Poll: In terms of new trends/technology, are you an early adopter?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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Apr 17, 2017

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "In terms of new trends/technology, are you an early adopter?".

This poll was originally submitted by maria sgourou. View the poll results »



 
Muriel Vasconcellos
Muriel Vasconcellos  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:17
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
"Be not the first ... Apr 17, 2017

... by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside" --Alexander Pope

My grandmother always used to say this. I try to be in the middle, but I'm more likely to be behind than in the front.


 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 11:17
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
It depends... Apr 17, 2017

In general, I’m not an early adopter at all, but let’s say that it all depends on the new technology! In reality, if it proves to be a real and immediate advantage I might be in the early majority category, but most of the time I’ll be a proud laggard…

 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 12:17
Spanish to English
+ ...
It depends on… Apr 17, 2017

I suppose it really depends on what I hear about it from trusted colleagues or friends. And even when they give glowing positive assessments, I will only "adopt" a new technology item (or gimmick) if I think it's really going to help me. The learning curve involved in finding out how to use new things is an important consideration for me. Price is also an issue.

 
Platon Danilov
Platon Danilov  Identity Verified
Ukraine
Local time: 13:17
English to Russian
+ ...
No Apr 17, 2017

I'd better wait for the early adopters to test beta version and then use it when the bugs are fixed and if it really helpful for me.

 
Yetta Jensen Bogarde
Yetta Jensen Bogarde  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 12:17
Member (2012)
English to Danish
+ ...
Yes Apr 17, 2017

but only if I find it useful for my situation,
besides, since I am not constantly on the outlook for new technologies, they may be old hat for some other people, by the time I discover them.


 
José Henrique Lamensdorf
José Henrique Lamensdorf  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 08:17
English to Portuguese
+ ...
In memoriam
It depends on my needs Apr 17, 2017

Among the people I know, I was the first adopter of, among others...

Laser Printer - In late 1989 I bought an Apple LaserWriter II NT. It cost me US$ 7K, all costs included for delivery in Brazil. It took me a couple of months to sort out the connections and solder a cable that would connect it to a PC via serial port. As I was the only one to have it, early demand was so high, that it paid for itself in three months after tha
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Among the people I know, I was the first adopter of, among others...

Laser Printer - In late 1989 I bought an Apple LaserWriter II NT. It cost me US$ 7K, all costs included for delivery in Brazil. It took me a couple of months to sort out the connections and solder a cable that would connect it to a PC via serial port. As I was the only one to have it, early demand was so high, that it paid for itself in three months after that.

SprinRite - In the days of the PC-XT, a 40 MB (sic!) hard drive cost US$ 400. I saw it in a store in the US, bought it, and it rescued two such drives on their way to trash. Ever since, I use it to recover hard drives whenever they fail.

LS-120 SuperDisk - A 3½" floppy drive and disks system that stored 120 MB per disk, and normally handled standard 360 KB ans 1,2 MB floppies too. I used it for backups until CD-R came up.

OCR - Once I bought a ScanPort SCSI scanner and board. It came bundled with OminPage (v8?), and ever since I've been using OCR. Unfortunately, the latest driver for that scanner was for Windows 98. It is still much better and faster than any of those built in multifunctional printers nowadays.

On the other extreme, I was one of the latest adopters of...

Windows XP - I was scared at the idea of most of my software not working there. Actually it was the other way around. I had lots of files using the superb Astound Presentation. It had tons of bugs, which only power users knew how to circumvent, yet its developers were unable to solve, so they buried it, and the company shifted its scope. Surprisingly, all those bugs vanished like magic, after the shift from Win 98SE to Win XP. Had it survived, PowerPoint nowadays would be as popular as MS Publisher.

Windows beyond XP - I tried Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10 in other family members' computers, and hated each one of them. I still use Windows XP, in the hope MS will eventually develop something at least as good as XP. As some programs now refuse to run under Windows 10, I have it installed on a SSD, and I can boot from it, however everything there becomes much slower and inefficient.

CAT tools - It took me a couple of years, under the insistence of colleagues, to give in plunge into WordFast Classic, my first CAT tool. I tried WordFast Pro for a while, didn't like it. I've used MemoQ and Passolo with client-provided portable licenses. Yet, I still stick to WFC in spite of its user-unfriendly $19.99 shareware-like interface, and a price tag much higher than that.

