Looking Back

Presently, I'm in a photo gather, picture shop, and order frenzy; all to prepare for next weekend, when I'll be in a cropping and scrapping frenzy. 

While perusing my go-to online photo print website, I find myself thinking back to the days when just owning a digital camera was considered the hottest thing.  The buzz was how technology was so advanced they now offered a whopping FOUR mega-pixels,  and no one had quite figured out how to print them.

We were on the phone (a land line) talking to friends who had already purchased a digital camera.  Seriously, this was so new even Consumer Reports was still figuring them out.  And my question was, where do you print them?

Our friends recommended one site, and it is a very good possibility that, at the time, it was the only online site that printed digital pictures. 

There was the possibility that your local pharmacy chain store, or Kinko's (which isn't Kinko's anymore) would have a stand alone print station, which cost an arm and a leg to print one 4x6.  Oh wait, they were still printing 3.5 x 5 at the time, 4x6 was considered a luxury.

These days, the hottest thing is to see how thin a digital camera can become, while keeping the screen large.  At least 12 mega-pixels is expected.  And, kids don't understand what is wrong with a film camera, "but I can't see the picture".

Digital cameras began to make headway at the beginning of the 21st century.  A decade later, and we don't recognize ourselves. 

Do you remember the size of the phones, land line or digital?  Can you still hear the dial tone when we connected to the Internet .  I used to work from home with dial up, the thought of it makes me want to beat my head against the desk, it was so slow.  Shopping online meant looking through the catalog first, and then entering your order on the company's website.

What do you remember from 10 years ago?  What has changed?  What couldn't you live without, and vice versa?