Are You Addicted to High-Tech?

My peers and a few of the younger generation call me Mr. Facebook, but I'm not sure that is a complement or not. I tend to check-in and post several times a day. I'm retired and travel a lot so I set up tweets to publish automatically while we're gone and all the tweets go automatically to Facebook. I also have blogs that are prewritten and scheduled to post automatically. I'm even getting repined in Pinterest now, even though few of my friends have yet to join in the fun.

I'm no Camy Tang

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Camy Tang, but after working in the computer field for more than fifty years, I learn this new high-tech stuff pretty fast. After all I have a masters in computer science. On second thought, I guess that's worthless. Everything I learned is obsolete. Isn't that the way it is with college degrees? I guess all college graduates can say is that they had the gumption to follow the requirements of the school and the drive to do what was needed. That is worth something. What? Attitude? That's important.

I could be addicted

Like all good things, there is a tendency to overdo. My wife thinks I need to get away from the world of technology some. She's hinted at this before, but I think what finally convinced her was when I did a Facebook check-in during our anniversary dinner last week complete with photos and then made notes about a blog idea that came to me. She didn't mention it, but I don't think she liked the fact that I selected the restaurant because it was similar to a fictional one I had used in Where Love Once Lived and I wanted to check it out.

Tech-free times

So, we have these tech-free times now. It's not so bad. We are fortunate to have a place on the lake without television and with little to no phone service. ATandT is helping wean me from my daily data diet, too. The first time we were there I got this nasty email about using too much data download on non ATandT service. I talked to them on the phone about it and learned all I could do was turn off the phone while I was there. So, now I set it on airplane mode. Well, most of the time.

Finding the sweet spot

Last time I was there a neighbor with an iPhone just like mine said he gets phone service on the northwest corner of his dock near the white rod holder. I tried it, but it didn't work for me. However, that let me know there is ATandT service in the area. After searching for a signal for several days, I found a sweet spot. It's in the bottom right corner of my dining room window. The phone has to be touching the glass, so usage is limited to hands free only. I tried the area outside the window, but couldn't find a signal there.

My reason for searching for a place where I can get phone service, I told my wife, is in case someone calls. Some emergency type of thing. But I have to admit that when the phone touches that window pane in just the right spot, I can quickly download my email and see what's happening on Facebook. I guess I am addicted.

Hey! I'm writing more

Most of the time, I enjoy having a tech-free time. We read, work jig-saw puzzles and go for walks. There will be fishing soon. We've agreed the use of the laptop is okay for writing. Since there is no Internet connection for it, it is not considered a problem. I noticed I tend to write more when I'm not constantly checking email, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and all the rest. So there is a benefit to this tech-free time after all.

I Love Carbonite

I hope everyone noticed I was missing from the blogosphere last week. My hard drive finally quit. I thought the freezing up problems I’d had were due to the Texas heat, but changes to the environment didn’t help. The drive had to be replaced.
With three computers in a house of two people, one computer being in the shop shouldn’t have been cause to cancel a week of blog posts. But, it was. My notebook computer is old and slow. Besides the screen is too small for my aging eyes.
Being a computer short and having to rely on my old notebook was just the excuse I’d been looking for to buy a new notebook. Or, should I say netbook. I’m not sure what all the names are and I teach computers at Austin Community College.
While my desktop was in the shop getting a new disk drive, I bought another very small system with the CD drive separate since I only use it to load new software occasionally. It’s small, but the screen is more readable than my old one. And, it is fast. I don’t have to start Microsoft Word and go get a cup of coffee while it loads.
Laptops, notebooks, netbooks, that’s a story for another day. What I wanted to tell you today was about my experience with restoring my files. Since I have been using Carbonite for several years, everything I had on the desktop was backed up online.
When I brought the computer home from the shop, all I had to do was log in to Carbonite and tell it to restore. Thirty-six hours later my 79,000 plus files were all back into place.
Let me know if you've had experience with other online backup systems and we'll spread the word.