Project OrielEmbracing Change

I was reminded the other day by a good friend that I’m suppose to be informing you all of the current technology trends, happenings, notable advances, etc. and I fell down on the job. 

Innovations from four years ago seems like eons in internet-time, but let’s take a quick review of some old dogs that are tried and true. I’ve used most of these for many years. These are not fads. They are things tried, and they simply work really, really well.

• Use any browser but Internet Explorer. I go back and forth between Safari and Firefox.
• Get your news off of the web (but don’t surf to a dozen different sites). A Feed Reader and Google News keep me well informed.
• Get a digital camera. Share your photos online with Flickr. Use iPhoto for storing your digital photos on your own computer.
• Use Google for your default web search. Yahoo and MSN are ok, but I get the best results from Google.
• Use Gmail for your personal email. Stop manually sorting messages into folders and embrace searching. I’ll admit it was weird at first, but now folders seem down right archaic. Use Google Desktop if you’re on a PC (Spotlight if you are on a Mac).
• Get a Mac for your next home computer. No really. Get a Mac. Run your PC applications on it if you must, but you’ll be amazed at how easy and pain free computing can be when Microsoft isn’t mucking it up. I promise you’ll ask why you didn’t do it sooner. For the penny pinchers in the crowd, do the research: Mac’s are competitively priced.
• Along the same lines, make your next home computer a laptop and install Wi-Fi at home. You’ll use the portability to bring it in the kitchen (for a recipe you just looked up), or in the living room (to check IMDB while watching a movie), or just to read the latest news in bed.
• Stop driving to BlockBuster. This is really easy to do with TiVo or with a subscription to Netflix.
• Listen to Podcasts. It’s like TV and Radio shows, but delivered over the internet. And there are a lot of channels. Sarah and I regularly watch the nightly ABC World News this way and NPR alone has 620 different podcasts, which sort of makes Satellite TV’s boasts of 300 channels sound a bit like a joke.
• Use Backpack for organizing your life. Do it GTD style.
• Use Highrise for keeping track of your contacts.
• Use Jott for capturing your thoughts on the road.
• Use Google Docs. In a lot of cases, it makes those cute thumb drives totally unnecessary.
• Stop using MapQuest and use Google Maps.
• Use text messaging.
• Use online banking.
• Use PayPal to send money by email.
• Trust Wikipedia. It is an excellent source of quality information. Use your own judgement, but I rarely run across anything that seems incorrect. Cross check if you are concerned.
• Use Amazon for ordering just about anything. Spend $25 to get free shipping.
• This one is a little on the edge of “tried and true”, but I think it’ll prove itself out in time: Get an iPhone. I’ve had mine for a year and depend on it every day in a dozen different ways. They sell now for only $199. I’d buy it again in heartbeat.

What did I miss? What would you change?

Tags: redux

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 6:53 pm. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.