2 posts tagged “smartphones”
Something has really changed from within in the past 2-3 weeks. I'm not sure why or how, and I'm almost afraid to acknowledge it too much and jinx the feeling, but I feel like I'm in the midst of this deeply creative flow lately, as if I've tapped into an open spigot on the stream of universal consciousness. I'm not sure what's going on. I didn't do anything specific to bring this about. I feel more confidence surging up from inside than ever before, and I seem to be having fortuitous meetings with people of like minds at every turn.
I am brimming with so many ideas that I keep a small notebook in my purse and at my bedside. I try to note everything that sparks some curiosity or gets my creative juices flowing -- URLs to check out and add to my Blinklist, things I overhear from strangers, words I pick up on and enjoy from books I'm reading, lists of recommendations for independent or foreign films from friends and colleagues, subjects I wish to blog about, descriptive phrases I think of as I'm traveling in new places, etc. If I didn't write these things down, I think I'd have too many ideas rattling around in my brain to ever wind down or go to sleep. And, as a writer, I can't just let go of ideas and lose them. I must capture my impressions as if preserving precious flames that may soon die out. This is something I've been passionate about for over half my life. It's the reason I've kept blogs since 1998 and the reason I became an Army journalist and went on deployments to cover stories about our military troops in different areas of the world.
When I'm feeling really enterprising, I use my Treo 700p to record tidbits of multimedia, such as random photos I find the opportunity to take, and experiences I wish to share with others later with both pictures and sounds in the form of short videos, such as the honking Canadian geese that surrounded me in Greenbelt, Maryland, yesterday when I had a nice run around the local lake near my home. (Funny, I think my coworker was shocked that I carry my Treo on runs with me - I guess that really tells you what a gadget freak, geek (pick your term), etc. I am; but I'm okay with that.)
It seems that having this technology all in one machine that I can hold in the palm of my hand energizes my creative faculties and frees me to do even more with my thoughts and ideas as they transpire. It even makes me more alert to looking for those random, serendipitous bits of data floating around in the world. With my Treo at my side, I am never bogged down trying to find paper or pen when it's not available (although, with me, it usually is to be found nearby), and the Smartphone technology is intuitive enough for me that I can immediately make use of it, file away what I want to remember in either audio, text, graphic or video format and/or share that with someone else through the phone's communication options of text messaging, instant messaging or email; then I can get back to whatever I was doing either before or when the idea struck me.
At times I use the calendar to keep up on dates with friends and important deadlines that loom at work, as well as when there's an upcoming PBS, History or Discovery Channel special on television (which I rarely watch, so I have to remind myself that it's there as a medium for me). Lately, this seems to make a huge difference in the way I process and use information in my life, for the better.
The Treo's memo function is especially handy since I am an addicted bibliophile and cannot begin to be able to buy every book I want when I step into a bookstore, not all at once anyway. So after I've combed a bookstore and gathered an armload of the types of books I couldn't put down and escape buying in the past, I now just add their titles and authors to the ongoing, already lengthy list on my Treo. Then, I can quell my anxiety about having to buy them right then and there, and I can later look for these titles at a local library or for a cheaper price on say Abebooks when the book is out of print later down the road. Oh, so MANY books, so little time! I could never even scratch the surface of all of the books I want to read in my lifetime.
I say all of this without even going into detail on how wonderful it is to be be able to learn and be entertained while I'm mobile by way of podcasts, music, audiobooks, e-books and unlimited access to the Internet through broadband capabilities. I can even better achieve my goals by reading them aloud and recording them with the voice memo function, so that I can later listen to them and really let them sink in by repetition. Can an electronic device help to transform our lives in positive ways? Maybe so. It depends on how you use it.
I should not even waste my breath on this topic, but... My first Treo had a glitch after I had gotten it all set up and personalized with my information, and once I got the replacement for that, I got home to find out the Verizon salesman didn't give me the stylus that came with it. I went about for days away on vacation using the crude substitute of the retracted tip of a pen, and when I called about getting another, I received a long pause and then, "Well, we sell them."
"Well, that's not my point," I countered, finally getting off the phone with him and saying, "Thanks...for nothing."
So, although I never got my one included stylus with the Treo in the first place, it was way too much trouble to get them to cough up one, and as a customer, it's embarrassing when you have to go to that much trouble to get something so trivial that should have been yours in the first place. You're telling me this mondo company could not afford to just trust that I wasn't trying to get something for free and maybe make a good business-to-customer connection? Geez. I just went out and bought my own - case closed and more easily resolved.
