I am endlessly fascinated with all things geeky: friends laugh at me for the frequency of new (and always improved) cell phones that dangle from my hip (no, I don’t have an iPhone—iPod, yes; iPhone no). I’ve been using PDAs since they were unsightly gray things with dim gray screens and dark gray text. I mystify my other middle-aged friends with my fluency in the sort of 'Net-ese that their kids speak as they scratch their heads wondering when the “Google” became a word, much less a verb; and “Wiki” ceased to be a sort of patio furniture made of woven bamboo. ("Oh, 'wiki' not 'wicker,' they will realize eventually, still scratching their heads). I proudly have Vista Ultimate and Office 2007, including my always-open Microsoft Outlook. (I’m not quite cool enough to have a Mac.) I have all but abandoned paper books for the cool Amazon Kindle that has become my constant companion. It currently contains about 10 novels, the last three issues of Time magazine and today’s New York Times.
I am appreciative of the high-tech toys and tools that enable me to create. Music appears effortlessly notated on Sibelius or Finale, where Ellington standards transpose themselves magically to my vocal key with the mere click of a button. I don't even have to say "please." And as for writing...
My first professional writing gig was for a nationally-circulated 120-page monthly (business) magazine. As an associate editor, I was responsible for one-third of the magazine’s editorial content. Sounds more impressive than it actually was. Big title, lots of responsibility, high pressure. Very little money. And typewriters. Anyone remember those? Gigantic IBM Selectrics. They had those little white correction ribbons. Which was a great innovation, if you weren’t typing on a five-layer packet of copy paper. And I don't mean the kind of copy paper that goes into the photocopy machine. It was carbon-coated paper onto which you typed your work. It was a time-intensive and painful experience until you learned to be a very good first draft writer.
Article comments
1 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Excellent Article...
I'm still waiting for the day when we can sync our brains with a computer kinda like The Matrix.
"Whoa,I know Kung-Fu!?"
The we will also have human clones that have nano-technology inside their bodies, thus, the computer will no longer be considered a "Desktop" or "Laptop". More like a "Ribtop" or a "Braintop"
Oh well, here I go rambling on...
2 - Bennett
Wow, very worth reading. Thanks so much!
Bennett
3 - Jamison
I am kind of the opposite; I have worked in the tech field for over 8 years and I pride myself in being so non-techy and not going bonkers when a new technology comes out. Yet, while I am waying this, I am sending a text message on my smartphones QWERTY keyboard, which I used as a GPS with a bluetooth GPS unit, which I use to watch movies and listen to MP3s on, I own 2 laptops, a DELL Axim, wear a bluetooth headset (only when I drive, thank you very much) and have over 60 videos on YouTube because I love to film everything with not only my 7 mega-pizel Sony CyberShot, but also with my Sony HandyCam... and I have a Wii and sometimes turn it on just to surf the net via it's built-in 802.11g connection...
So when I tell people that I am not techy, they don't beleive me...
4 - Barbara Barnett
My husband is manages a technology group for a large firm. He is so non-high tech at home, I call him our family Luddite. I had to goad him into getting his first cell phone. On the other hand, the day I got him his first iPod was his turn toward the dark side. He can't live without the thing and has about 7,000 tracks on it; I also bought him one of those USB turntables and he has been gradually turning our vinyl record collection into an digitally remastered mp3 collection.