MS Word - On popular demand, I'm using Word 2007. IMHO it's worse than 2003, which was worse than 97. Nevertheless, it is (still?) compliant to the market standard. As I started early, in the mid-1980s, I've been through many word processors. MS Word was always, by far, the #1 worst among them in all aspects. Nevertheless, marketing clout made it the one and only market standard.

Firefox/Thunderbird and Chrome - I have them, use them when needed, but my favorite browser/e-mail client is Sea Monkey... the current name for the pioneer Netscape.
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Michael Harris
Michael Harris  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 12:17
Member (2006)
German to English
Depends Apr 17, 2017

on if I have any benefit of it and if I have the money at the time.
If this has something to do with Microsoft, then I wait at least 2 years until it sort of works properly and then I may buy it.


 
Ventnai
Ventnai  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 12:17
German to English
+ ...
If I had money Apr 17, 2017

If I had money, I might be, but I prefer things to become standard and bugs to be eliminated first.

 
Christine Andersen
Christine Andersen  Identity Verified
Denmark
Local time: 12:17
Member (2003)
Danish to English
+ ...
No Apr 17, 2017

My motto is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it!'
I was brought up by a mother who regularly muttered 'Huh. I wouldn't have invented the wheel!' She hated telephones, and I still struggle to use a mobile. Or avoid it.

I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into using an early version of Déja Vu, which seized up with a whole book just before deadline... Luckily I was still working in house, and the IT man came and saved me. Then he persuaded the boss to try Trados, which I also h
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My motto is 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it!'
I was brought up by a mother who regularly muttered 'Huh. I wouldn't have invented the wheel!' She hated telephones, and I still struggle to use a mobile. Or avoid it.

I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into using an early version of Déja Vu, which seized up with a whole book just before deadline... Luckily I was still working in house, and the IT man came and saved me. Then he persuaded the boss to try Trados, which I also hated, but stuck with. After a faulty dongle was replaced, and it actually functioned, I have come to like it, many versions later.

I don't have gadgets in my kitchen. I enjoy cooking, but if I can't do it with one of my two favourite knives, the wooden spoon or the spatula, then I don't need to do it. (OK, I have got a potato peeler, a cheese grater and a hand whisk, but that really is about it!)

All this confirms my approach. If I can get technology to work and benefit from it, OK. I was an XP fan too... but I manage with Windows 10. I definitely wait until others have sorted the bugs. There are some people who enjoy the challenge, or at least pretend they do, and good luck to them!
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Jack Doughty
Jack Doughty  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:17
Russian to English
+ ...
In memoriam
Re MSWord Apr 17, 2017

I agree with José in not liking Word 2007 or later. I still have Word 2000 on a CD from way back before MS & everyone else started limiting the number of times you can use your own software, so I still use it. It works with Windows 7, and I have found it works with Windows 8.1 too, although MS tells you it won't. But Windows 10 won't accept it. (I only have Windows 10 on a tablet I don't use very often). You can get a "Classic View" add-on for Word 2007 which goes some way to making it more lik... See more
I agree with José in not liking Word 2007 or later. I still have Word 2000 on a CD from way back before MS & everyone else started limiting the number of times you can use your own software, so I still use it. It works with Windows 7, and I have found it works with Windows 8.1 too, although MS tells you it won't. But Windows 10 won't accept it. (I only have Windows 10 on a tablet I don't use very often). You can get a "Classic View" add-on for Word 2007 which goes some way to making it more like Word 2003, but I get much closer to it by using Kingsoft WPS (a freebie), which until not long ago had a Classic Interface that does the job very well. You can save files as .doc or docx, and I find it easier for converting docx. to doc than the MS add-on for the purpose. The current Kingsoft WPS does not have it, but I have the .exe file from 2013 which does, so if anyone wants it, email me and I'll send it to you.

[Edited at 2017-04-17 22:28 GMT]
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Muriel Vasconcellos
Muriel Vasconcellos  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 04:17
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
To get more specific Apr 17, 2017

I, too, liked Windows XP a *lot*. I still have a shrink-wrapped copy, never opened. If someone would like to have it, please send me a message.

