Personal Computing: When there's a need for speed.(Brief Article)
Author/s: Reid Goldsborough
Speed has played a key role with computers since the inception of the
digital age in the 1940s. The very raison d'etre of electronic machines
is their ability to carry out computational procedures faster than
humans.
On the one hand, speed is not always what it's cracked up to be; on
the other, speed is sometimes given short shrift. Understanding the
differences can help you make smart PC-buying decisions and smart Web
site design decisions.
The central processing units of today's run-of-the-mill personal
computers are faster than those of multimillion-dollar mainframe
computers that were leading us into the future in the 1960s and 1970s.
PCs today are 10 times more powerful than they were just 5 years ago.
This mind-boggling increase in processing speed was predicted and
codified in 1965 by Gordon Moore, who would become the co-founder of
Intel, when he said that the number of transistors per square inch on
integrated circuits had been doubling and would continue to double every
year.
Though this doubling would later slow from every year to every 18
months, the increase in capacity has continued, and it's emblematic of
the personal computer revolution. It's an increase that's unprecedented
in other spheres of human endeavor.
To those involved with personal computers, this is heady stuff, and
it has led to an infatuation, even an obsession, with speed. It taps
into the Western notion of progress, of ever-increasing efficiency,
output, and standards of living.
The infatuation is misguided. "Speed is an artificial
need," says Rob Enderle, an analyst for the Giga Information Group,
a market research firm in Santa Clara, Califomia. "It's analogous
to cars with big engines. Bigger is not always better. Neither is
faster."
There's a countervailing notion here, more Eastern in nature, of
appropriate technology. In practical terms, very few people today need
the very fastest PCs, those that run the Intel Pentium 42.0 GHz CPUs,
which have recently reached the market, or the equivalent chips from AMD
or Motorola.
For common tasks such as word processing, spreadsheets, business
graphics, Web surfing, and e-mail, slower and less expensive central
processing units are more than adequate. However, if you're engaged in
CPU-intensive tasks such as high-end image editing, video editing,
digitizing music, or computer-aided design, the high end can be
cost-effective.
Other factors besides cost-effectiveness, however, can enter a buying
decision. A high even number such 2.0 GHz, or 2 billion cycles per
second, is psychologically compelling in the same way as a .400 batting
average or a Dow of 10,000. Still, on the whole, the importance of CPU
speed is overrated, the single most overrated aspect of personal
computing today.
The single most underrated speed element today is the time it takes
Web pages to load.
Sure, it's widely known that a high-speed cable or DSL modem can
dramatically improve the quality of your surfing experience. In fact,
the biggest PC speed bottleneck for the past several years hasn't been
CPU speed but modem speed, a bottleneck that won't disappear until
high-speed Internet access becomes universally available.
What's not as widely known is that even with high-speed access,
slow-loading Web pages can still be a problem.
The Web won't be truly efficient until browsing from one page to the
next is as speedy as browsing pages in a newspaper or magazine.
A recent study by market research firm Jupiter Media Metrix
underscores the importance of fast-loading Web pages. The study found
that 40 percent of people will visit a site more often if its pages load
faster, while only 20 percent are interested in multimedia or rich media
features, which load much more slowly than text and simple graphics.
Some Web-page designers look at flashy technologies such as Shockwave
as a way to make their sites look hip and cutting edge. Yet many
Web-page visitors look at these technologies as cloying eye candy that
just slows them down.
People on the Web have-short attention spans. This is the age of VCRs
and microwave ovens. People don't want to wait to get what they want. If
you force them to cool their heels at your Web site, gratification
elsewhere is just a click away.
That's why the best Web sites are simple, and why simple Web sites
are more likely be around in the future. "On the Web," says
Jakob Nielsen, author of the new book Homepage Usability: 50 Websites
Deconstructed, "you have design Darwinism--survival of the
easiest."
The theme here is technology for people's sakes, not for technology's
sake.
Reid Goldsborough is a syndicated columnist and author of the book
Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Information Today, Inc.
in association with The Gale Group and LookSmart. COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale
Group
