A Crisis of Technology

I was probably one of the last people on the planet to get a cell phone.  I got my first Nokia flip phone about five or six years ago.  It's amazing how quickly we become dependent, isn't it?

I had a few free minutes yesterday afternoon and decided it was a good opportunity to install the latest updates to my iPhone.  Honestly, where it actually started was I saw someone's review of the WhipCast app and decided I needed to download that.  When I tried to, my phone told me I had to have iOS5 installed.  And so it goes.


Then my computer went to blue screen and had to be restored.

Then I had to reinstall iTunes.

And then my when I finally got back to updating the phone (a couple of hours later) iTunes insisted the phone had to be restored to factory settings.  Nothing else I tried could make this not happen.

I lost everything.  Or most everything.  52 (out of 400) pictures were saved.  The apps were all still on iTunes but had to be dragged back to the phone.  All my phone numbers and contacts are gone.  I've had to set all my apps up again, put in passwords, user names, and updates.

The end of this story is that I've spend now about six hours updating, reinstalling, and backing up stuff.  Everything is now backed up and double backed up.  I have recovered a few of my contacts but if I had your number, it's a safe bet I don't have it anymore.  Feel free to email me if you think I should have it.

Needless to say, I haven't monitored the news today or yesterday.

We're watching the Cubs, I'm monitoring The Masters, and we're going to eat Easter dinner.  I'll resume blog life here shortly.

Oh, and I did finally download WhipCast.  I hope it's worth it.

Soggy Sunday Loose Thoughts and Links

We've been under a long, soaking rain for the past couple of days which has actually been nice given that we had a terrible drought last summer from which we still haven't fully recovered.  I'm roasting a chicken for dinner, the dogs are curled up sleeping inside, and Mr. SIGIS is watching "Storage Wars" and spring training baseball.

Back in September I bought a Dell Streak and have spent the ensuing months tweaking, adjusting and experimenting with it trying to convince myself that it's just as good as an iPad.  Even though Android has lots of apps in their Marketplace, I've not been as happy with them as with the apps on my iPhone.  However, I use the tablet primarily as a reader and so when I finally found the Pulse app, my affection for my Streak has improved.  The larger screen of the tablet makes reading my favorite blogs and sites much easier than on the iPhone.

Pulse enables me to read a variety of periodicals and it gives me the option to select sites from my Google reader to put into the feed.  My Streak and I are getting along better now and while it's not exactly an iPad, it'll do for what I want it for.  Anyway, that's what I've been playing with this morning: updating my Google reader subscriptions and adding them to Pulse.

Some links from my blog surfing:

Don Surber ponders the viability of Rick Santorum:

Santorum has no money and no organization. He’s about as much an heir to Ronald Reagan’s political legacy as Ron Reagan Jr. is. As a candidate, the original Reagan was more than just a good-looking guy with an upbeat outlook and optimistic message for America. Ronald Reagan was a CEO. Over the years, he had proved himself to people inside and outside politics, enough so that when he ran for president in 1980, he had an organization.

What does Santorum have? He can barely put together a partial slate of delegates.

I'm guessing Don is going for Mitt Romney, then.  It's just dismal.  I'm sick of the Republicans eating their own throughout this campaign and have been disheartened about it for some time now.  I'm really tired of picking the lesser of two evils when I vote.  I want to vote for someone I'm excited about.  Meh.

William Teach is sure to get some liberal women fired up with this one:

For all their talking of empowerment and being their own woman, liberal women sure do seem to like being treated as incapable of using their own thoughts and taking care of themselves, and instead expect to be treated as morons and a voting block, taken care of by a man, or, well, if we’re talking liberal men, a metrosexual.

He is, of course, referring to Team Obama's strategy to appeal to women as a voter block as reported by the New York Times today.  Just don't call them "babe."

Speaking of liberals, Professor Jacobson has a new bumper sticker photo.

Bread Upon the Waters reports on a prayer vigil being organized by Team Obama for the purpose of shaping public opinion on the ObamaCare law prior to the Supreme Court consideration of the case:

This inquiring mind wants to know: Will open displays of the cross and other religious symbols be permitted in the public square at Obama's event, unlike the religious symbols at Georgetown that were covered as a condition of Obama speaking there?....