I was slow to switch from WordPerfect to MS Word. It was much faster, as it was a dedicated word processor and didn't try to be all things to all people. I could type about twice as fast (I'm a trained high-speed touch typist) with fewer mistakes. It had a wonderful feature called Reveal Codes, so you could see where problems were lurking in
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I, too, liked Windows XP a *lot*. I still have a shrink-wrapped copy, never opened. If someone would like to have it, please send me a message.

I was slow to switch from WordPerfect to MS Word. It was much faster, as it was a dedicated word processor and didn't try to be all things to all people. I could type about twice as fast (I'm a trained high-speed touch typist) with fewer mistakes. It had a wonderful feature called Reveal Codes, so you could see where problems were lurking in the innards of the system. Just yesterday I was trying to get MS Word to behave and asking myself "Where is Reveal Codes when I need it?" Back in about 1997 companies started on a "mass customization" binge and that slowed everything down for everyone. In my experience, each new version of MS Word has been slower and more maddening than the one before. I've adapted, but I still want my old functionality back.

While still using WordPerfect, I learned to use early versions of desktop publishing and have kept up with the technology.

Before WordPerfect, I had various generations of a Wang word processing systems in my home (1979-1994). In the beginning it was so bulky that it took up most of the room. Got my first PC in 1988 (alongside the Wang) and my first laser printer in 1992.

With OCR, I was an early pioneer. I saw it being used at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio, and ordered a machine direct from the developers in around 1982 for use in the translation service that I then headed. If wasn't easy to love, but if nothing else, it drastically cut the time spent on counting words by hand. We eliminated one position for a person who did nothing else all day long.

Even earlier, I was one of the first full-time paid translators to use machine translation post-editing on a regular basis, back in 1980. I quickly became proficient and wrote (WordPerfect!) macros to speed things up.

Now will someone show me how to use that ridiculous keyboard on my new smartphone?

[Edited at 2017-04-17 23:30 GMT]
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Mario Freitas
Mario Freitas  Identity Verified
Brazil
Local time: 08:17
Member (2014)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
I take a bit longer than usual Apr 18, 2017

I had the same terrible experience with Windows 8 as everyone else. I also had similar experiences with other products, not only software, changing to the newest model and regretting a lot.
So, it took me along time to switch to Japanese cars, to use a CAT Tool, to move from Windows 7 to Windows 10, etc. I'll never buy a non-Japanese car ever again, unless it's a Mercedes. I don't think I'll ever work without a CAT anymore. I will surely move to an alternative to Windows, though, but we do
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I had the same terrible experience with Windows 8 as everyone else. I also had similar experiences with other products, not only software, changing to the newest model and regretting a lot.
So, it took me along time to switch to Japanese cars, to use a CAT Tool, to move from Windows 7 to Windows 10, etc. I'll never buy a non-Japanese car ever again, unless it's a Mercedes. I don't think I'll ever work without a CAT anymore. I will surely move to an alternative to Windows, though, but we don't seem to have one, yet (Linux and McIntosh are not feasible choices, sorry).
And I still regret a lot and go back to old versions, like throwing the unfortunate new Win 10 apps (Edge, Groovy whatever, and all the others) in the trash, and going back to the good old Chrome, W. Media Player, etc.
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Emre Demiray
Emre Demiray  Identity Verified
Türkiye
Local time: 14:17
English to Turkish
+ ...
No Apr 18, 2017

I follow technology trends very closely. I know that the likelihood of having problems when using a brand new technology as an early adopter is very very high. There can be so many zero day flaws. So I prefer to wait for the early adopters, read their comments and feedbacks. Also wait for the first updates to be released for that technology, software, device, etc. In testing phase, companies usually can not predict all the user scenarios and often overlook some problems to catch the release date... See more
I follow technology trends very closely. I know that the likelihood of having problems when using a brand new technology as an early adopter is very very high. There can be so many zero day flaws. So I prefer to wait for the early adopters, read their comments and feedbacks. Also wait for the first updates to be released for that technology, software, device, etc. In testing phase, companies usually can not predict all the user scenarios and often overlook some problems to catch the release date.Collapse


 


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Poll: In terms of new trends/technology, are you an early adopter?






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