Tag Archives: cellular telephone

What do I use my iPhone for, really?

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There is so much buzz and hype surrounding the iPhone that it is rare for me to hear specifics about how useful it is in day to day tasks for other people.

Here is a list of the main features I use on my iPhone:

– a cell phone (duh)
– calendar (this is absolutely essential)
– password manager
– Internet browser
– camera
– note taking
– financial manager
– social network stuff like Twitter and Facebook
– keeping up to date via mobile version of Google Reader.

Not terribly exciting or innovative stuff, I know. But these features have become essential to me every day. Note that using the device as an iPod isn’t mentioned. I like having iPod capabilities but it turns out that I don’t use them that often.

Ways we save money

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I wish I could say we are models of economy and money management but we most certainly are not. Even so I think there are some things we do to save money that are noteworthy. Here is a list of some of those things. If you have some good ideas for saving money to share, please add a comment.

– Michele cuts everyone’s hair (she is very good at it even though she hates doing it!)
– I have started to take the train to work instead of driving
– We get a lot of our groceries from Aldi
– We save a bit of money on postage by paying almost all bills online
– We shop at Goodwill especially for clothes for the kids but also for me
– We pay attention to special deals that we read about on the Internet (e.g. Craigslist)
– Michele subscribes to email from Freecycle and we’ve managed to get quite a few things that way including a dryer, couch, and even a popup camper
– Michele always has an eye for closeout bargains at stores we shop at such as Target
– Michele is very talented when it comes to making things and many times that is how we come up with presents for birthdays and such for family and friends
– We decided long ago to get rid of our land line telephone service and use our cell phone service exclusively
– Within our family there are many children at different stages of growth and so we frequently benefit from hand-me-downs from others
– I absolutely despise doing it but I iron all of my clothes that need it rather than spend money at the dry cleaners
– We are trying to limit the number of times we eat out at a restaurant (mainly by not eating fast food takeout from places like McDonald’s)
– Michele enjoys going to garage sales when she has a chance
– We heavily rely upon local libraries for books and movies
– When feasible we buy things in bulk from Costco or Sam’s Club
– IKEA is one of our favorite stores and we always check their “as is” section and get needed furniture for hundreds of dollars less than regular prices
– We rarely go to see movies in the theater
– I make use of Gasbuddy and other similar services to find the cheapest gas possible
– We make heavy use of the option provided by my employer for a flexible spending account (FSA) for pre tax savings on medical expenses

Last but not least, we simply don’t go anywhere if money is tight so that we won’t be tempted to spend money that we don’t have.

Some things old, some things new

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I’ve been thinking for a while now about writing down some of the things I knew or experienced when I was younger in comparison to what my kids experience or will experience.

Here is what I could think of (there are lots more that could be added):

Kiwi fruit — I can remember when we had never seen or heard of kiwi fruit. Sometime in the 1970s I remember my mother ordered a box of kiwi fruit, probably from California. It was somewhat of an “event” to open the box and have a taste of this new kind of fruit. My kids have never known a time without this delicious and healthy fruit.

Gas costing less than $1 a gallon — Yes, I can remember when we thought it was outrageous when gas prices rose above $1 per gallon. Those were the days. Recently gas prices have hovered around the $3 range, and higher.

Doors left unlocked — Throughout the entire time I was growing up, my parents never locked the doors to our house, at least to my knowledge. This included times when we went somewhere on a trip and were gone for days. We thought nothing of it. The same was true of car doors. Oftentimes, we left the keys in the car AND the doors unlocked. I wouldn’t dream of doing such things nowadays. ‘Course a lot of that had to do with the area where we grew up, which was in a small, rural farming community. Even so, I know that those of my family who still live there definitely do not practice leaving their doors unlocked any more.

TV — Except for a one brief section of time (funny enough, this was during the Watergate hearings–I remember that because I thought, how boring can TV get?!), we were raised without a TV. My children take TV for granted. Our equivalent, as I think I’ve mentioned before, was Super 8 mm movies rented from nearby public libraries.

Small electronics and gadgets — My father was a traveling salesman and he had a lot of office-type stuff in a room in the basement of our house. One of the things he had was a portable calculator with a neat green LED display. I thought that was incredibly cool, that you could use a calculator without it having to be plugged in! The thing was probably at least eight inches long and four or five inches wide, and perhaps an inch and a half thick at least. But it was portable! Hi tech. Then there was an automated answering machine. The unit was huge, I recall. Again, though, we thought we were pretty hi tech. All of this pales in comparison to all of the electronic gadgets we use these days. There was no such thing as cell phones, VCRs, DVDs, or CDs, either.

