Living in a Virtual World...

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but sometimes, I forget what life was like before the internet came along.

Even though my earlier years of life were spent in the dark ages of having to use typewriters, having to go to the library to look things up using, gasp, one of those old-fashioned card catalogue systems and actually physically gathering around a water cooler to have a water cooler discussion, I’ve almost forgotten what those days are like.

It’s so easy to satisfy our need for instant gratification. You can google anything these days. You want to know what other movies that guy you recognize but can’t identify has been in? Look him up on IMDB. Want to know mostly-correct historical facts about something? Look it up on Wikipedia. Want to talk about a TV episode you just watched but no one you know watches it? Go to EW.com or Television Without Pity and join in the discussions there.

The list goes on and on. If you want a certain recipe, there’s a place to find it online. If you are trying to use up an ingredient in your fridge but don’t know what to make with it? Go to allrecipes.com and type in the ingredients you have. Voila! Instant recipe suggestions.

Want to see what the weather is going to really do because you know your meteorologist will inevitably be proven wrong? Go online and look at a radar map. Want to know what the time is in Slovakia? Google it.

You get my point. We no longer have to wait to find out anything anymore as long as an internet connection can be found. Even then, the power of smartphones allows us to have Google at our fingertips.

It’s spoiled me. If I’m out and about and suddenly I decide I want to go somewhere else but don’ t know the location, I just google it and then enter the address into my GPS.

We never really have to wait for much anymore. We can make appointments with our doctor online, make appointments at the car dealership, track packages to see when they’ll arrive at home. We can do all our banking from home without having to ever go to a bank. We can order groceries. We can order contact lenses. We can order anything.

In fact, the only thing that the internet can’t do is spit out the item you just ordered from amazon.com instantaneously and I don’t see that happening in the near future. Also, while you can make travel arrangements, you still have to physically go to an airport and fly on a plane. Maybe in a few centuries teleportation will be an option and thus, the internet WILL be able to do everything but, for now, we do still have to do some things ourselves.

The problem is that I’ve found I get used to things the way they are online. I read a lot of news stories, reviews and TV recaps online. I always enjoy reading the comments below because you get to see if people had the same reaction as you did. For example, after watching “True Blood” last night, I was a little surprised at exactly how far the story on the show now differs from the books on which it was based. It’s not all bad- “True Blood” is not intended to be quality TV but, rather, a fun, quite trashy entertainment experience. However, while I think it’s still pretty entertaining, I’m a little sad that they’re doing some things so very differently from the things that happened in the books. I know, I know…books and movies/TV are never the same and the books are always better but, well, I like them to at least have some things in common. The way “True Blood” is going, all that will be the same are the character names and the fact that it’s a world where vampires, fairies, werewolves and other supernatural creatures coexist.

So, it was cathartic to read other people’s comments on the internet this morning and find out that I wasn’t alone in my opinions. I don’t know why it’s so nice to find out that other people share your mindset but it’s oddly comforting. It’s the same thing as when I read a book and I don’t like it. It’s cathartic to go to Amazon.com and read some of the less positive reviews of the book and find comfort in the fact that you’re not the only person who wishes he/she hadn’t wasted the time on reading the silly thing.

The trouble with doing this type of thing online is that you get used to it- even though you’re not really having a conversation as much as ‘listening’ to other people’s opinions, it still feels like you’ve had a conversation and catharsis is reached.

The problem lies in the fact that I still read books and magazines in hard copy form. When I read an article, I’ve started automatically looking for the comments at the end of an article. This is not good because, well, magazines don’t have comment sections the way online publications do.

It’s a similar situation when I read a couple of books on my Amazon Kindle and then I switch back to reading hard copies of books. It feels weird not to have a button to flip pages and it’s a lot harder to read one-handed.

Technology has spoiled me. I don’t think there’s any other way of putting it. It’s not always a bad thing but I do confess, there are times when I go to a library and I miss that silent thrill that they used to hold. Libraries are never as silent as they used to be because there’s always the ever-present tap-tap-tap sound so keyboards clicking because that’s how you look up books in a library nowadays. I miss those wax-smelling wooden libraries with the heavy drawers crammed full of hand-typed index cards that told you what books the library held. Sure, it’s quicker to look things up online but there was more ceremony involved in the old way. It made it seem more of an ‘event’ to go to the library. I used to hold my breath, hoping that a certain book I wanted would be there on the shelf. Now, I can look it up online and not have to spend the time going to the library.

Libraries aren’t the only place that have been changed by the internet but, for some reason, they come to mind as one of the major places that have undergone a technological transformation in the past 20 years. I’m sure it’s the same for hospitals, schools, banks and other institutions.

It’s not a bad thing. As Bob Dylan sang, “The Times They Are a-Changing…” It’s just that with technology moving at the speeds they are now, they’re changing so rapidly we don’t have time to catch up before they’ve changed again. Life is more convenient with the internet. It moves a lot faster. We get more done. We get more answers. We learn more.

