Posts Tagged ‘technology’

Technomary

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , , , ,
18 March 2010
0

When I was up in Ojai for a lovely weekend away, my boss from the internship with Opportunity Green called me “Technolo-Mary” during dinner, which struck something in me.  He had been referring to how I seem to know all the newest gadgets and services out there.  It made me realize that I really am a great resource for many new technologies that have come about in the past couple of years.  I liked that someone as techy as he (he got a degree in engineering and is awesome at all things related to building and maintaining websites) found my knowledge useful enough to consider me a valuable go-to person.

I do like to stay on top of things, whether it’s things like Google Voice, Dropbox, and reQall or more of things like new social media forums, mobile technologies, and many more.  I’ve always loved to learn more about technology, so anything new captures my attention and I like to spend time learning more about it.  If I like what I see, I’ll usually go on to become an adopter and even spread the word.  That’s what I’ve been doing with CauseWorld, which is a great app for your smartphone that allows you to choose where sponsors’ money is donated.

I really enjoy troubleshooting (for the most part) and solving problems through logic and trial and error.  Also, it’s rewarding to discover the best technical solutions for everyday issues, like streamlining processes.  Whether it’s organization, documentation, or retrieval, there’s probably a better way to do it than the one you’re doing now.  I’m all about efficiency and effectiveness, which is probably also why technology fascinates me so much – it solves a lot of our problems and saves us a lot of time and effort!

Perhaps I should start a help line called “Technomary” – not “techno Mary,” but “tech-nom-ary.”  A play on technology and Mary AND -ary as a suffix that means “having to do with.”  It’d be a fun name for a tech blog, if I were to ever write one.  It could be a cool place to get answers for your “Dear Abby” type tech questions like how to convert a scanned JPEG into a PDF or what type of free phone services there are.  Hmm, now there’s a thought…

Negative spin

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
10 March 2010
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I’ve been seeing a lot of commercials lately that take hits at the competitors of the advertisers.  It’s a bit annoying and really turns me off to these people/organizations – after all, shouldn’t the focus be on what makes you good rather than what makes them bad?  Since when did bashing the opposition become the trend du jour?  I don’t like that approach and lose a lot of respect for those who choose that way of promoting themselves.

Have you seen those commercials?  I’m thinking of the Audi one during the Olympics where they talk about how for every friendly competition, there is a second best, the ones who don’t quite get the honor and are overshadowed.  Then they say that their “friends” at BMW know exactly how that feels.  Why couldn’t they just stick with their message of superior engineering?  There’s also the Verizon ones that make fun of AT&T’s supposed sparse coverage map (the speed skater themed one where the guy with Verizon coverage gets an edge over the guy with AT&T’s coverage and the sports one where the guy with a Verizon map blocks the view of the TV, but the guy with a AT&T map doesn’t interfere with game-watching).  Then there’s the Meg Whitman vs. Steve Poizner series, of which I found the attacks against Poizner, but couldn’t track down the ones against Whitman.  There’s also the Time Warner Cable one where the guy is sitting on his porch and his satellite signal goes out.  I think that’s directed towards DirectTV.

In any case, you can see that there is no shortage of commercials on the air now that bash away at one company while promoting another.  I believe that there are better ways to do it.  I’m personally not a fan of such actions, so I think I’ll avoid Audis, Verizon, Meg or Steve, and Time Warner as much as possible.  If they’re good enough in other aspects, I may not ignore them completely, but if there aren’t that great to begin with… forget about gaining a loyal customer!  Those commercials just rubbed me the wrong way.

Gaming skills

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
09 March 2010
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There are a lot of games out there that are easy to get addicted to.  As a relaxant, I like to spend my nights playing games to wind down from busy days.  Recently the games of interest have been Trism and Doodle Jump, both of which are apparently hugely popular and have quite the following.  I played so much that the muscles I use to hold up my iPhone have gotten sore.  It makes me wonder if the skills I learn in these games help hone me for other areas of life.  Both physically and mentally, I have exercised myself in ways I don’t normally.

These two games require a lot of subtle wrist movements, which could either be good for more flexibility and agility, or create issues of range of motion and maybe even carpal tunnel-like syndrome.  They also work out your thumbs a lot, which has made mine sore and probably a bit swollen too.  Is it good for our hands, wrists, and fingers to get so much use?  Perhaps I have strengthened them in using them so much.  Plus, holding my hands vertically up puts them in a position they usually aren’t in.  I wonder if that helps with anything!

As for mental challenges, Trism forces me to think in three dimensions (versus two for Bejeweled).  Sometimes the angles throw you off from seeing easy combos, so it really makes you look at the big picture and recognize patterns better.  I like to play Infinism because you have plenty of time to strategize.  Playing Terminism puts the pressure on to find combinations quickly, forcing you to be quick on your feet.  Then Syllogism gives you fun puzzles to solve patiently, also practicing your critical thinking skills.  Doodle Jump makes you take in the big picture and quickly make important decisions on which way to go and what block to land on.  It forces you to learn how to do your best within a specific framework.

