Coffee Crone: Taming Coffee Blog

January 6 2008

My Low-Tech Life

In my perfect world, I'd be at CES this week planning my future technology purchases and loading up on swag. In my perfect world I'd also have 20/20 vision and a bottomless bank account.

In my real world, I will be working my decidedly low-tech job and juggling the three digital compromises that make my day tolerable.

I used to work for a big mental health centre in the states. The workers there have access to all the neat toys that can make my kind of job easier. I now work for a small not-for-profit and all they gave me was a truly lousy cell phone. There is an acceptable computer in my office, but I am almost never there, and even if I were, my office is pretty much unusable from January through April.

I've been promised a heater any day now, so that may be changing.

My life is ruled by my Palm TX, a definitely not-an-iPod MP3 player, and that truly lousy phone I mentioned earlier. Yes, I am one of the 267 people in the world who still use a stand alone PDA rather than a smart phone. I paid for it myself. The non-iPod decision was intentional. I haven't owned an Apple product for 15 years, and I don't expect to any time soon.

In any case, I spend my days driving around in a ten year old car that was never sold in Canada (and thus is a joy to get parts for), listening to music of my own choosing, and wishing for Wi-Fi, so I could upload my scheduling changes to Google calendar and do my casenotes between client visits.

This is somewhat of a challenge, as I work and live in a city with only one public hotspot. It would be less of a challenge if my phone could do something other than the phone thing, but it can't.

Damn, I wanna be at CES.

posted by taming at 05:17 | link | comments (6)|
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Comments:

#1 06 January 2008 - 10:02

well snowball has an iphone you know. she thinks it's pretty cool, i guess. but my phone is just a phone too. but my lovely lovely laptop is a mac now. have to say she finally, after many years, did manage to convert me on that one. and i will never go back. i have to use a windows box all day at work of course. and when you use the two together, alternatively, well . . . a vast canyon lies between the experiences. not to be an apple commercial -- not my intention. i'm just saying because i too resisted the constant bragging and naggin of the apple users. but now i understand.

limine

#2 06 January 2008 - 18:03

See, it's not just me.

Erinonym0us

Anonymous

#3 20 January 2008 - 22:12

I am also among the 267 with a stand-alone PDA. It just happens to be the same as yours, a Palm TX. I love it and will only replace it when something that is open, such as the FIC FreeRunner with OpenMoko, is available.

Scott Petersen

Anonymous

#4 11 February 2008 - 18:54

hey you . . where'd you go? you get us all excited you're back blogging again and then you just poof disappear again?

*sniff* i miss you.

Anonymous

#5 20 March 2008 - 16:41

I just got a new phone. I love it, its an mp3 player but I am irritated that hardly any phones on the face of the planet DO NOT come with cameras. I hate those dumb cameras. All in all, I love my Samsung Juke...

psmartin

#6 21 March 2008 - 03:49

I echo the sentiments of Mo'nonymous Commenter #4: miss you and your posts, but I can understand why you're absent. Post when you can!

P.S. Martin: I love the camera feature on my phone, although I never download the photos, because it's great for those spontaneous Kodak moments.