....Sadly, in the eyes of this administration, prayers and acknowledgements of the Divine are political tools.

Slightly hypocritical, I'd say.

Bride of Rove is preparing for the worst:

Think of it like the Zombie Apocalypse. My husband has been selling off things like the golf cart and boat parts and other toys so he can buy guns because, he says, they only way to stop stupid is with bullets. We hope it doesn’t come to that, but, honestly? It’s already at the gates and spreading. I did my part and bought a case of Spam and a huge bag of rice. I think we’re good. Because if and when Obama wins in November? The economy is only going to get worse. On the up side, I think Obama may be planning to start World War III this summer via Israel and Iran so … well … applying distopian survival theory, we could crawl our way out of this after all, if we survive it.

It's a depressing post but one you should probably read.  Mr. Bride of Rove is simply convinced that Obama will win in November.   If he does you can only blame the Republicans for leaving us with this sorry field of candidates.  I'm going to buy a case of Spam, too, I guess.  A truckload.  Because, BoR is right - if Obama wins, we're done for.  For more on this, see Doug Ross.

On the local front, in Jindal watch, C.B. Forgotston laments the decline of the first amendment in Louisiana as he reports on the firing by Jindal of a state employee for expressing her views in legislative testimony.  American Press has an editorial today about the firing:

On Tuesday, Martha Manuel, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Elderly Affairs, testified before the House Appropriations Committee that the governor’s plan to shift her offices to the state Department of Health and Hospitals would not be in the best interest of elderly residents.
She said Jindal never consulted her about his plan and only learned about it when she saw the office’s budget had been moved in the governor’s budget proposal.

By Wednesday morning, Manuel was unemployed, unceremoniously fired via a phone call from Tammy Woods, Jindal’s community programs director.  Asked later that day about the termination, Jindal said he had decided to go in a different direction.  Bottom line: Manuel, who was appointed to the position by Jindal in February, 2011 and made $88,587, is out of a job.

All appointees like Manuel serve at the pleasure of the governor. It’s always been that way in Louisiana and always will be. But her ouster on the eve of the legislative session’s opening sends a chilling message — dissenting opinions by Jindal’s department heads and undersecretaries will not be tolerated.

This is interesting and we'll probably be hearing more about this in the days to come.  I suspect there is more there.


The thunder is rumbling across the sky and the world outside my door is gray and inundated with water.  Tornado watches and flash flood warnings are all out.  The chicken is about roasted so I'm off to tend to that.  Enjoy your Sunday.

Soggy Saturday

After weeks and weeks of drought, we finally got rain today!  It was not nearly enough but nobody is complaining.  The area has had a fair number of grass fires lately as we have been broiling under a record breaking stretch of 100-plus degree days.  To say the rain was welcome is an understatement!

Steve and I headed to Minden today to see Milly; we haven't been in about a month and a half, but much to our disappointment, she was closed.  It was heartbreaking to stand outside, looking through the glass door, and unable to get inside to the treasures!  But, hopefully, Milly is enjoying a much needed holiday weekend with her family.

We headed back to Shreveport and hit a couple of antique shops in Bossier but it wasn't nearly as wonderful as Milly's would have been.  I bought a little pair of milk glass salt and pepper shakers.

We came home and made breakfast for supper (cheese grits, bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits and sausage gravy) and turned on the LSU game.  Don't take offense if you're from Oregon, but those Oregon Duck uniforms are u-g-l-y.  Of course, right now, LSU's defense is pretty ugly, too.

The rest of my holiday weekend will be dedicated to waiting for Comcast tomorrow to come fix my mom's cable, grading papers, cleaning house, and playing with my new techie-toy: I bought a Dell Streak tablet.  Can't afford an iPad2 and this was on sale.  I actually like the 7" size but I'm not thrilled with the Marketplace.  iTunes is leaps and bounds ahead of apps over Android.  Or so it seems.

I got the WiFi only version and that should be fine for my needs right now.  I don't need another phone.

