9 responses so far ↓

• 1 Vicki // Feb 4, 2008 at 3:22 pm

  Hello,

  I have been using voice recognition software (Dragon NaturallySpeaking) for 10 years now. I rely heavily on it but I find that I do spend half the day dictating and navigating around the computer — and the other half, correcting mistakes Dragon has made or cursing the program to kingdom come.:)

• 2 Leah // Feb 4, 2008 at 4:24 pm

  Ah Vicky I can hear you cursing from here. I’ve tried to deal with voice recognition software but it even tested my level of technology patience. I can just imagine it transcribing your frustrating instructions
  

• 3 Char // Feb 5, 2008 at 1:45 am

  Leah - thanks so much for referencing me in the post. I am a technology geek if there ever was one.

• 4 Rosa Say // Feb 6, 2008 at 2:03 pm

  Oh my goodness Leah, where do I start? I do love technology more and more every day, but I’ve been figuring out that the technology I love is all somehow related to what I can do via my laptop and online… as the link in my name will prove (with a story there), it’s kinda weird how hopeless I am with my cell phone and a digital camera when compared to all I can do now with a computer. Any clue as to why that is?

  In recent memory I am loving just about everything web-based (versus on my hard drive) and am one of the Googly-Apps people now, surprising everyone who has known me long with the way I totally dumped Outlook for GMail, including my domain mail. Has to do with all the travel I do and because I am petite and short… can hop on any computer now without lugging my laptop around. I’ve gone from privacy-obsessed to fearless so quickly… while I do back stuff up, I kinda figure that if I lose stuff I can just create all over again

  My next big leap one of these days will be from pc to mac… not as much to convert, but because of my thirst to know them both now.

• 5 Beth Hayden // Feb 6, 2008 at 5:13 pm

  Leah -

  I’m a big fan of anything web-based, but I must admit I really don’t care for Gmail. I rarely use it and get annoyed with it when I do. But I love Pandora, Facebook and del.icio.us.

  I’m also developing a love/hate relationship with Twitter. What a fantastic idea, but I can’t seem to find the right app for using it on my desktop instead of on the Web. Great way to track what’s going on with friends and colleagues, though.

  And then there’s the feedreader world. I’m enamored of Sage (Firefox plug-in) as my way to read feeds. Simple, easy, pretty. Close to perfect, if you ask me, and an easy way to explain feeds to newbies. I link to a good video about feeds here: http://www.bloggingwithbeth.com/tools/index.html

  Thanks for the fun question! Looking forward to seeing other people’s answers.

• 6 aerodi // Feb 7, 2008 at 4:47 pm

  I hate all the things I am able to do with my Mac computer but not able to do in my mother’s laptop. She is a novice computer user (almost 60 yrs old) and she gets frustrated easily, rubbing her frustration on me.
  Mostly we are both frustrated with Vista.

  I am getting addicted to Twitter, love Gmail and Flickr. And as for blogging I find it too much consuming, so I keep a Tumblr.com blog. And find podcast a valuable resource for training and information.

• 7 Leah // Feb 8, 2008 at 8:46 am

  @Char - It was my pleasure Char to reference you and your Essential Tools meme. I always enjoying reading about what other people used and loved.

  @Rosa - You make an important point Rosa - “affection” for a technology (or technology in general) is a day by day thing. The more you use it each and every day, and the more comfortable you become with it, the more you learn to love you favourite stuff (quirks and all).

  And your love for “Googly-apps” and web-based vs box-based software puts you in good company Rosa. In fact there is even a new acronym for this - Saas. (I think that there’s a new blog post coming just in that topic alone).

  @Beth - I’m glad that you foudn this a fun question. I agree that Twitter is a bit of a paradox for many people - they want to stay in touch but it can consume sooooo much time. For me Twitter is one of those things that can just sit on the shelf waiting for the day when I have the time.

  Thanks for the pointer to Sage. I hadn’t come across that before as I’m a Google Reader fan.

• 8 Lee Wilkinson // Feb 8, 2008 at 2:05 pm

  Here’s an ‘I love technology’ story about my 86 year old mother:

  She was starting to slowly opt out of technology, even though she had earlier really worked at getting on top of it. She had pretty much stopped emailing anyone and to fill in her time, was going to bed early and get up late.

  My son set her up so she could play Scrabbulous. Now she has about 6 perpetual scrabble games on with various members of the family, some games include several people at once.

  She has swung back into emailing all her friends and family about lots of things. She is staying up late and getting up early to make her moves in Scrabbulous and woe betide anyone who doesn’t take their turn promptly.

  I love the way technology has so many positive impacts beyond what any one person could ever dream up.

• 9 Leah // Feb 12, 2008 at 2:45 pm

  What a great story Lee!

  It is the perfect example of applying technology to something that was already of interest.

  The craziest thing I’ve heard with Scrabulous is that Mattel (the company that holds the Scrable trademarks) is considering taking the Scrabulous people to court and shutting down their site.

  Why wouldn’t they leverage the success of the online form of the game and support the site, sponsor it or heaven forbid buy them out?

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