What's important to you? I've been through a lot of pain in my life, mostly at my own hands. I like to blame my mother for not teaching me better. As much as I'd like to blame my mother, and I can ... trust me, I can ... but, I know the blame really rests with me. I don't know how I would have known better, since we only know that which we are taught. But, there are other people who have been through worse things than me and still manage to grab life by the balls. Unfortunately for me, I've only managed to understand the game in the last few years. It's not all about me. I've always known that ... my mother made it clear, but I tried so hard... so very hard (which in itself explains some of the problem). In my old age, thanks to many years of love, patience and understanding from my husband, I finally get it. I hate that it took me so long to get it. All those wasted years. It devastates and frustrates the hell out of me. Why can't there be a do-over? I want to do it again, and this time, do it right!
My Brother-in-Law passed away a few years ago and before he died he made it very clear what was most important to him: Faith, Family and Friends. I live by his mantra because of him, but I have to admit that friends and family don't mean as much to me as they did to him. I don't speak to half of my family, I don't have a lot of friends. My faith has only been important to me for the last 16 years (when faith spoke to me). Even so, faith has really become even more important to me over the last few years. Mostly I believe it's because I "get" it now. My husband has been teaching me since the day we met but, only in the last few years have I really embraced it. It's not about me. I have never been happy unless others around me were happy. It's the most unselfish selfishness I have ever known. Hope for a good life for future generations, helping others, and, well, just being nice. That's what has become important to me. I failed at the family and friends thing, but hope, charity and kindness has changed me. Nothing is more important in life.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Why I love my Droid
My Internet friend David posted on his blog a question asking why the iPhone 5 doesn't impress some people. I've made it clear on twitter that I have no regrets that I jumped to Android this summer. So, to answer David's blog post I've decided to respond with a blog post.
I have a PC. I've always had a PC. Regardless whether the PC is the best out there (I get it, apple fans) I've never thought it was worth the cost. I'm not a gamer and I'm not an artist. I'm a former news anchor that is still a news junkie. My time on the computer is spent reading RSS feeds from my favorite websites and news publications. My favorite RSS reader: Google reader. Trust me, I've tried many. Reader isn't perfect and it has some annoyances, but in my old age I've learned nothing is perfect. And who am I to complain since its free! My favorite email client: GMail. Even with the iPhone, I had my contacts sync with my google contacts. My photos are kept in the cloud on Picasa. Documents I need to reference... You guessed it, google docs/drive. I guess you can tell by now that when I had an iPhone, my Google app was the most frequently used app! When I got my Samsung Galaxy SIII the first thing I had to do was sign into my GMail account. Imagine my suprise when suddenly my whole Google life was seemlessly synced and easily accessible in my hand. No apps needed. Every photo I've ever taken easily accessible through my Gallery, and not taking up a kilobyte of space from my Droid.
Not that space is an issue. I got 50gb free cloud space from Dropbox just for getting my SIII. On top of that, if for some crazy reason I run out of space, I can just add a microsd card. Currently I have a 4gb card and I haven't used it yet. I should, though. It seems silly to have a foolproof backup option that I'm not even taking advantage of. You can't do that with your iPhone. Sure you can back up your apps to reload if needed, but the data in those apps will go *poof*. The apps are only as useful as the data you have stored in them.
What else do I like? The size. Steve may have been brilliant, but I think he missed the boat on the size thing. Even now with the iPhone 5 being larger, it's really only taller, not wider. For years we have been trying to get bigger and bigger tv screens... How is it possible that people are happy with such a small screen in their hand? I won't even discuss the old blackberry screen that people were so addicted to... I never understood that. I was grateful for the larger iPhone screen. I'm thrilled with the SIII screen.
Most of my enjoyment from my SIII is superficial. I don't care about the processor. It makes no difference to me because for what I do, the 4G is the key. I'm an Internet junkie. I like to read. I don't need the best HD screen for crisp pictures or the fastest processor to play the games. The SIII may be the best over the iPhone with the features. It may not be. I don't care.
I like that I can Swype. I like that I can speak into the mic to text (without needing Siri and apparently substantially more accurate). I can also have my texts/notifications read to me. All day at work my phone is reading my twitter notifications and texts to me. It's great because I don't have to stop what I'm doing to read my phone. I listen long enough to hear what's going on and continue with my business.
I'm not obligated to use Safari. I hate Safari. I mean, hate it. Its one thing to have annoyances like my google reader, it's something really different when there is no way around using the default app that you hate. Sure you can manually use something else, but click a link in your email or text and there's Safari! Annoying!!! I use Chrome now. Sometimes I use Dolphin, but as I've learned, I'm a Google baby. I just cross my fingers that Google's motto will remain "don't be evil", although in this day and age, nothing is certain.