It’s just that once in a while, when I find myself googling something like, “does mulch really stop weeds” when I already really know the answer, I realize that I’m spoiled rotten and I don’t really need to look it up just because I can.

Granted, I do anyway because I’m an internet junkie but at least I know I probably shouldn’t.

And knowing is half the battle…right?

Happy Tuesday!

Technology... Evolution...Reflections

Sometimes I wonder what we did before we had the internet.

I know there was a time when it didn’t exist because I actually remember that time. Sadly, I can remember computers when the movie, “War Games,” almost seemed like science fiction. I mean, that movie has Matthew Broderick hooking up a phone to get his computer to talk to another. Nowadays, people would laugh at it and say, “wow- that’s the olden days!”. (Confession: I watched that movie last year and actually did laugh at it and say “that’s the olden days!”)

However, back in 1980-whatever when that film came out, it was amazing to consider that a computer could talk to another one. I’m revealing my age here but I remember when the first home computers started coming out. We used to load games with a tape recorder on a cassette tape. If you bumped the tape recorder, the game would crash and you’d start over. It would take up to a couple of hours to load a game. Anything under an hour was amazing.

I feel like my generation has actually watched this evolution of technology from the very beginning. Certainly, there were computers way before my family owned their first Sinclair Spectrum (that ended up being defective so we swapped it for a Commodore 64). However, the Commodore 64 was one of the first mainstream machines to actually be small enough and usable enough that it could sit in the living room and be used for games and other purposes.

After that, things started moving fast. Cassette recorders gave way to rather large floppy disks that you could cut in half with a pair of scissors and loaded WAY faster than cassette recorders. Then the floppy disks started shrinking and, finally, after several different versions are now becoming obsolete in favour of flash drives and portable hard drives.

It’s interesting to be from this generation because we know what life was like before the internet and we know what life is with it. It was only when I was in college that we were really able to get online. It was before the world wide web even really got going that I got my first email address and all we could do were find usenet groups and use Unix to do stuff online. Then within a year, there was Webcrawler and Lycos and, well, that’s pretty much where the internet became a part of life.

Yet before those days, we used to have to physically go to stores to buy stuff. We used to have to go to the library to look something up. We used to have to discuss TV shows, books and movies in person or over the phone. We had less self-diagnosed ailments because it was way harder to self-diagnose without Web-MD and way more work. If someone had termites in their house, they’d have to wait until the next business day to call someone to take care of them. They couldn’t make an appointment online five minutes after the termites were discovered.

You probably get my point: Life moved slower. At the risk of sounding like an old cranky grandmother, back in the olden days, we had to do more for ourselves and we had to have more social interaction.

It’s a toss-up as to which was better. I’m a self-confessed internet junkie. It supports to my need for instant gratification of information. If I’m trying to figure out what that weird metal thing is that flew up out of my old lawnmower when it exploded, I can go online and do a quick Google to discover it was a piston. If I decide I’m craving cauliflower cheese for dinner, I can go online and find a good recipe and figure out if I need to go to Kroger before I go home.

The internet does make it easier to avoid talking to people. In my job, we can approach candidates via phone or email. I tend to choose email. My coworker prefers the phone. He’s older than me. This is not an insult, just a fact. I don’t choose email because I’m a coward or I’m shy. I choose email because it’s what I’m used to and from my point of view, I find it far less intrusive than a phone call. I make calls when they’re necessary or I need to move really fast but if I’m just trying to see if someone’s interested in a job, I think email is very effective. When you cold call them, they tend to be irritated because you’re bothering them at work and they say “Send me an email” anyway. Also, email gives them a way to get in touch with you whenever they have time which is why I get a lot of emails after midnight.

Yet I don’t hide behind email. I use it as the tool for which it was invented. I still make sure I interact with people. The idea of not being able to meet people and talk to people is a little alarming to me yet it’s becoming more and more frequent. Sure, the younger generation interacts but they do it on Facebook and via text and via instant messenger. It makes it far easier to stay inside and be a hermit than it used to.

It’s just weird to consider life without the internet. I was reflecting back on that today which is what inspired this blog. I remember life without the internet. It really wasn’t so different just a little less…virtual. I used to be addicted to the set of Encyclopedia Brittanica’s that had been left in our house by the previous owners. They were missing one of the “M”’s which was a pain in the rear but I still made full use of them. I went to the library a lot more. I went to the mall. I read more magazines.

You get the picture. There was life before the internet and it’s a life I remember. It’s just now, I use it constantly at work and at home. For work, it’s our lifesource- it’s how we find resumes and resumes find us. At home, it’s my tool for everything from the pups having an upset tummy to me having to order a new Lawnmower from Home Depot and finding out which is the best model and value for money.