Music players — My parents had a pretty large collection of records, as well as 8 track tapes. It’s highly unlikely that my kids will ever see one of these things.

Contact lenses — When I was little, noone had ever heard of or seen contact lenses. If your eyesight was poor, you wore glasses or went without and squinted a lot.

Personal computers — Personal computers just didn’t exist until the early to mid 1980s. I can well recall the first time I ever saw one, an Apple Macintosh II. I also remember the excitement of seeing the first personal computer with a GUI and a mouse, which was also an Apple Mac. My, how things have changed in this area!

Cell phones — The only thing approaching a cell phone that we ever had when I was growing up was a CB radio. Like 8 track tapes and records, I doubt my kids will ever know what CB radios are, although I know they are still used in places.

Pet rocks and mood rings — Need I say more?

“Big box” stores — I grew up in the pre-”big box” store era. There was no such thing as Wal-Mart, let alone Super Wal-Mart. Meijers wasn’t even dreamt of, let alone other types of big box retailers popular these days, like Borders, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and the like. All of our groceries were bought at small, local, regular grocery stores. When we needed tools or stuff like that, we went to the local hardware stores (there were two of them in our little town). The dizzying array of choices for things to buy; the one-stop-shopping places that enable you to get everything from groceries to clothes to toys, all under one roof; these things didn’t exist.

Microwave ovens — We managed to live for years without a microwave, believe it or not ;-) The day my father brought home a microwave oven as a gift for my mother was a memorable one. I think he got it for her on Valentine’s Day. If so, that was the only time I ever remember him giving my mother a present on Valentine’s Day.

Sears Tower — I remember a day when the Sears Tower didn’t exist.

Seat belts and child safety seats — As a family, we traveled many thousands of miles by car when I was growing up.  Nine people in a station wagon.  And we didn’t use seat belts, nor did we have anything like the child safety seats that are so prevalent these days.  Angels must have been pretty busy watching over us!  I find it hard to imagine driving around these days, with my own four kids, and not using seat belts and safety seats.

My del.icio.us bookmarks for May 15th through May 31st

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These are my links for May 15th through May 31st:

Another perspective on haves and have nots

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A lot has been written in other blogs, in conference reports, in articles and elsewhere about the growing technology gap between the “haves” and the “have nots.”  It definitely exists; what is debatable is how rapidly the gap is increasing.  I was interested to note on a TV monitor in my company’s cafeteria a brief report about a recent Pew study that estimated that 15% of the U.S. population has neither a cell phone nor a computer, and that prompted me to write this entry.

I am a pretty tech-savvy person.  I have probably wasted more time and money on techie things than is healthy for me (although, I would argue, the time and money weren’t all wasted).  I have had high speed Internet connectivity at home since 2001 and used dial up connectivity for at least ten years before that.  I have used a cell phone since the early 90s.  My work has centered on networked connectivity for at least that long, and I use a computer on average about eight hours a day and probably longer, not just at work but at home as well.  I haven’t had a print newspaper subscription since the early 90s, relying instead on the Internet to deliver the news and information I needed.

In spite of my techie orientation and experience, I, too, experience this technology gap at times.  For instance, when I first heard about Twitter from Steven Cohen several weeks ago, I was intrigued and signed up for the service just to dabble with it and understand what it can do.  But it really didn’t “click” with me much; I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was with it and why so many people were so enthusiastic about it.  That is, until I bought a Blackberry along with its QWERTY keyboard and constant wireless connectivity.  I used my Blackberry to post to Twitter quite a bit to report to friends and family about the trip to Mayo Clinic with my wife.  Twitter didn’t make much sense to me until I had the right equipment, something that I had at hand at all times, which I could pull out and quickly type in a brief statement here and there.  This may seem a minor example of a technological gap, and it is.  But my point is that even among the technorati, so much of what is gushed over and around which enthusiastic user communities are founded, is based on access to equipment (hardware, but software as well) that relatively few people, even today, can afford, or can use, e.g. because of lack of service, low bandwidth, or whatever.  The Pew report mentioned above highlights this reality.

I’m lucky.  I can usually afford technology.  I live in a high population area with a ton of service options that provide high performance and relatively low cost.  When we lived in rural east central Indiana for three years, however, it was a far different story.  I couldn’t get good cell reception so I stopped using a cell phone, for instance.  And although we had high speed cable Internet at home, it was pricey.  I mentioned that I now have a Blackberry.  I wouldn’t be able to afford that at all if it weren’t for the fact that I work for a large company and as a side benefit am able to receive significant discounts on cell phones and services.  Without those discounts, I would not have a Blackberry at all.

