technology

Portability, Culture, and Mobile Technology

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I commute on a train to work every weekday, and it's often a festival of portable devices.  I often have my DS or my laptop.  I see plenty of Smartphones, iPads, and of course other laptops and notebooks.  There's the usual gaming devices (though it seems like most of the gaming I see is on phones and tablets as of late).

In my household, most everyone has laptops  – and among my friends laptops are becoming more common over time.  Netbooks are popular among many people I know, low-cost and portable.

It doesn't matter if it's work or if it's personal, portable is where it's at for geeks and progeeks.

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Technology and Dream Jobs

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There is almost nothing I do in my life or my career that has not been improved by modern technology, or made possible by it.  I have taken online training and researched careers, published books and gotten job advice, run websites and found work.  Modern technology is why I'm where I am now.

In fact, as I look around, the IT age has made it far, far easier to live our dreams.  You can publish your novel via an online service and get it out to the world.  You can take classes online.  You can publish a web comic.  You can find a new job.

So why is it so hard for many of us to find the careers we want, to be happy, to find integrated lives of professionalism and unrepentant geekitude?

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Frustration Friday: Lawsuits From The Sweet Spot

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Frustration Friday: Lawsuits from the Sweet Spot

So, as usual we hear about various lawsuits in IT this week.  Ironically I could be writing this column any week in the past decade and you could be nodding your head.  For that matter, for all you know I wrote this column two years ago – and I'm still right.

So, anyway, the usual IT lawsuits are flying about, it seems like there's quite an extensive web of them, especially in mobile IT as of late.  This company sues that company over patents, this company sues another, etc.  It's like a very strange game of tag, where everyone gets to be it.

Now it's too easy to dismiss these lawsuits as being about greed, stupidity, or both, but I'd like to suggest that we keep another reason for the constant Technical Law Suit Tsunamis that we progeeks see and wring our hands over.

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