It’s really amazing how life evolves and it happens so quickly but, simultaneously, so gradually that we don’t really notice. It’s only when we stop and actually look back that we see how far things have come and in how short of a time. I’m sure the same can be said for many things in life but, for me, it’s in technology I notice it most. It’s not just the evolution of life from the actual to the virtual but the streamlining of the technology itself. We no longer have the giant, clumsy computers and mainframes from “War Games.” We have tiny, thin, light-as-a-feather laptops that we can shove in a backpack. We now watch movies without having to insert anything into a machine instead of massive videotapes that could get chewed up if you forgot to clean the player.

I could go on and on. It’s just weird to look back to less than 20 years ago and think that there was yet to be a Google or an Amazon.com or an iTunes when these things are such a part of our lives nowadays. In a way, it forced us to be more self-sufficient but, in a way, we wasted a lot of time and a lot more gas to get places.

As with everything there are pluses and negatives. However, even though it’s a massive time waster and allows us to hide behind our electronic personas, I choose to think that the invention of the internet is a good thing.

After all, without the internet, I wouldn’t be blogging about there being an internet. Which is actually quite surreal when I stop and think about it.

Perhaps I better not. This blog is long enough already.

Happy Friday, have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

Time Flies When You Like Your Job!

I can't believe this week is going by so fast. It's unusual to say that. Usually the weeks drag by while the weekends fly.

I don't know if it's because my job is new or if it's always going to be busy but it seems like I barely look at the clock during the day. I find this to be a very good thing. In my former job, clockwatching was my main event. On days when I didn't have very much to do at all, clockwatching was an obsession.

The thing is, now I look back, I always got my work done. I never missed a deadline. Granted, I probably could have got more done on my backburner projects which were really busy work but I don't recall ever failing to get my job done.

Which may not seem like a huge thing but, well, if I told you how little work I did some days, particularly when there wasn't much to be done, you might be shocked. Let's just say that if they ever took a look at my internet logs, my former workplace might notice I had a bit of a web-surfing addiction.

I web-surfed while I was working on other projects. You might wonder what I could constantly find to surf the web about. Well, here's an example of a fairly normal unbusy day at work and the sort of things I would read on the internet.

1) Recaps of my TV shows on Entertainment Weekly.com

2) Facebook. Yes, my office did block Facebook.com but there are these things called proxy servers and if you use one, you can bypass firewall blocks. Hey, they paid me to do web security. You learn a thing or two.

3) I would see these brightly coloured cookie things online or on magazine covers so I'd go on a quest to find out what they were. Turns out they're called French meringues. Who knew? The Internet did!
4) I'd want to know how to stop my puppy from barking at strangers when we walked so I'd look to see what tips I could find.

5) I wanted to see if a cookbook I borrowed from my mother was available in the US since she got it in England and I fancied my won copies.

6) I'd read recaps from televisionwithoutpity.com. They have a huge library of recaps. It's good for hours of endless reading. Unless Jacob wrote the recaps in which case regardless of how much I like the telly program, I simply cannot read his awful waffling.

7) I'd check my Hotmail account

8) I'd check to see if I had any email in my author email account

9) I'd see if my book had any new reviews

10) I'd email my friends, particularly my two librarian friends.

11) I'd read another recap on televisionwithoutpity.com

12) I'd try to find out what the berries on the tree outside my house were because Rory keeps trying to eat them and I want to make sure they're not poisonous.

13) I'd find out about woolly worms because I remembered seeing tons of them at my parents' house and, at the time, I didn't realize they were woolly worms. I thought they were having some bizarre caterpillar invasion.

14) I'd google "Bad Bosses" to see how my boss compared.

15) I'd go to Monster.com to see what else was out there. This is how I found my lovely new job.

Sadly, this is probably less than two hours of surfing time.

I have a problem. I know. However, in my defence, it's only when I'm bored. In my current job, I don't have time to get bored. It's rather fabulous, actually. I'm working all the time and enjoying it. I'm getting stuff done.

I promise in a couple of days, I'll stop blogging about how wonderful my new job is compared with my old. I'm suffering from post traumatic job disorder. Once it passes, I promise to move on to other subjects.

In the meantime, I'll continue to be amazed at how quickly my days are going and how much I'm enjoying learning about what my job will be. Today, I managed to find a candidate for an immediate job placement and if he does well on his interview tomorrow. If he gets it, it will be my first placement. I'll earn a commission but, honestly, it's not about the money. It's about knowing that I've found someone who's out of work, has a six year old son and who really needs a job and helped him find one.

That's a nice feeling. It beats surfing the internet any day.

Happy Thursday!

About Those Fancy Toilet Doors...

I'm trying not to go insane at work. It's my new goal.