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch and want some fun games, go check them out!  They’re not free, but for a dollar, it’s not a bad investment!  But beware, for they are fabulously addicting.

Where are the good Samaritans?

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
03 March 2010
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I’m feeling really disheartened right now. My iPod Touch was taken yesterday. Though I’m bummed that it’s gone and this coming within 5 weeks of losing my first one, I’m more disappointed that it was not returned, even though it has my name and this website engraved on the back. It should be easy enough to find me, what with a name and website to go by, but I guess whoever took it never intended on returning it. After all, I’d say it’s pretty easy to find me, if you were trying. Whatever happened to nice people who return things to their owners?

I can’t help but hold out hope, but I have received no e-mails, no Facebook messages, no nothing. It’s sad to think the world isn’t as full of good people as I always expected. I’ve grown up sheltered from a lot of the worse side of life and this is a bit of a blow in the face towards my rose-colored glasses view of the world. I guess I will have to dim it a bit now and recognize the reality that there are people in the world who steal and blatantly lie and hurt others.

Thankfully, the information on there isn’t lost since I have a backup on my laptop – I just hope they don’t hack in and get any sensitive information.

Handywoman saves the day

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , ,
28 February 2010
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Sometimes the smallest things can really create extreme disturbances.  My laptop charger (already the 4th one I’m on), isn’t the best of quality (that’s what you get for just a few bucks, I guess) and only works when pressed firmly into the laptop charging port, at a certain angle.  When it moves just slightly, it will stop charging unexpectedly.  Add on to that a battery that barely holds a charge now and this means that whenever I am using my laptop, it will shut down randomly without warning.  Very inconvenient, especially considering how it’s taking much longer to boot up nowadays.

Thankfully, I have a mother who is quite the handywoman.  She’s great at fixing things and given her engineering background, a small thing like charger circuitry was a small task for her.  Once it was decided that I couldn’t care less what the charger actually looked like, she set to cutting the cable that hard started to sever on my original charger.  She took the original head, connected it to a charger that hadn’t developed a frayed wire, and soon enough I had a brand new charger to use.  The head fit perfectly into the port now because it was from the original charger and not one of the cheap ones I had gotten as replacements.  No more spotty charging results!  Problem solved.  To think, I nearly dished out $70-80 for a new charger just to get rid of that annoyance!

Work preoccupation

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , , , ,
27 February 2010
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I’ve been really preoccupied with work lately.  When I’m there, I don’t think about personal things, and when I’m home, I’m tired and just want to relax, which has meant the e-mails in my Yahoo account are piling up.  I’ve managed to go through them this weekend, but there are quite a few newsletters that will probably go unread for months.  I don’t follow my social networks the way I used to and I’m just barely pumping out posts here.  For some reason, I’ve been really tired during the time I’m at home.  Plus, the Olympics have been a nice distraction, which makes it easy for me to never think about turning on my computer.  Let’s not even go into the problems I’ve been having with my charger.  I’m about ready for a new computer.

It’s been a month now, so I hope that I can get into a better rhythm that fits work, sleep, meals, entertainment, exercise, relaxation, and quality time all in one nice bundle.  I don’t have much energy for cooking dinner, which hasn’t been good, so I really need to start getting more sleep.  The good thing is, one of the guys at the office told me about an app that lets you track your sleeping cycles!  I looked into it and found the Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock, which will monitor your sleeping pattern and wake you up during a lighter sleep stage so it’s easier to get up and you feel more rested.  It’s a really awesome app that you should go check out if you have trouble getting up in the morning!  I’ve only used it one night, so it’s still calibrating to my sleeping pattern, but it could be quite useful in the future.  For a buck, more energy and less time wasted pressing snooze is totally worth it.

iPod lost, lesson learned

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , ,
30 January 2010
0

When I was working at the Venice Whole Foods this past Monday, I was heading to get my car from street parking and bring it back to the lot so I could load up my equipment after my demo when I lost my iPod touch.  (More on this part-time job I’ve worked on and off for a couple of years in a future post.)  The last time I remember seeing it was when I was holding it in my hand walking to the car.  By the time I realized it was gone, I had driven the car to the lot, packed up in the store, and started to take my stuff out to the car.  It could have been anywhere along my walk to the car, inside the car, or in the store!  I retraced my steps again and again, hoping to see a little black pouch lying somewhere, but had no such luck.  I checked with Customer Service and nobody had turned it in, so I went around for another try, even checking my bag of used cups to see if it dropped in there while I was cleaning up.