Another point about the “haves” vs. “have nots” when it comes to technology, is that not everything shiny and new is highly adoptable.  Take RSS vs. email as an example.  This blog was set up to mainly communicate with family and friends, and I estimate that only a very small percentage of that target audience a.) knows what on earth RSS is, and b.) cares to make use of it in any way.  Instead, anecdotal evidence has shown me that it is far more likely that family and friends will simply go to this website to check to see if I have written anything new.  A large portion of my target audience doesn’t even remember to do that.  By way of contrast, when I communicate with my target audience via email, it’s an entirely different story.  I am able to regularly communicate with family and friends via email, and that is much more accessible and usable to them, than RSS will likely ever be.  Another example of a technology gap is with the use of instant messaging services.  I love using IM and now I am logged on to at least four different services almost every day.  In spite of that, only a very tiny fraction of family and friends regularly uses IM, preferring email instead.  I’d love to use IM more regularly to keep in more constant communication with them, but hardly any of them uses it.

I’m certain that I haven’t made any revelatory points here but this issue is something I have been mulling over for a while.  Call it the frustration of a technogeek when the people with whom he most wants to communicate don’t use the tools he loves to use for that purpose :-)   Let’s not even talk about stuff like MySpace or even Second Life, which are really foreign planets.

iPhone: iWant1

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Many people have said that handheld computing is going to be huge; that cell phones or so-called “smart” phones will become increasingly powerful and feature-rich. But I have been much less than impressed with what I have seen thus far. That is, until I read about the iPhone introduced earlier this week by Apple. I know, I know, dismiss me as yet another delusional-Apple-can-do-know-wrong sycophant. This device, at least on first impressions, fits almost exactly with what I have wanted to see in terms of possibilities for “smart” phones. More than that, it pushes the boundaries of possibility for what this kind of device can do and how it can do it.

I have a Motorola cell phone and I used Cingular as my carrier. Aside from using it as a phone, the features that I use the most heavily include SMS to query Google for information that I need while travelling or going somewhere to shop, eat, etc. Thanks to Google, who designed a nifty Java-based email client that I think makes the best of a difficult situation, I also use my cell phone to check my email. I do not use my phone to compose or send emails, though, because I just find it almost useless to type using the standard cellphone keys. I may send my wife a photo that I took using the built-in camera, but that is a feature that is very rarely used (as is the video capability).

So what would I like to have? Well, basically a full-featured mini-computer in my hand. One that I can use to do a variety of things, and do them easily and without hassle. On paper, iPhone fits the bill. I am amazed by the simplicity of the packaging, and what I can see of how it is shaped, how it fits into the hand, etc. Of course I am also amazed by its many interesting features. I especially like the 3.5″ screen. So yes, iPhone: iWant1. I see some negatives, though. First, to me the price point puts it beyond my reach. Second, I think the visual keyboard looks difficult to use for easy, efficient typing. Third, I am already a Cingular customer and I know how slow the connection speed is with that carrier. Of all of the negatives, I think the biggest one is the visual keyboard, because if I can’t type easily and quickly with minimal need for corrections, then the device is useless for composing email, and I really, really, rely upon that capability. David Pogue of the New York Times mentions this in his review, and states something about those who use Blackberry might want to stick with them. But frankly, Blackberry’s thumb keys don’t interest me at all, either.

Will I or should I plan to some day buy an iPhone? I will just have to W8tNC.

Some new feature goodies

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Lots of nice improvements have been made recently in web-related software and services that I regularly use. Here is a list of the ones I can think of that are worth mentioning:

