Technology is like Irish weather sometimes - but on a slightly longer time-scale. Just wait a while and the Irish weather is guaranteed to change. Just wait a while longer and the original weather will come back again. Similarly, just wait a while and technology is sure to change. Just wait a while longer and the original technology just might come right back at ya.
Case in point. We used to have sneakernets. We fabricated them from 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. Need to send information from A to B? No problem : copy it first to a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk, have a "frisbee moment" to some other destination, then copy it off the 5 1/4 inch floppy. I have done this across continents. I have done it across a crowded room. I have done this between two machine sharing the same table.
It has been a while since I last wielded a 5 1/4 floppy. The same goes for its successor in the sneakernet stakes - the mighty 3 1/2 inch floppy. That floppy subsequently given way (in order) to the CD-R sneakernet, the DVD-R* sneakernet and now the USB key sneakernet.
I cannot remember when it happened but I remember thinking that a combination of USB and the Internet had effectively killed the sneakernet for good. Why would you export on a data key when you an easily send it over a wire: USB-to-USB or USB-Internet? It hasn't panned out that way for me. I don't know about you, but I find myself sneaker-netting a lot more these days than I would have envisaged a few years ago.
A lot of my sneaker-netting has to do with the way storage is popping up everywhere from cellphones to digital cameras to picture frames. My digital camera for example, has a USB cable and a CD-ROM of software, but it stores all its data on an SD card. I can read the SD directly using the SD card reader in my latop. Now. Which is more convenient - make a "real" network by running the USB cable provided or use a sneakernet and just use the SD card?
More often than not, I just go with the SD card and skip the USB cable and driver software. I don't think I am alone. I know for sure I am not alone when I say that I have fought frustrating battles with the device drivers that lurk behind most USB cables. If I can avoid device driver hell, I will. If, in doing that, I forsake some cool features, so be it.
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