Andrew's Blog

Basic Tools For The Tech-Age

When the internet first arrived not too long ago, we were all happy with e-mail and reading the news. Today, we are able to do all these things faster and with an extremely broad spectrum of information. We can read the latest breaking news, buy cars and electronics, research companies, download music, and much, much more!

What are the essential tools we need?

Hardware

1) Laptop. If you are a home user and not a game player, a laptop is a good choice as it will give you portability and save you space on your desk. They are fairly inexpensive nowadays and have plenty of processing power. The important thing here is to get lots of RAM (min 512mb). This can significanlty increase your computers start up and ability to handle multitasking. (IBM, DELL, Apple)

2) Wireless Connectivity & Broadband. If you like to move around the house with your computer or have multiple computers, the best thing to buy is a wireless router. Combine this with a laptop with wireless capabilities and you can connect from anywhere inside and out. If you do decide to go out for a coffee, there are wireless "hotspots" that you can connect to (maybe for a fee). Broadband will in the future replace the telephone line as the communication porthole to your home. South Korea is already the leader in this and eventually it will be the norm. Data will be available 24 hours and there will be no limits on what you can download or upload. Prices should come down to make it affordable, but will take time. (D-LINK, Linksys)

3) Ipod (or MP3 Player). If you are a city dweller an commuting in everyday, having an iPod to listen to music, sermons, audio books, makes the trip go faster. Also with the internet and the introduction of the iPod, comes "podcasts" which are essentially news (TV/radio) or personal commentry that can be loaded to your iPod just like any other mp3 file. This now expands the capability of what you can use your iPod for.

4) Digital camera. Cameras have gotten cheaper and cheaper. You can buy a 3 megapixel camera for under US$300. If you want to share photos, this is one of the best ways to go. (Sony, Canon)

5) Mobilephone. The mobilephone will soon have the capabilities to handle all the functions of a PDA and a music player. Alternatively, we will have music, video and PDA functionallity all in one. Some hardware is already available with this, but it is still developing. Currently, I see this as a pure communication tool. Until data transfer fees are cheaper and the technology infrastructure and hardware capability faster, the need for having this is less of a priority. (Nokia, Motorola)

Software

1) Email. E-mail programs have come a long way. The web-based programs are good enough and with Outlook Express or some other free e-mail computer based software, there is no real need to spend anything unless you need to.

2) Photo Organizer. Adobe Photoshop Album or Picasa2 are two programs that are free and all that you need to get yourself organized.

3) Music Player. iTunes is the best that is out there at the moment. Easy to install and use, plus you can buy music from there and play it on your computer or iPod.

4) RSS. Pluck, RSSReader, and You Subscribe are three programs that bring together news feeds to one location so that you can select the headlines you want and connect to the internet to read. Your Subscription integrates with MS Outlook and also downloads podcasts to iTunes. It is the most integrated of the three, else you need to download iPodder to receive podcasts.

On-Line Accounts.

1) Hotmail.com/Yahoo Mail. Any web-based email account will do.

2) Blogger.com. This is the new way to communicate without having to set up a community. It is open for all to see, so don't write anything that you don't want the whole world to have the ability to know.

Putting it all together

How it all works now is that you begin your day by turning on your computer (from Hibernate mode) and glancing at the latest headlines from Outlook which has You Subscribe loaded. You have also syncronized your iPod to iTunes which has been loaded with the latests podcasts (also downloaded by you Subscribe). You then eat breakfast and head off to work listening to your iPod along the way.

You reach work and head out for lunch as it is nice and sunny out. You see a long lost friend, have lunch and take a picture together with your phone that has a camera on it. At the end of the day you reach home, set your iPod down to syncronize & recharge, download the photo you took at lunch, login to your blog and write about your day loading the photo to the internet and send a link to your old friend for him/her to read about in an email. (All this is done in the living room wirelessly connected to the internet via broadband).