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Go to your special place.
- Dove Chocolate wrapper
I had a grumpy morning, and at lunch my chocolate wrapper said I should "go to my special place." For me that's the forest, and actually I already had. After getting really angry, I went outside and took pictures of frost-covered pine trees.
Wandering around in the snow with my camera was a remarkably soothing exercise. Here in the Northwest, it's been gray and dismal lately, and when that happens, it helps to focus in on the small yet beautiful things. Instead of looking for dramatic landscape shots, I zoomed in on tiny branches, frosty needles and sparkly moss. The pictures aren't exactly great, but that's because I'm not a particularly good photographer. What I was photographing was beautiful in its own way.
On a more nerdy note, I was thinking that this concept actually translates to software too. Big programs like word processing and spreadsheet software have already been around for years. I contend that they have actually getting worse, not better over time.
To me, the only interesting software these days is the small stuff. You realize you have a problem and go to some download site and discover that some intrepid developer has actually solved your problem with a nifty little shareware program.
Big companies seem to have lost sight of the main problems their software was designed to solve. Even with years of "usability enhancements," it is no easier to write a letter in Microsoft Word than it was using Word Star. In fact, some people actually find it more frustrating now, since today's documents might be filled with weird squiggles, extraneous panes, and useless options. But realistically, all you really care about is the words on the page. Who really needs all that extra junk?
The only reason software exists is to solve a problem. It doesn't matter how new it is or what programming language it's written in. When a software product fails to solve the problem, it's time to find something that does. The solution might be smaller and less functional, but small can be beautiful too.
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