2009: It's been all about the iGeneration
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This year has been an up and down year for many. Since this time last year, I've learned a lot about the world we live in. Recession took a bite out of our lives, climate change is still hanging in the balance, and Windows 7 shot out the door like a sideshow in a clown set - successfully, I hasten to add.
And just as the academic year is about to end, I'm snowed in at home unable to get much needed milk for my tea from the shop.
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Still, I'd like to end the year on a bit of a high - even though strictly speaking we've still got a good fortnight left of writing in us as a network. Let's have a quick look over what's been popular and what simply hasn't.
- Office 2010 made its first real appearance and has been getting people rather moist at the thought of a new set of applications;
- Facebook's privacy concerns have been shrouding the site's reputation, until I explained how to fix things before and even after the December 2009 settings refresh;
- Students like BlackBerry's a lot, it seems;
- Email is still an intrinsic part of the iGeneration's lives and the threats to the future of email has had staunch opposition;
- And you lot really hate the RIAA after a student nearly strung herself up by a ceiling fixture.
Suffice to say, it's been a mixed year for technology, the industry and the people who use it.
But even I've grown up a fair bit. Most of you know that I reached the grand old age of 21 only a few months ago, and since requiring glasses to see the slides in my lectures (I'd noticed I'd been moving slowly forward in the lecture theatres over the last three years; since realising the front row was as far as I could go, glasses were the only option). But with this means sometimes you have to go back on what you say.
Just to prove I am in fact human and occasionally eat my own words (and anything else which has an om-nom-nom factor to it):
- I loved Windows 7, and then I got sick of it. There was a lot of coverage, after all, but all in all it's a rock solid operating system.
- I went on and on about backup solutions and how important they are, and then I lost everything when my hard drive crashed.
- When I asked Nokia to start again with their not-so-smartphones, they decided to. Probably not connected, but it shows they're listening at least.
- I decided that touch technology was the epitome of evil, and then I bought myself a multi-touch computer which proved to be quite a hoot in the Whittaker household.
- I initially really hated Twitter, but have since really gotten to groove with it.
- And when my university upgraded to Vista over the summer, even though it failed miserably at first, it seemed to give the operating system a new lease of life.
See, even I learn from my mistakes. A year is a long time to change your tune on something.
So it's fair to say that the Generation Y, even though we are all a year older, means the older workforce in positions of power at the moment, are a year closer to retirement and/or the sweet release of untimely death. With this, my generation have been seen as ever so slightly more important this year, and so we should be.
Leave your thoughts; has it been a good year for you?