I have been earnestly learning Android technology for the last 4 months. The 3.5 inch device in my hand is my calendar, alarm clock, TV and DVD Player (High Def of course) Library, Book Store, Internet, Global Positioning System, a complete cutting edge Office suite consisting of Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Apache Open Office, several dictionaries and a Thesaurus! Last but far from least is the communication plarform. Telephone, Snap Chat, e-mail (4 addresses) Bing,Google, Firefox and of course TOR/ORFOX for cloaking aka hiding myself while I surf CyberSpace. But I must confess. I’ve gone to far, I’ve gone overboard.
My first indication of trouble came one morning when I couldn’t find the way out of my driveway. Confused I screamed at the only lady in my life Ms. GPS. I couldn’t believe she apparently overslept leaving me to navigate alone. I’ll never forget our first date because like “all” women she thinks she is always right. On this particular Friday night I was out to prove her wrong and decided to go my way instead of the crazy twice as far way she said to go. We arrived 2 hours late because Ms. Smarty Pants knew there was a 3 car pile up on the quickest most direct route! And her voice. Always calm, she NEVER gets upset and never says “I told you so.” I managed to back out of my driveway, and although my girlfriend remained silent, I made my first appointment, or so I thought. I had a 9AM appointment and at 10:30 I decided to be bold and walk into my prospects office. She looks up from her desk and ask me what I was doing? I calmly replied “here at 10:30 for my 9 o’clock appointment” and she says I am a day early. Smugly I said “no way” and yanked my girl, now my alarm clock with a message reminder, out of my jacket and showed her the message. And SHE WAS RIGHT! The message which I loaded for Monday said “Tuesday 9AM”. My intention was to wow her and I did but not exactly as I had planned. I decided to send her a courtesy note during lunch snd I’m sitting at the table when Ms. GPS decides to join me. When GPS wakes up so do all her “friends” and for the next 10 minutes I’m vibrating and people start staring at my table as it Beeps BOOPS, RINGS,DINGS,CHIMES and JINGLES. Reminders ( some wrong) alerts, e-mail, notifications, messages and, and….! Wow! But I have learned a lot from the simple, like muting the sound and what alerts I need and don’t need to using my Android as a Bridge for TOR. But make no mistake I have let the Smart Device dummy me down. I can no longer add 2+2 because of my calculator. I spell dog, dawg because of my phones perdective spelling and SMELL CHECK! Don’t even get me smarted (I mean STARTED) on that.
I am techno freak. It’s hard not to be after working for IBM 29 years. I serviced the 1st Personal Computer with hard drives the size of an encyclopedia and the first Automated Teller Machine. I am in awe of this Android (aka Linux) in my hand and it’s capabilities. To my understanding the next 10 years will see an expotential growth in the power I can hold in my hand but what will that mean to my mind? Will I be forever doomed? Smart Phone Dumb Person?