electronrun.com

My last blog post here was back in April. In the meantime, I have never stopped being interested in tech, however among all the amazing devices and news coming out in recent months it is quite disappointing that I am urged to write again by things that annoy me locally in Greece.

I admit that without Internet life for many of us would be unbearable. The Internet is like a big bridge between technologically developed, lagging and backwards places. Well, where I live I would say belongs to the “lagging” category. It is the kind of place where you have access to new things product-wise because the market develops and older stuff is not produced any more, but tech innovation does not exist. So here is my complain list with things that annoy me in Greece most, in both personal and business tech activities:

• Fax. You would not believe how many times people request a fax in business activities here. They even send me building plans by fax! Can you believe that? Seeing it strictly from the good business contact point of view you can not turn down anything, but how effective is at the end of the day? I have found myself requesting an email address many many times. Things improve (very) slowly because a lot of people over here believe these are things for the younger generation (ie. people fresh out of the university, below 30, or something like that…) but the truth is emails are an old technology that is now complemented by messengers, social media, etc., etc…
• Low or bad email use. When you send a company an email message you logically expect an answer within 24 hours. Right? Wrong! At least in Greece. Unanswered emails are incredibly common. And what I find even worse is the state’s services. A project goes ahead to design a site, with contact details and everything. But this is usually the front window behind which a lot of PC-clueless people are hiding. Expect good email communication only from people working for the larger companies or a few small companies owned by people that care about technology and its virtues.
• Analogue, 4:3, standard definition TV. Some countries have are already switched completely to digital (the US and Holland being notable examples) months or years ago. So what happens here? You can watch HD via YouTube but no such luck with TV programs. ERT, the national broadcasting organisation is emitting in three only spots, three channels in glorious digital, MPEG2, SD, 4:3 signal for testing purposes. And how long do these tests last? Apparently for years, without concrete benefits for the tax payer. The result? Now MPEG2 is obsolete and private stations have got together in a consortium called Digea that will be based on MPEG4 but again no HD! The general message the public gets is that if you have an HDTV, try to enjoy it with Blu-ray discs because when Full HD arrives here all of the developed world will be already having 4k…
• Analogue cinema. The arrival of a decent cinema where I live was a major event. The experience is not bad, but we all know that the future is…… (hmmmmmmmmmm) digital. Where am I going to watch Avatar in 3D? There is only two places in Greece, I am going to choose the one that is only 200km away from where I live…
• Public sector. The case of email and punctuality mentioned earlier is only the tip of the iceberg. It is like a rowing boat full of people that have never done sport in their life. Amazingly, the people that know how to use a PC and the Internet mostly waste all bandwidth on online backgammon or Facebook! And we are all happy with tears in our eyes to pay them to do so, while we wait in a queue instead of spending valuable time at our main work activity. To summarise, here is the translation to the image appearing with this post: “the server is down and all work has to be done by hand”…