My main interest in it is as a reader; reading articles and blogs on an iPhone is okay, but my eyes appreciate the larger size of the Streak.  Plus, I'm giving the Kindle app another try.  I ordered Dick Cheney's In My TimeIn My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir and am trying to be open minded about reading a book without paper and ink smells.

And so it goes. I'm off to watch the rest of this football game and see what else is happening in the world. 

Techonology is Not My Friend

Man........it's been a Monday, for sure.  I've had technology problems all.day.long.  ALL DAY. 

I got to work at 6:45, fired up the computer, and by 11 I was able to open up my email because the thing is so freakin' slow.  I tried to run a Powerpoint last Friday and couldn't even get the slides to advance.

The a/c in my classroom topped out at 88 today.  Maybe that's not "technology" exactly, but it wasn't working for me. 

The teenager's iPhone4 arrived today, except I told him to watch for it (because I checked my shipping info and knew it was coming), but do you think he did?  No.  FedEx took it back to the facility where I had to go pick it up this afternoon.  Why didn't I make him go get it, you ask?  Because it's across town and I'm scared for him to drive on I-20.  Over-protective. 

So I picked up the iPhone and we went to Best Buy to get it activated and get his stuff moved to the new phone.  But they couldn't because I bought it from Apple.  They sent me to the AT&T store who also could not activate the phone because I bought it from Apple.  They sent me back home to do it via iTunes, which I should have done in the first place, except NOW I'm having issues with iTunes.  I have to download the latest version....

...is it just me or does iTunes have a "new" version every time I get on there? 

Lordy.

And so I get on the blog, finally, which don't even get me started about how neglected this little blog is, but when I check this new "Spam" filter thing, well....there's all these comments and it makes no sense whatsoever why they are in a Spam filter.  NOTHING about them looked Spammy. 

Today, I'm not a friend of technology.  My karma must be off.

I'm getting off this laptop before it blows up or gives me the blue screen of death and going to open a book.  Paper and ink.  Works for me.

Tomorrow will be a better day. 

Steve Gets a New Phone

Steve finally ditched his antique Nokia flip-phone for a Blackberry Bold.  He hates it.  He can't make the ring tone loud enough, the text or email underlines everything, and he's not all that sure about the alarm clock. 

Anybody have one?  Any tips or encouragement for him? 

I have an iPhone, so I'm not any help.

The iPad

I've been wondering about the iPad. I don't actually have the fever for one but I've been reading over the past couple of days as people have bought them and are trying them out. I guess the draw is the portability of it? The mid-size portability?

Ann Althouse bought one and has spent a couple of days tinkering with it. She sums it up this way:

And I'm not going to pick it up from my bedside to check the time and a couple websites when I wake up. I'm not going to read it from a completely supine position, as I often do with the iPhone, when I'm in bed and not ready to sit up.

That's the way I am with my iPhone, too. Before I'm ready to get up, I'll use it to check on the world before I get out of bed. I do a quick check of my email and a couple of news sites and if things look good, I'll get up. If I'm going to blog, I'd rather be on my desktop or my laptop. Very seldom do I blog on my iPhone.

But would I on an iPad? Probably not, but I guess at some later date the fever could hit me. What about you, do you have the fever? Have you bought one?

I'm waiting to see what Bride of Rove has to say about it.

Can't Blame Bush? Blame His Computer.

When all else fails and you can't blame Bush for EVERYTHING, just blame the government computers. That's what Peter Orszag did yesterday. As reported by The Hill:

The public is getting a bad return on its tax dollars because government workers are operating with outdated technologies, Orszag said in a statement that kicked off a summit between Obama and dozens of corporate CEOs.

“Twenty years ago, people who came to work in the federal government had better technology at work than at home,” said Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget. “Now that’s no longer the case.

“The American people deserve better service from their government, and better return for their tax dollars.”

I won't quibble with him on the issue of American people deserving "better service from their government" but I'm not convinced the issue is "outdated technologies."

It's what we used to call "operator error."

Either way, Mark Tapscott did a little research and found this:

Go to USASpending.gov and click on the "Spending" tab, then from the drop-down menu that appears, click on "Contracts." Then in the search box, enter the word "Computer" with or without the quotation marks.

