Straight Dope on the IPod's Birth

The magical music player wasn't plucked from a stone by Steve Jobs. Here's the story of how a team of designers and engineers produced Apple's groundbreaking gadget. Commentary by Leander Kahney via Wired.
Click here...for the story.

Is Technology Really Making Life Easier?

We are living in a socio-technological era. You can't imagine living without TV, laptops, PC, cell-phones, Internet connections, e-mails etc.Whats the true essence of all these technologies available? Do we really need 'em all? Do they really making our lives easier and more productive? As I always try to view technologies from their usability standpoint, the socio-economical effects of technologies are rather more important to consider.

Here, is a nice blog post by Katharine Giovanni. Katharine Giovanni has been a meeting/event planner and concierge for over 20 years and has set up five successful businesses: Meeting Planning Plus, Triangle Concierge, NewRoad Publishing, XPACS and Triangle International. She is Triangle Concierge's senior trainer and speaker and is the author of their best-selling book "The Concierge Manual" as well as the author of the "In-House Concierge Manual". She is also the Chairman of the Board of the International Concierge and Errand Association. A dynamic public speaker, Katharine has been a speaker at seminars and conferences around the country, and has appeared on both radio and television. She is the author of the acclaimed inspirational book "God, is that you?" Katharine can be reached through her websites at http://www.triangleconcierge.com; http://www.katharinegiovanni.com or http://www.triangleinternational.com

So here is the story....

Summary:
I challenge each and every one of you reading this article to lose your cell phone for a day or two and see what happens. Turn off your computer at around 6 p.m. at night and not turn it back on until the next morning for one week. Then watch what happens!


I grew up in the 1960’s and 70's when there were no computers, PDA’s or cell phones. There were no microwaves, no DVD’s, no MP3 players and there were only about 7 good stations on television. We didn’t stay home and play video games all day because there were no video games to speak of back then. Instead we played outside, talked to our friends on the phone and listened to music.

I was telling this to my two sons the other day and they sat there stunned as they found this concept hard to wrap their brain around. I suspect that I did the same as a child when my own parents told me about their childhood and what the world was like.

Today we are told that technology is here to make our lives easier. The microwave helps us cook food faster. The internet helps us get information faster and allows us to stay connected with friends, family and business associates. We have more television stations to give us more choices, we have cell phones so that we can stay in touch with each other and we have laptop computers so that we can access the internet anywhere in the world.

Ok … let’s look at that last paragraph again.

From where I’m sitting, it looks like all our sophisticated modern technology has done the opposite … it has made our lives crazier! It has given us less time instead of more.
If you are in your twenties and thirties, think about your parent’s childhood and what life was like back then. If you are in your forties or older (like me … sigh) then think about your own childhood. What happened to everybody when office hours came to an end? What happened when people left work and went home?

What did they do?

They rested.

They had time to think and reflect and do something very few of us do in today’s world … they relaxed!!!

When I was growing up, we didn’t have cell phones and laptop computers so we relaxed, went out to dinner, took walks, watched television, listened to music and read a book. We turned our minds off for a while and allowed it to reboot itself.

Modern technology has taken this away from us. Instead of resting when we get home from work, we work on our laptops and constantly check our PDA’s. We take our cell phones and answer them wherever we are … in restaurants, airplanes, movie theaters, soccer fields, in our car … everywhere!

When exactly do we rest and allow our minds to turn off for a little while?

Modern technology has made things harder. It has unleashed a monster called stress that is making our world sick and tired. It distracts us. It owns us!

Have you seen the Terminator movies? The one where machines rule the earth? Guess what? Machines rule our earth. Not in as nasty a way as the movie, but they rule the earth nevertheless. Technology rules.

Stress is a nasty thing that causes some even nastier diseases, and there are no antibiotics you can take for it. Stress kills and there is only one cure for it.

You need to rest.

Recently, Ron and I went to Disneyworld in Florida with our boys. We took our cell phones and the laptop because we wanted to check our email and voice mail while we were there. For some strange reason though, the cell phones mostly stayed in the room because we kept forgetting to bring them, and we never even turned on the laptop. Before we knew it, we went almost an entire week without checking any of our messages. I checked them about halfway through the week and returned a few calls, but for the most part everything stayed off.

Did the world end? Did we lose our company? Did clients walk away?

Nope.

We came home with our minds refreshed and returned the calls, answered the email and life rolled on. We were tired of course (have you ever done four theme parks in four days?) but nothing happened. Life as we know it didn’t end!!! Instead we were able to focus on the job at hand because we were refreshed and relaxed.

