What a difference a decade makes

Ten years ago I was working for UPS. I didn't like it but I needed a job and along it came. Whilst there I used to long for the day when I could be my own boss and run my own video production company...

My way out of UPS came in the form on a job advert posted on a website forum. Such things are commonplace nowadays but back then you never really knew if the advert was real or not. The job was for a trainee technician at MultiMedia Direct in London. It looked pretty good. Okay, I wouldn't be working in video production but I would get to build non-linear edit systems and use the latest video editing software. So, I applied by e-mail and managed to get an interview. I got the job and in November 1999 I moved to High Barnet from where I would travel by tube to Islington everyday to work as a Trainee Technician.

Video editing systems back then were tricky things to set up. It wasn't a matter of going to PC World and buying something off the shelf and using Windows Movie Maker. You had a choice of Windows 98 or NT and Adobe Premiere 5 or Ulead Media Studio. Pentium 3 chips had only just been released and 256MB of RAM was a lot. Putting an editing card into a PC wasn't as easy as just sticking it in there. You had to make sure it was the right PCI slot so that it wouldn't be sharing resources with anything else. Then you had to make sure Windows was optimised to run the video editing software. The video and audio being out of sync was a common problem.

Anyway, why I am I rambling on about the good ol' days? Well, we've recently been asked to recommend some small, easy to use camcorders and came across the Flip UltraHD. I'd heard of similar things before but hadn't realised how good they were. HD video recording for less than £200. Okay the quality isn't anywhere near a proper camera but is perfectly acceptable for simple recording and family movies. Editing on computers has moved on so much since then too. Apple Macs and PCs now come with built in editing software and there's no need for an extra capture card.

In ten years we've come a long way. You can evan record and edit on mobile phones on your mobile phone now. I remember the mobile I had when I moved to London. It was huge and text messaging was as sophisticated as it got.

As I sit here dreaming of being someone else's boss and becoming a millionaire I wonder where we'll be in another ten years?