven how difficult that would be. We'll likely see new technologies that very few of us can imagine. Existing technologies will be developed further. I can say with some confidence that computers will continue to become more powerful and mobile phones will do more further decreasing the need to sit at a desk to be connected to the online world.

Personally, I don't know where technology will be for me more than 2 years into the future. I'll likely obtain a surround sound amp and speakers to go with it before 2012 and also upgrade from a PS2 to Xbox 360. More than that though, I just don't know.

The last ten years personally

Outside of technology, the noughties has been very interesting for me. I started working in telesales before quickly starting work in an off-licence in April 2000. 3 1/2 years later, I found myself working for the local council via a temping agency and then in 2005 I became a permanent member of staff at my current job.

I passed my driving test in 2003 and have since bought and disposed of two cars - the first a Ford Fiesta which almost literally fell apart, and the second a Peaugot 405 which I sold for scrap when I no longer needed it or had anywhere to keep it. Now I'm back to not owning a vehicle although I do still drive.

I have moved home three times with Kate, in all cases moving into rented accomodation, before settling into our current flat which has for the most part served us well since 2007.

After a number of years listening to and using CB radio, I obtained my first amateur radio licence on 2001 before obtaining my full licence in 2007.

Happy New Year...Happy New Decade

So with that, what has become quite an essay for me, I'll sign-off with a Happy New Year for 2010 and a Happy New Decade for the Tens. Oh, and for the record I'll be saying twenty-ten.

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Tags: gadgets, opinion, it's my life