Using an app called Tasker, at bedtime my SIII automatically turns off wifi, Bluetooth, auto sync, mutes the volume (except the alarm) and turns the display on the lowest setting. In the morning, my phone turns everything back on. As I leave my work my husband gets a text "on the way home". I don't type it. It's automatically triggered based upon my GPS location. There are other tricks my phone plays but I won't bore you with all of them. The point is, my phone is fully customizable.
But now I will tell you what annoys me about the SIII: the apps don't work perfectly like they do on the iPhone. My Waze app crashes every time I use it. Same with Ziplist. Others too, but those are the ones that consistently crash. I miss the iPhone for that reason. And ONLY for that reason. I love my Droid.
*drafted on my iPad (oh the irony). Please forgive any typos.
I have a PC. I've always had a PC. Regardless whether the PC is the best out there (I get it, apple fans) I've never thought it was worth the cost. I'm not a gamer and I'm not an artist. I'm a former news anchor that is still a news junkie. My time on the computer is spent reading RSS feeds from my favorite websites and news publications. My favorite RSS reader: Google reader. Trust me, I've tried many. Reader isn't perfect and it has some annoyances, but in my old age I've learned nothing is perfect. And who am I to complain since its free! My favorite email client: GMail. Even with the iPhone, I had my contacts sync with my google contacts. My photos are kept in the cloud on Picasa. Documents I need to reference... You guessed it, google docs/drive. I guess you can tell by now that when I had an iPhone, my Google app was the most frequently used app! When I got my Samsung Galaxy SIII the first thing I had to do was sign into my GMail account. Imagine my suprise when suddenly my whole Google life was seemlessly synced and easily accessible in my hand. No apps needed. Every photo I've ever taken easily accessible through my Gallery, and not taking up a kilobyte of space from my Droid.
Not that space is an issue. I got 50gb free cloud space from Dropbox just for getting my SIII. On top of that, if for some crazy reason I run out of space, I can just add a microsd card. Currently I have a 4gb card and I haven't used it yet. I should, though. It seems silly to have a foolproof backup option that I'm not even taking advantage of. You can't do that with your iPhone. Sure you can back up your apps to reload if needed, but the data in those apps will go *poof*. The apps are only as useful as the data you have stored in them.
What else do I like? The size. Steve may have been brilliant, but I think he missed the boat on the size thing. Even now with the iPhone 5 being larger, it's really only taller, not wider. For years we have been trying to get bigger and bigger tv screens... How is it possible that people are happy with such a small screen in their hand? I won't even discuss the old blackberry screen that people were so addicted to... I never understood that. I was grateful for the larger iPhone screen. I'm thrilled with the SIII screen.
Most of my enjoyment from my SIII is superficial. I don't care about the processor. It makes no difference to me because for what I do, the 4G is the key. I'm an Internet junkie. I like to read. I don't need the best HD screen for crisp pictures or the fastest processor to play the games. The SIII may be the best over the iPhone with the features. It may not be. I don't care.
I like that I can Swype. I like that I can speak into the mic to text (without needing Siri and apparently substantially more accurate). I can also have my texts/notifications read to me. All day at work my phone is reading my twitter notifications and texts to me. It's great because I don't have to stop what I'm doing to read my phone. I listen long enough to hear what's going on and continue with my business.
I'm not obligated to use Safari. I hate Safari. I mean, hate it. Its one thing to have annoyances like my google reader, it's something really different when there is no way around using the default app that you hate. Sure you can manually use something else, but click a link in your email or text and there's Safari! Annoying!!! I use Chrome now. Sometimes I use Dolphin, but as I've learned, I'm a Google baby. I just cross my fingers that Google's motto will remain "don't be evil", although in this day and age, nothing is certain.
Using an app called Tasker, at bedtime my SIII automatically turns off wifi, Bluetooth, auto sync, mutes the volume (except the alarm) and turns the display on the lowest setting. In the morning, my phone turns everything back on. As I leave my work my husband gets a text "on the way home". I don't type it. It's automatically triggered based upon my GPS location. There are other tricks my phone plays but I won't bore you with all of them. The point is, my phone is fully customizable.
But now I will tell you what annoys me about the SIII: the apps don't work perfectly like they do on the iPhone. My Waze app crashes every time I use it. Same with Ziplist. Others too, but those are the ones that consistently crash. I miss the iPhone for that reason. And ONLY for that reason. I love my Droid.
*drafted on my iPad (oh the irony). Please forgive any typos.
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