Thursday, February 19, 2009
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Thursday, February 19, 2009 |
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Community | Obits | Editorial & Columnists | Society | Sports | Education | Classified Ads | Calendar of Events | Features | Newsbriefs | Legals | Archives | Subscriptions | Photo Gallery |
| Close to Nowhere Technology I really shouldn’t read Milton Winter’s column before I finish writing mine. More often than you would think, his column and my ideas are drifting along the same line. (My friend Jane says “great minds wander in the same direction.”) The “big switch” to digital television signals from analog was supposed to be February 17 (Tuesday, the day I am actually writing this). Apparently, the American public is not astute enough to be able to have everything set up and ready to go in a year and a half, so the deadline has been extended until June somethingth. Even though we have satellite television at our house, I worried about the little TV set in my sewing room. I don’t think I can cope without DIY and the Food Channel. Memphis television station WMC (5) had a test with Joe Birch a couple weeks ago and if you could see Joe’s face and hear his voice, you were OK. I am OK. Unlike Milton, I am comfortable with technology, and every new gadget that comes out, I want. I don’t get, but I do want. My sewing machine is very computerized. It tells me that I’ve forgotten to put the pressure foot down (again) and that the foot I have on is the wrong foot for the stitch I’ve selected. I can set it to make a locking stitch at the beginning of a seam and the end of the same seam. It can write letters and make over 300 designs (I can’t, but it can). All it requires is a degree from MIT. It’s really kinda funny. I’m not afraid of a computer at all and don’t hesitate to try to “fix” things or make them do things I want them to do -- however, I am terrified of attempting anything weird on my sewing machine. Maybe, I don’t care enough if my computer blows up and I care too much if my sewing machine goes on the fritz. Last week, in Wyatt’s column, he talked about a “diamond” phone. He was being facetious about some of the features, but I thought he was also being sarcastic about the “diamond” part. This weekend, I saw a billboard with a huge “diamond” phone on it. Guess what I want now... My daughter has an iPod; don’t even ask me what my son has and my oldest granddaughter has an iPod Nano she got for Christmas. I thought the iPod was neat -- we carry it with us on trips and the girls watch TV shows, or movies, or whatever else has been downloaded into the tiny little box. The Nano is also really neat -- turn it sideways and the picture goes right with it. I realized that this is “old” technology and has been around a while, but it’s the first time I’ve played with it. I like it! A young man came in the office a week or so ago and he had an iPhone. I made a comment and he was nice enough to show me all the stuff the iPhone does and let me play with it a minute. If I had an iPhone, I could read my email while driving down the road -- with Ernestine, my Garmin navigational unit still in the console. iPhones have GPS built into them. Guess what else I want? I do love gadgets! |
      
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