Getting the Most from Life November 28, 2009
Posted by AlisterComputeron in Random Thoughts.Tags: Meaning of Life, Time
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I was lying in bed last December thinking about how quickly another year had passed. I thought to myself, time flies when you’re having fun. But then I pondered if I was really having fun. For the most part, I am having fun and enjoying life, but I could be getting more from life.
The weeks, months, and years are flying by these days, and as Ferris Bueller said, “life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” I suppose that’s what I’m afraid of now that I’m in my forties.
I don’t typically make New Years resolutions, but last year after reflecting on another year, I decided to make one. What I did was make a list of things I like and things I like to do. From that, I began making a list of activities that I wanted to do over the course of this year. I’m not talking about things that require a big investment of time or money. My wife and I are always saying we should do this or go there, but we rarely did, until this year. And I’m talking again about simple things that we can do that don’t require a lot, if any money. For example, we like beer from microbreweries, and have wanted to tour some of the breweries in our area. We talked a lot about, but never seemed to get around to it.
But the thing I did differently this year was to take that list of things I like and add some activities to a calendar. So on this Saturday we’re going to do this, and then we’re going to visit that on this day, etc. It’s not spontaneous, but we were able to do a lot of things this year.
Time is flying now. I did a Google search to get some ideas on how to make time slow down. The best pointer I got was to embrace each moment. Building upon that, I would add that I’m probably not ever going to keep the days from passing so quickly, so I should enjoy myself as much as possible. I would pass that along as advice to anyone looking to do the same: live in the moment, and do the things that make you happy. Life moves pretty fast and we only get one chance at it.
Twitter and the Art of being Succinct August 2, 2008
Posted by AlisterComputeron in Blogging, Internet, Random Thoughts, Technology.Tags: Blogging, Technology, Twitter, Writting
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When I was in school, I never had a problem filing an essay with the required amount of words. Write a two page essay (back in the day it was hand-written) on what freedom means to me. No problem. My friends would get me to help them write their papers, because they knew I could fluff it up with my verbose writing style. I also had a knack for making what I wrote seem like I knew what I was talking about. Essay exams were my forte. I could simply pay attention in literature class, not read any of the stories, and ace the essay exams. My results on multiple tests, however, were disastrous.
Fast forward now to the later part of the first decade of the 21st century (see how I made the preceding phrase unnecessarily long), and one finds an enormous amount of information in text form. News, blogs, marketing material, how to’s, encyclopedias, discussion boards, instant messages, email, and so on. It’s all in text, and it’s all at our finger tips. And there’s so much of it.
I’ve been using Twitter, the microblogging text service for about a week. In case you didn’t know, with Twitter you send a message, or Tweet, through a web interface or via text message. Each tweet is limited to 140 characters, standard text message size. On one hand Twitter just adds to the clutter of our already-cluttered lives. Throughout the days last week, I would pause briefly to see what my fellow tweeters were up to. I read an interest series of Tweets from a Congressman as the House of Representatives was letting out for a five-week vacation. I’ve been following Barack Obama’s campaign via twitter. One guy picked up an infant for foster care from the department of human services. He even had a link to a pic of the “new arrival.”
It’s interesting to me, having no problem expressing myself through the written word, that we can actually say what we need to say in just 140 characters. I sent some tweets last week, and noted that several of mine came very close to the 140 character max. When you send a tweet from Twitter’s web site, there is a counter with the message box that counts down the number of characters you have remaining for that tweet. When you get below 10 characters left, the number turns red. I’m having a little trouble adapting in the Twitter world so far. Maybe that’s why I maintain a blog: so all my thought can spill out in text on a computer screen and I don’t have any restrictions.
I’m going to continue using Twitter for at least a few more weeks. If nothing else, it’s a neat way to people-watch. But I wonder as I continue to use Twitter if I will get better at getting my thought out in fewer and fewer characters. And I also wonder if being limited only 140 charactes per thought will eventually affect the length of my blog posts.
Thinking about Blogging July 24, 2008
Posted by AlisterComputeron in Blogging, Random Thoughts, Technology.Tags: Blogging, Technology
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So I’m just sitting here tonight thinking about blogging in general. I’ve had a blast over the last month since I launched my blog. I love to see how many visitors I’m getting, and it’s nice to know that people are reading what I’m writing.