I held out hope for a couple of hours, though I sort of knew that if I hadn’t found it by then, with my extensive efforts, it was probably already taken by someone or otherwise lost to me forever.  I spent quite some time looking up ways to track it down, but for all that effort it seemed that it wasn’t worth it.  Even if I were to track it, it’s impossibly hard to get back if someone really did take it.  By the next day, when I called to see if anyone turned it in, I pretty much knew the answer.  I also figured that it was pretty easy to figure out how to contact me if someone had it and intended on returning it, so if I hadn’t heard from anyone, it seemed a lost cause.   However, just to confirm, I also did a complete clean of the car to make sure before I committed myself to getting a new one.

Now I’ve ordered myself a brand new one, complete with engraving on the back that includes this web address, so anyone who finds it and wants to return it can do so easily.  I can happily use a passcode without worrying that the person would never be able to figure out how to get it back to me.  I’m also getting iHound, which will help ease my peace of mind in case I do misplace it again.  Now I just need to figure out how to make sure that if someone has my iPod, they don’t start using my accounts… so far no suspicious activity and no important information was stored in there.  Does signing in to an app on one device sign you out from the other?  If it’s that simple, I’ll just sign in to everything when I get the new one.  Whatever the case, I have now taken measures to be much safer with my information.  And of course, I will try not to lose this one… it’s the first electronic device I’ve lost!  🙁

Check out when I first got it… ironically, I ended up hardly ever using it to listen to music.

Phone preferences

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
27 January 2010
0

I have a thing with phones.  First, I don’t really use them.  I don’t really enjoy spending hours on them chit-chatting, but I do like using them for business purposes (what can I say? I’m a customer service kind of person).  Besides, for the most part, my cell phone is buried somewhere in the depths of my purse and digging for it is not worth the effort.  (Especially considering the calls I tend to get – telemarketers and pre-recorded messages.)  I guess I enjoy landlines better because they’re easier to find and I don’t need to worry about a signal.  However, we had a whole slew of wireless handsets at the Opportunity Green office and they seemed to mysteriously get sucked away from the front room towards the back as the day progressed.  Eventually, we’d be at a loss for where the phone was ringing from!  It really was amazing and the fact that the stand rings too certainly made it harder for us locate them.

It also doesn’t help that I don’t like checking voicemails.  So many are unimportant and unsolicited calls and I usually have to listen multiple times to make out what people are saying, either because their connection was spotty or they spoke really fast.  Others can drag on when I’d rather call them back to discuss in detail, or get an e-mail with the 20 points they just listed out verbally.  It makes it easier for me to remember and review!  In that regard, thank goodness for Google Voice!  They let me go through my voicemails in any order, so I can skip the junk ones.  Plus, they transcribe the voicemails so I can read them and listen to the ones that look important.  Though it can ultimately save me time, their transcriptions haven’t been that accurate.  Ironically, the text message they sent me alerting me to my new voicemail was more accurate than the transcription I found when I logged in online.  What gives?

So, phones, though a great way to contact people, are not my preferred way to staying in touch.  I’m more of a get together in real life type of person.  I prefer to use phones to call/text people to figure out how/when we can get together.  Of course, if I won’t be seeing one for ages and e-mailing or Facebooking just isn’t doing it, a long phone conversation is nice.  However, it’s usually sufficient to stay in touch online while we can’t meet up, since most of the people I hang out with live in the same general area.  Also, it’s great to have a phone on you at all times in case you need to call someone to remind them of something, let them know you’re almost there, ask for directions, or other such things that you can’t do if you’re like me and don’t want to pay for internet usage on your phone.

Anyone else like to use phones for no-nonsense purposes only?  Or is the world addicted to their Bluetooth headsets as they chat away while on the go?  It still cracks me up when people look like they’re talking to themselves (or seem like they may be talking to you) when in fact they’ve got a little ear piece hidden behind their hair and they’ve got another person on the line.  Whatever happened to being more present?

Advocacy

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , ,
25 January 2010
0

I’m an advocate.  Of what?  Well, anything that I like!  I’m not the type of consumer who happily uses products without sharing with friends and family.  In fact, I’m often selling them on certain brands and converting them to what I enjoy.  It ranges from free things to useful things to just plain cool things.  It’s often in technology or green products, but could be in anything that has caught my attention (take a look at my wishlist and sharelist).  In the coming weeks I want to start a series of posts showcasing some of these products and services I like best.  And perhaps, just perhaps, you’ll be convinced too.  😛  I’m just sayin’…

When your boyfriend cuts your hair

laelene Posted in video blog，Tags: , , , ,
18 January 2010
1

I don’t know what program I’m supposed to be installing to be able to record a video from my webcam on my computer, so I have resorted to online methods.  Most programs I found don’t seem compatible with Windows 7 anyway. So here’s my attempt at the vlog I wanted to do before. The audio’s a bit harsh, so turn down your volume!

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