vBulletin statistic
You are here: Home / Tech

Why I’ll never get an e-book reader

June 6, 2011 By Katie Barber

I am the very definition of an avid reader. I can lose entire days when I have my nose in a book. One of my favorite topics of conversation with my girlfriends is what books we’re reading. It was only natural then when e-book readers were introduced for those same girlfriends to ask when I was going to get one.

I’m not.

How would I decorate my apartment if not with books?

My aesthetic admiration of bookshelves aside, I can’t bring myself to give up real books. I love everything about books: the colors of the covers, the weight of the pages, the way the binding cracks with repeated readings. There’s an entire sensory experience with books that can’t be replicated with an e-book reader.

Physical books also carry remnants of their past readers. I love borrowing books from friends and seeing which pages they’ve dog-eared and which sentences they’ve underlined. There’s delicious fun in opening a book purchased from a used bookstore and discovering a bookmark left behind from its previous owner. Used books make me weak in the knees.

I can see certain instances in which an e-book reader would be beneficial, most notably when reading an excessively thick book. I nearly dislocated my shoulder toting Anna Karenina around with me last fall, and I’m currently reading Infinite Jest which is so heavy that I can really only comfortably read it when it’s flat in front of me. In my opinion, though, those mild discomforts are outweighed by the pleasure I get from turning actual pages.

It might also come in handy if you were traveling extensively, allowing you to carry multiple titles with little weight. If I had done carried an e-book reader, though, on some of my long trips, I would have missed out on discovering new titles through book exchanges in hostels and used bookstores abroad. Sometimes when traveling I will bring along extra books that I have already read just for that purpose. You never know what you’re going to find. I traded a pulpy legal thriller for Special Topics in Calamity Physics in a used bookstore in Chiang Mai, and it turned out to be one of my favorite books I’ve ever read.

I hate to think of all the books I would have missed out on if I kept out of used bookstores, and there’s simply no way to replicate that feeling of discovery on an e-book reader.

Filed Under: MISC, Opinion, Tech

Just for a week

March 29, 2011 By Gen X Mom

by brendahallowes on FlickrThe snow is melting. Spring is in the air. Yet here I am, on my computer. Working, networking, blogging, writing – doing what so many people are doing right at this very moment.

I love it. I love technology. I love blogging. I love being able to hop on the computer and find something I need to know in an instant. I love networking with people across the country. I love having a tiny little device in my pocket at all times to be able to reach my kids. I love being connected.

But this past weekend as I watched my son texting, my husband on his laptop, my daughter with her iPod, and myself on Twitter,  I wished the world were what it was just fifteen years ago … 1995. Back in 1995 I worked for an Internet company. Not many people had the ability to connect in their houses, but I did.  I had the internet for when I needed it. But that was all. When I needed it. I used it to connect to work and have to admit thought it was really awesome being able to view videos and see things that were unimaginable just years before. It was fun. But that was all it was.

It was supplemental. Now it is required. It was rare. Now it is everywhere. At work, at home, in our cars, on airplanes, in coffee shops, in our pockets. We can’t live without it. We are now a world that cannot go without a constant connection to the entire rest of the world.

I have no problem admitting I am someone who needs my internet access. I need that ability. I mean, what would I do if I couldn’t in an instant look up what temperature to cook a roast? There was a time when you may have to call a neighbor. What would I do during that heated discussion about what year the last tsunami really was – get out an encyclopedia - a what?

However, I also think it would be nice and basically somewhat relieving to go back to 1995 for just a week – especially with my kids the ages they are now. To have them go back to that day with absolutely no knowledge of today. To have them live in a world where Facebook or texting never was. Where they could live life without the digital world nearby. Where they could concentrate fully on what is going on around them, family, and the simple life … not the little electronic device in their pocket. Where there is no such thing as the Internet or smartphones. Where they could appreciate what real life is. Where I too could honestly focus completely on life, real life.

How about you?  Would you go back for a week?

Visit Gen X Mom’s blog here.

Filed Under: Opinion, Parenting, Tech

Password(s)

December 20, 2010 By Deborah Batterman

I get a call the other day, automated, VISA randomly checking up on possibly suspicious credit card activity. I call back, a little leery, phishing expeditions rampant these days.  After pressing one touchtone key after another, I finally get a live voice, a sweet woman who tells me she can’t get into my account without my password.  Whichever one I came up with was the wrong one. Not to worry, she said. She’ll have someone call me. A security thing.

A few minutes pass. No call. Of course now I’m worried, at the same a little glad I forgot my password.  I go online, Google the number I called, mildly reassured that it really is from VISA.  To ratchet up the reassurance I call the customer support number on my credit card. Yes, the representative tells me, it was a legitimate call.  He asks me for my password. Again it escapes me, not being one I use regularly, and it’s nowhere in that secret place where I write down passwords.  I tell him this is no silly senior moment, and maybe it’s a sign I should reset my password anyway. Not a problem, he says. He has the power to override the password, but only if we hang up and he calls me back at the phone number I give him. I’m starting to feel a little like a bit player in a spy movie. The only thing missing is the telephone booth.