I was reading a post at Robert Scoble’s blog earlier, which was the inspiration for this post. He was “ranting” (his word) about the state of tech blogs these days. He wishes for the days when blogging was more about sharing ideas, than about driving traffic or focussing on the hot item of the day. Check it out; it’s long but a good read.
I’m not going to do a “why I blog” post. I do want to say, though, that all of us has a need to express ourselves in one form or another. I choose to write, and to write about my daily experiences as an IT dude. Whether anyone really finds my ramblings about obnoxious sales people, or my attempt at humorous writing entertaining or interesting, I’m not sure. I try to entertain and inform, and I have some posts that are attempt to do neither, but are things I need to say.
I also enjoy reading other people’s blogs. I enjoy their opinion on a topic that also interests me, even if that person’s opinion differs from mine. I comment occasionally on posts that I find particularly interesting. I prefer to get “news” via blogs. The bulk of my “news” comes from the daily Reuters headline emails I receive, the Wall Street Journal, and blogs. I get most of my news from bloggers, both large and small.
I’m glad I discovered the world of blogging, both as a reader and a writer. I’m considering branching out to other areas of communication, like Twitter or the social sites. There’s so much to say and so many forums in which to say it. Thanks for reading.
Tribute to the Word Processor July 19, 2008
Posted by AlisterComputeron in Internet, Random Thoughts, Technology.Tags: Commodore 64, Google Docs, Mac, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Technology, Word Processor
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It the was the summer of 1984. I just finished my junior year in high school, and my dad bought my first computer for me, a Commodore 64. Soon after, I added some very cool peripherals: a tape drive for storage (it used cassette tapes), a dot-matrix printer, and finally, a 5.25 inch floppy drive.
One of the first software packages I bought for my C-64 was a word processing application called Wordsmith. This was word processing at it’s most basic – not much more than typewriter on a screen. About all I could do with it was create and save simple documents, no fancy formatting and colors and such. I could underline, bold and italicize text. I don’t recall if I could change the size of the font. There was only one font. And no spell-checker.
I remember my senior English teacher being so impressed that I had handed in a paper that was printed, while the other students turned theirs in hand-written. Believe it or not, I wasn’t a nerd in high school, I was just way ahead of my time. My English teacher, a sweet, very well-spoken elderly lady, asked me if I “composed” my papers on the computer. Quite honestly, creating a document from scratch on the computer was a new concept to me. I hand-wrote the draft and then transcribed the draft to the word processor.
In college, I used the computers in the school’s computer lab to write my papers. I believe the lab computers had Word Perfect, the de facto standard until Microsoft took over the world of office apps. In the 90’s, I began using Microsoft Word like everyone else.
I bought a MacBook last summer, and shortly after that, bought Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. I bought the education edition, which allows me to install Office on three computers, so I installed it on my daughter’s computer, too.
Now that I’ve discovered the wonders of Google Docs, I think I’m going to remove Office from my Mac; no need to have hefty software taking up valuable storage space. I’ve written recently about the offline capabilities and the new document templates of Google Docs . For most people, myself included, a simple-ish word processor like Google Docs is sufficient both at work and at home. And there’s no need to purchase any software, no more having to buy and install upgrades, and no patching needed.
So being the tech-lover that I am, I wanted to show off the cool new Google Templates to my daughter, who will be a freshman in high school this fall. I brought up the research paper template, and showed her how cool it will be when she has a paper to turn in. Well, she was unimpressed. Nor was she impressed that her G-Docs could be available from anywhere, without having to email docs back and forth from home to school. I guess she didn’t inherit a love of technology from me. I would have loved Google Docs back in 1984.
Word processors have been as common-place for quite some time as a ream of college ruled notebook paper and a ballpoint pen were in 1984. What will the word processor look like in the next 25 years? Who knows? I’m sure it will still be the workhorse that it is today. In human communication, the written word is just as key and prevalent as the spoken word. Computers and the Internet may be changing the way we read and write. But humans have been writing since we lived in caves, and we just might continue writing until a technology is developed that can take thoughts right from our brains and turn them into words – probably on a word processor.