The first time I entered it without the quotation marks and got back a list of 447 companies having the word "Computer" in their names and that have contracts to sell to the federal government in 2009. Total value of those contracts is more than $46 billion.

That's right, $46 B-I-L-L-I-O-N. So, if OMB Director Orzag is right, Uncle Sam spent $46 billion with computer companies last year but couldn't drag itself into the 21st century of office technology?

Not just that, but the government spent nearly $62 billion in 2008 and $91 billion in 2007. And we're STILL outdated? It sounds to me like someone isn't spending their money wisely.

(More at Memeorandum)

iPhone Fever

Ohmigod The Teenager bought an iPhone. He discarded his beloved BlackBerry Pearl without a second look and picked up an iPhone. And I love it.

I've always loved my iPod without question. I'm not such a tecchie person and when I got my iPod several years ago, I thought, "I'll never be able to do this." In fact, I didn't even get a cell phone until this past summer. I couldn't even work Steve's early edition Nokia. Once I got the iPod I saw the light. So simple. Good grief, what had I been waiting for?

That somehow opened a door and I got a laptop. Now, I've had issues with my laptop because it came with Vista which I HATE WITH A PASSION because it boots up so slowly and because it always asks permission to run a program even if you've already told it to run. Stupid. But I love the convenience of a laptop. I just want a better one.

And as I said, I finally got a cell phone this summer. It's not fancy - a simple Nokia flip phone. I still don't know how to everything it would do, but it does what I want.

The Teenager, on the other hand, is fearless with technology as most kids are. He started out with a Samsung slider phone. There were things about it he didn't like (ringtone issues) so he got a Nokia, like mine. Decided it wasn't cool enough and bought a BlackBerry Pearl (with his own money - I had to quit funding his tastes in technology a while back.) He loved his BlackBerry. Until the iPhone.

I finally got to touch the iPhone today because he couldn't figure out how to sync it with iTunes. It was simply an issue of deleting and reinstalling iTunes, which he could have done but I suspect did not want to take the time. By the time I had backed up everything on an external drive and then deleted everything (which reminds me - I guess I need to back up again now with the newer version...) it took a couple of hours.

While I was waiting, I played with the iPhone.

I love it.

I want one.

It is so cool.

Technology Gone Amok

The Rocky Mountain News is under fire this week because one of their reporters "Twittered" the funeral of a three year old child who was killed when a pickup truck crashed into a Baskin Robbins. This is the lowest, sleaziest thing I've heard lately (outside of politics!). How callous!

The reporter was allowed into the funeral and once inside he sent play-by-play "tweets" to his newspaper website. For those who don't know what Twitter is, it's a social networking site where you can send "tweets" or updates from your cell phone or your computer of your daily doings in 140 characters or less. I'm on Twitter and I think it's kind of fun; I've networked with lots of other teachers around the country and learned some things from them. Some people on Twitter are just funny and send out entertaining Tweets (Fireland comes to mind); but to use this technology for a child's funeral goes beyond insenstive to me.

One of my pet peeves is someone texting in a movie theater. How distracting and rude can it be to text throughout a funeral? How could this guy think nobody would notice? This all goes to the idea of technology etiquette in our culture. Cell-phone etiquette is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. I hate being in the grocery store or a check out line somewhere and having to listen to someone's cell phone conversation. I hate being in a restaurant enjoying my meal and having Mr. Important five tables over broadcasting his importance to the whole place. Ugh!

At any rate, I think both the reporter and the paper in this case are at fault. The paper's defense is that the community was grieving and also wanted to be included in the funeral. I think there must have been a better way.

Help is a Dos Equis Away

Heaven on earth is Nicky's Mexican Restaurant. I've eaten at more Mexican restaurants than I can even remember and consider myself an authority on Mexican food, but hands down this is the best. Especially after spending the morning making your brain explode by a textbook workshop that included introduction to more technology than Bill Gates could ever use. I'm sure I'm going to get the hang of all these new tools that come with my new literature book, and to be honest, most of them are way cool. But until I do, I'm having lunch, and dinner, at Nicky's.