My head is spinning now, all those passwords concocted from very precise instructions: four-to-eight characters, all lower case, for one site; must be eight-to-forty characters long, only alphanumerical characters, dashes and underscores allowed, for another site; birth dates not advised. Then the password hints: first car, first pet, favorite movie, mother’s maiden name.  Now the conundrum: the very same consistency that makes for easy-to-remember passwords is the stuff of hackers’ dreams. Am I lazy if I decide on a password I’ve used elsewhere? Maybe. Or am I just counting on odds? So many people to pick on in cyberspace, why bother with me?

I’m still waiting for my callback, time-traveling now, Allen Ludden on the TV screen, how quaint it all seems, two celebrity-contestant teams trying to outsmart each other with clues, a linguistic, charades-type endeavor, guess the password.  Whoever concocted the game was clearly ahead of his or her time.

The representative is back now, the questioned charge a very small one. I suppose I should be thankful for this random checking up; but before sending out an alert you would think someone might have noticed that there are two names on this credit card account, and this is hardly the first time a charge issued from the city where my daughter lives.  So be it.

Now it’s time to get to the matter at hand, changing my password. The one I have in mind is an unusual one (even a hacker would be hard put to crack the code) so I spell it out, which brings a peal of laughter from the representative. “That’s the password I thought I forgot – right?” He’s very amused, not a hint of condescension, and in total collusion when I suggest this is a password no one will ever guess, a little too good to give up.

Visit Deborah’s website here .

Photo courtesy of Christine Boyka Kluge.

Filed Under: Humor, Tech

The Thought that Counts

December 13, 2010 By Deborah Batterman

My husband surprised me with an iPad for our anniversary . . .

I got him an éclair.

I admit it, I was overwhelmed.  Some years bring flowers, or a trinket, though dinner out, martini included, is all I really ask for.  Not that I don’t appreciate Irises artfully placed on my desk or the beautiful silver-and-pearl necklace I get to wear as a reminder that maybe I’m not taken for granted after all. A card? That’s my bailiwick. Some years it’s the card from one of my boxed collections, blank inside, me waxing a little poetic. More often it’s that silly pleasure I derive from pulling cards from a rack, the perfect one popping up like it was designed and written just for us.  No cheesy gag-me-with-a-spoon humor, no flowery gag-me-with-a-spoon sentiment.

Last year was a big one, twenty five.  We decided to celebrate, city-style, an afternoon at MOMA, dinner following. With another biggie three weeks later (my 60th birthday), my daughter gets it into her head that we should do something special when she comes home Christmas week, maybe go away for a few days. We decided on the Bahamas, iffy weather in December but an airfare too enticing to pass up, even if it meant getting up and out by four a.m. on Christmas morning, which used to be a quiet day for travel. Not so much anymore. Maybe this was a sign, some higher power telling us we should have stayed home, gone to a movie. The signs kept coming.  My daughter wasn’t feeling so great. My husband was bored (a book on the beach is not his style) and feeling ripped off everywhere we went. We did discover (and feed) stray Potcakes, the name Bahamians give to mixed breed dogs. We took busses to get around, a little local flavor.  We dined overlooking the ocean. Nonetheless, my husband swears he’ll never go to another island.  It’s my job to remind him – and I have the pictures to prove it – that there were some very funny moments, and besides we were all together, on vacation. Put it in the family memory bank. Everything is perspective.

So when he leads me into his office the morning of our anniversary this year, points to a big box, tells me to read before opening, I’m in a daze, omg, I didn’t get a card (yet), or the éclair, a favorite treat of his from our favorite French bakery.  I play the guessing game. What does he think I want/need?  This is not a box with a flat-screen TV inside. I open the top, lots of packing material, another box inside. A white one, with an Apple logo.  He even managed, with phone tech-support from our daughter, to download the cover of my short story collection and place it on the shelf of that spiffy iBook library. Now that’s love.

There’s one thing he doesn’t quite ‘get’ though. You give me a toy, I’m gonna play. So when he reminds me I said I’d be downstairs to watch a movie with him in twenty minutes, but I don’t show up for an hour and a half, I’ll grant him the right to be a little testy.

And if he persists in calling me ‘iMom’ when I’m at my laptop or on my iPhone or reading something on my iPad, I’ll remind him of his DVR stockpile, “Law and Order” reruns, and how he shouts at the television during football games. Then I’ll sit next to him, new toy in hand, show the video my daughter composed, just for us.

Visit Deborah’s website here . . .

Photo is property of author.

Filed Under: Humor, Tech Tagged With:

Testing …1,2,3.

August 2, 2010 By admin

This is a test of the emergency awesome system…this is only  a test.

Smartly New York is still on the launch pad.

Come back on Aug 23rd.

We will be in full AWESOME MODE.

Promise

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Filed Under: BIZ, Eco, Entertainment, Humor, MISC, Nostalgia, Opinion, Parenting, Spirituality, Style, Tech Tagged With: