A sign the "iAge" is over

I snapped this shot earlier this week.

I was at Cannonsgate, a new development along Bogue Sound on North Carolina's Crystal Coast.

I prefer to call the area the Southern Outer Banks which is a popular name if you measure it by the number of "SOBX" license plates on the pickup trucks that are so popular in the area.

When I snapped the picture of the Bogue Sound sunset, the only thing moving was the Jumping Mullet. I was actually hoping for a boat to come along so the lines on the sunset would not be so perfect.

No boat showed up, so the sunset looked like a huge "i" sinking into the sound. I worked at Apple Computer during the beginning of the iAge when the iMac was introduced, so I feel like I was around at the beginning of the iAge.

The first part of the iAge happened to be computers that you could buy in different colors. Apple long ago abandoned that thought since retailers got pretty irritated over having to stock different colors of computers.

Another part of the iAge as presented by Apple was the Internet. The iMac was easy to hook to the Internet through an Ethernet connection to a cable modem. It an entry level computer that also came with no way to back up your data onto floppies. Apple quickly gave that up also and started shipping computers with drives that would burn CDs.

Still the theory was that the iMac was your gateway to the Internet. Exploring the Internet was an individual thing back in those days.

I think there has been a fundamental shift. We now explore the Internet not so much individually but as a connected family. We share links through spots like del.icio.us. Some of us are even on Facebook, and there appears to be no shortage of blogs.

The iPod may still be a wonderful commercial success. There are plenty of folks whose obsession with their cell phone makes you think they only care about themselves.

Still the "iAge" is in retreat. I am hoping the "weAge" will be just as much if not more fun.

I find exploring the world with the help of friends a lot more fun than doing it on my own.