Technology speeds up our ability to do things. We can research faster, cook faster, and be in contact with other people faster. However, it also causes us to feel the need that we have to be in contact all the time! We feel we have to check our email at 10:00 p.m. at night, we have to answer that telephone during dinner, and we have to check our PDA every hour no matter where we are.

When do you rest and turn your mind off?

I understand that everyone wants to move forward. I totally get that. However, in order to move forward, you have to occasionally take a few steps back so that you can get a better look at where you want to go.

So what can we do?

We can turn off the computer after dinner and not turn it back on until the morning. We can turn our cell phone off once in a while and let the voice mail answer it. We can take a walk. We can go on vacation without the laptop. We can even go on vacation and only check our voice mail once or twice! The world won’t stop! People might think you’ve been abducted but so what? You’ll get back in touch with them.

If you don’t rest and let your body and brain reboot itself, then your body will break down. In the end, technology will deprive you of the true quality of life because it will be sick and you won’t be able to do what you want to do.

So here’s my challenge …

I challenge each and every one of you reading this article to lose your cell phone for a day or two and see what happens. I challenge you to turn off your computer at around 6 p.m. at night and not turn it back on under any circumstances until the next morning for one week. Then watch what happens!

Everyone tells you that you need to eat right and get plenty of exercise. Absolutely true! However, there is a third even more important key to life … you need to rest!!!

So turn your mind off for a while. Listen to some music. Read a book. Talk to your kids. Go shopping. Go to a comedy show and laugh.

Stop ignoring what your body is telling you! I know that it has been urging you to slow down and take a breath. Listen to it. It knows what it’s doing.

Enough said.

Now let’s see … I'm writing an article about the evils of technology on my computer, my phone is ringing next to me and an email just arrived.

Hmmm ... guess it might be time to take a break!

Is Microsoft really going down?

Hey, whats considered cool and geeky to write about on tech blogosphere recently? I surf the tech weblogs and found the following objects the most ubiquitous.

1)Firefox vs. IE 7
2)Linux
3)web 2.0
4)Apple - iTunes 7.0, DRM, iTV, iPhone, ipod shuffle and nano 2nd generation
5)Ubuntu
6)Microsoft- Zune and vista(which are doomed before their launch)
7)Social Networks (Myspace, Orkut, Friendster)
8)Google and its online applications
9)AJAX
10)Digg
11)RIAA
12)You tube

Note : Comments are welcome to help me extend the list.

The most striking object out of the list was the negative views about Microsoft. Don't matter if 97% of all computer users use their products, microsoft sucks and its an evil. Whether its about delay in the release of Vista or IE 7.0 (which is opinionatedly copied most of its features from the opensource browser Firefox) or its new media player Zune( which was supposed to compete with its rival Apple). All the fuss is about Microsoft loosing its competitive edge over its rivals in terms of its flawed and outdated windows operating system and MS office and/or its failure to make a stand on the next generation of online applications.
So whats wrong with Microsoft? Is it really going down and be out of its core competencies as happend in the past with IBM? I was looking for a concrete answer to these questions as the answers felt so obvious to be 'YES' from all the blogpostings on various tech blogs and suddenly I stumbled upon this article on wired.

This is a very insightful article and answered all my questions. It depicts How much Microsoft is aware about the issues going around and what strtegies it gonna apply to compete.
Ray Ozzie, the new man in charge of Microsoft sounds confident and capable of turning the sails back in favor of Microsoft.

Read the article:
Rebuilding Microsoft

What is Web 2.0? A simple explanation

There is a buzzword called web 2.0 going around the web recently. So what the heck is Web 2.0?

Wikipedia which itself a web 2.0 site says..."Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a supposed second-generation of Internet-based services — such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies — that let people collaborate and share information online in previously unavailable ways."

I found the most simple explanation of the buzzword on the following Informationweek article.

link: The skinny on web 2.0

Do you Digg?

Its been a couple of months now since I've been hooked to digg. Digg is one of the best examples of web 2.0 where users submit the stories from around the web and other users digg(vote) those stories. Based on the number of diggs, a story makes its way to the front page. Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg recently made to the cover page of business week. Basically, this place is for Geeks, Nerds and Dorks.

I found this story on Digg about Steve Jobs submitted via writersblocklive.com a few days ago and thought of sharing. The story is about the Steve's perseverance for the best performance at Apple's keynotes. But, this gives an insight of real Steve Jobs, how hardworking and perfectionist he is.

LINK:The Wizard of Pods - Behind the Curtain with Steve Jobs