I've figured out what the problem is with the new office location: It's too much, too soon. Until recently, my software company was a little business. We were small, slightly cramped in our old office and a little informal. These are all the things I liked about my job. Even though it was sometimes interruptive, I quite liked seeing everyone who came downstairs to get coffee in the mornings and saying hello. I quite liked that when we had meetings, we had to fight over chairs and all tried to get a place at the table. I quite liked the fact that while I could work, it was ok if I checked my bank balance or listened to KROQ online.

Now, in our new building, we're suddenly a big, giant corporation even though we're still the same 27-ish group of people we were before. We're in this massive building which is very nice and fancy but really doesn't suit who we are. Interestingly, I think it's supposed to suit who we're supposed to become: A major competitor in the educational software market.

Yet, I don't quite see that happening. You see, you can take a group of fish out of a small pond and plonk them into a lake. They might like the new lake but they're quite attached to that small pond and it's better to slowly introduce them to the new surroundings that dump them and run. If you do it slowly, it means there's less fish who are likely to go belly up and float to the surface of the lake in defeat because they can't find their tiny little hole in wish they've been secure for a while.

I know I've complained about the lack of privacy already. I've complained about how I'm limited in what I can do on my computer anymore. No more fun web-surfing breaks. So, today, I thought, well, ok...I can work with this. If I choose to take my lunch at my desk, I can take the 30 minutes I'm allotted for lunch and catch up on my web-surfing. I felt relieved.

Then, of course, we had a Staff Meeting of Doom. We were told that everyone is expected to leave their desks for lunch and that there's no excuse anymore. There are nice tables all over the building, little break areas that look out the window. My ungrateful little whine is this: I don't WANT to look out the window! I can do that when I head towards the bathroom. I want to SURF the INTERNET!

I'm not allowed to do that anymore. I'm sad. Now I'm even sadder that I can't listen to Pandora radio or KROQ anymore because our tech support believes we don't have enough bandwidth to support us doing this. My silly question is that if we're a software company, shouldn't we, you know, have a fair amount of bandwidth?

Apparently not. I do have an iPod so it's not like they've said that we can't listen to music (yet). It's just that there's something quite nice about listening to internet radio because even though you know what's on their playlist, there's still an air of unpredictability about the stations.

Still, I'm trying to think positive. After all, I'm not allowed to complain in the office and there's a certain amount of negativity that gets burned off by not having an outlet. Unless, of course, you have a blog...like me. Hence...you lucky readers get to hear my woes.

And while we're on the subject of not being allowed to complain, this is a wee bit of a nuisance at times. Before we moved into the new building, we were told that no expense was spared in designing the bathroom stalls especially to give us privacy while we went to the toilet, to give us our own 'room'. I liked this idea but I think it might have been better in theory than in practice. You see, I suspect that the workmen put the bathroom doors to the women's stalls on backwards. I think the idea is that you're supposed to be able to see out, not see in to where ladies are...doing their business. It is a wee bit off-putting to go into the bathroom and accidentally see someone on the toilet through the door when all you really wanted to do was check underneath to see if there were feet there. However, since mentioning that tiny little problem would constitute a complaint, no one is saying anything. Thus, we women get to go to the toilet and feel like we're being watched. Which we are. I've taken to trying to avoid looking at eye level if the stall door is closed. It's not quite as open as it could be but I can still see more than I'd like.

I promise to get off the subject of my new building very soon. I'm getting to be a little paranoid, even here in the blog. I'm a teensy bit worried that maybe we're even being bugged. There are these strange little 'eye in the sky' things that have been called 'smoke detectors' but they look a bit spy-ish for my tastes.

I might be feeling a little paranoid, however.

Seriously, I'm trying to adjust. I did get a lot of work done today which I suppose is the point now I've been deprived of all the distractions that made me enjoy going to work. I've also figured out which part of my job I really enjoy most in the past two days. These are accomplishments and when I look back to even a couple of decades ago, I'd be far less spoiled already than I am now. I probably wouldn't even be allowed to work. Perhaps I ought to put a few pictures of Jane Austin heroines around my cubicle to remind me of what might have been had I been born a couple of hundred years ago.

Seriously, I'm not as bitter as I might sound today. I came home from work feeling slightly less angry than yesterday. I managed to do some writing and just the fact that I could sit down and have something silly and quirky come out that easily was just a nice feeling. It reminded me of what I love to do in life. My job is what I do to support that love. It's been a long time since I've felt like this and it feels good.

So, tomorrow, I shall go to work armed with an iPod full of new music and just grin and bear it when I'm told that there's no more KROQ.com for me. I'll take a book to read during my mandatory lunch period and I'll keep trying to get work done. Then I'll come home and enjoy the fact that it's not my life: It's just a job.

It helps that it's payday tomorrow too. And it's supposed to snow! Two of my favourite things in life!

Happy Wednesday!