The best technology is transparent: so good you can forget you are using technology at all. When you use a pencil or a post-it note or a telephone, are you thinking “This is neat technology?” or are you just getting on with drawing or calling a friend? We only tend to think of things as technology when the technology forms a barrier and we have to think how to get around or remove the barrier. That’s why computers are often seen as “technology”: because they get in the way of us doing what we want to do. This article celebrates those software applications that disappear into the background when I am using them and let me get on with writing, or finding information, or doing whatever it is I want to do.
Enthusiasts of the Apple Mac often say this is why they like that platform. I am not a Mac user, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate when software gets out of the way and lets me do my job.
Apart from being forgettable, what else do these applications have in common, which gets them into my top ten?
They have to do something I need. They need a purpose. Otherwise, why would I want to use them in the first place? They have to make my life better, or more profitable, or sometimes just more fun.
They have to be good value for money. My top ten includes free software, and software you have to pay for, but all of it costs less than its value to me. But more importantly, transparent software saves you time, so it saves you money.
Finally, they have to be free in use from those irritating little foibles which remind you when you are using them that this is “technology”. The things that stop you completing the task in hand and either make you wait or go and find out how to do something that should be intuitive. Are there really ten applications that can live up to this? Here’s my list in reverse order
10. Audacity audio editor
9. Drupal content management system
8. Xnview
7. AVG Anti Virus Free
6. Filezilla
5. Microsoft Office Word 2003
4. CoffeeCup HTML editor 2008
3. Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
2. Firefox
1. Google search engine
Not sure why I have chosen these applications? In later articles in this series, I shall consider each application in turn, and identify some of the software applications that didn’t make it and why.