  • coComment: This service just keeps getting better. Now it allows me to track conversations via webpages or comments on individual postings. Cool! Even better is the fact that I can be notified when someone has commented on a webpage or posting or comment by seeing the coComment icon in my webbrowser change color. When there has been some activity on something that I have tracked in coComment, the blue coComment icon in my web browser’s status bar adds a red-bordered envelope. Another cool feature is that if I navigate to a webpage that anyone else is tracking via coComment, the coComment icon turns orange to let me know that others are discussing it. All in all, very nice!
  • Meebo: I have been using Meebo for a little over a month now and have found it to work quite well for the IM accounts I use, including Google Talk, AOL, and Yahoo! Messenger. A few days ago they really hit the ball out of the ballpark, in my opinion, when they announced a new service called Meebome. Basically this allows me to embed a live chat service in any webpage I want. I quickly put one here in my blog and I might add it to a few other places. With this service in place, I can be logged into Meebo and automatically see if/when someone visits FML! Noone has initiated a chat with me yet but it is really interesting to see in real time the number of people who visit the site.
  • Bloglines: Like coComment, this service, too, just keeps improving. The latest improvement allows users to use the letter ‘o’ to open up the original blog post when viewing it in Bloglines. The lack of this feature (which has been present in Google Reader from day one) has been the only major gripe I’ve had with the service ’til now.
  • Google Maps: I have always liked this service and again, it just keeps getting better! The latest improvements include the ability for me to use the service from my cell phone. Very, very nice. I’ve tried it out and it works very well. The only problem is that as one would expect, it takes up a lot of bytes and I will have to watch this carefully because of service limitations in terms of the size of data transfers with my cell phone service. Another improvement in the service is that I can now store favorite locations.
  • Comcast Digital Voice: This VOIP service from our cable TV and Internet provider is something we’ve thought about in the past but didn’t try because we didn’t think we needed a dedicated home telephone. We thought we could just rely on our cell phone service instead. After trying this for a few weeks, though, we concluded that it would be good to have a regular telephone service. We chose Comcast Digital Voice because it seemed to meet our needs quite well and we get a discount because we are already have other Comcast services. We’ve only had it in place for a few days but it seems to work great!

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Some things I’m thankful for

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On my way to work this morning, I thought about things to be thankful for. Here are some that came to mind (not in any order):

  • warm clothes, e.g. scarves, Gore-Tex gloves, down jackets, long underwear
  • train conductors
  • bus drivers
  • public transportation
  • good health
  • a job
  • instant messaging (so I can keep in touch with my wife throughout the day)
  • email anywhere, including on my cell phone
  • Michele, my wife
  • my children
  • a place to live
  • the many choices for nearby shopping
  • above all, that I know God’s love and faithfulness

Adventure to Carmel

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We just got back from our trip to the neurologist in Carmel (a northern suburb of Indianapolis). It was quite an “adventure.” We left the house in plenty of time but with an almost empty tank of gas and no real clue as to the exact location of the doctor’s office. The appointment was scheduled for 10a but we had arranged to meet my mother and Britta, my eldest niece, between 9:30a and 9:45a so that they could take the kids to a park while we were at the doctor’s office.

We got to the general vicinity in plenty of time but for the life of us could not locate the doctor’s office. We spent 40 minutes driving around looking for it and tried several times to reach the office by cell phone. There was a constant busy signal so we couldn’t get through. This whole time, the van was driving on fumes and I was anxious that we would be stuck by the side of the road somewhere. Plus, we were worried about my mother and Britta waiting for us, wondering where we were.

Sigh. Such is our life. We were quite stressed out by the time we were found by Britta, who guided us to the right location. We were told by the attendant that since we were a half hour late for our appointment, the doctor could only see Michele for a short time.

In spite of apprehension about going to all this trouble for nothing, we were pleased with the doctor’s visit. She seems to be genuinely concerned about Michele’s condition and asked lots of questions and did a quick examination.

One mystery that she cleared up for us related to our understanding from Michele’s regular doctor’s receptionist that the MRI showed nothing. Fact is, it confirmed what the CT scan showed, which was described as a dark or obscure area in Michele’s brain. I have no idea why we were told that the MRI showed nothing. The neurologist believes it is a cyst or dead area that Michele may have had since birth or at least, for a long time. She doesn’t feel it is dangerous. She didn’t rule out the possibility that it may be growing and may play a part, but she thinks it’s doubtful. It is located in the basal ganglia on the right side of Michele’s brain. She will monitor it over time.

The neurologist ordered some more blood tests and also scheduled a 48-hour in hospital test that is basically an EEG given over a long period of time, including during her sleep. She also scheduled Michele to be seen by a neuropsychologist since Michele mentioned some memory problems as one of the symptoms she’s experiencing. This person will help determine which area of the brain might be affected.

The upshot is that we do not have any significant answers yet, but we weren’t expecting to have any. The doctor told us that Michele’s symptoms could be caused by a wide variety of things, even something as weird as a particular kind of virus or an undiagnosed strep infection. We just have to wait and see what these further tests will tell us.

After the doctor visit, we met up again with my mother and Britta and went to a nearby park to have a picnic lunch. It was in a beautiful location overlooking a little stream in a wooded area. Britta is getting ready for her upcoming wedding in about a month. It was great to see them.