Hi, Tech

Growing up in my house in the 1950s, you were lucky if you could find a pencil, preferably one that you didn’t have to sharpen with a razor blade. Pens were a rare commodity, and most of them had the name of a local business on them. This paucity of writing implements explains my penchant for pens today, as well as why I consider a trip to Staples fun.

Fast forward to my career at J&J, where I first had to master such high tech equipment as the AB Dick mimeograph machine, the name of which caused untold giggling when the maintenance guy would show up. Eventually we progressed to the kind of fax machines that we had to load with special paper, one sheet at a time, fastened around a drum. Getting and sending a fax seemed like punishment because the process was such an ordeal.

Then came computers. At first we shared them, but eventually we built a one-on-one relationship with the personal computer as we began to use them for the newest form of communications, e-mail. Soon came the visionary boss who told me that everyone would have a laptop. Whatever for? I naively thought, never imagining the 24/7 work cycle that would engulf my life. And because lugging that albatross around was literally back-breaking, we moved to the ubiquitous “Crackberry.” People at meetings would be sitting doing the Blackberry prayer – eyes cast downward, not so surreptitiously reading their e-mail. When I retired at the end of 2006, I thought the Blackberry would have to be surgically removed from my hand. I swear it took me a month to uncurl my fingers.

Meanwhile, back on the home front, we moved from extension phones through cordless phones to cell phones the size of a shoe box (remember Michael Douglas on the beach in “Wall Street?”). As they grew smaller and more capable, texting began, an art that I must say I have not as yet mastered. I blame that lack of adaptation on equipment, not personal, failure. However, with the upcoming departure of my favorite nephew to college in the fall, I realize that all lines of communication will be lost if I cannot text, since that is his favorite – and mostly only – form of communicating. After all, this is a kid who once texted my sister from the bathroom to say that he needed toilet paper. Really.

Given the availability of technology and my need to step up my game, I set out for the Verizon store this week to become one of the cool people who carries an iPhone. My friends, especially on Facebook, lauded its virtues. And my nephew got his, for his 18th birthday, last week.

Don’t think that I object to technology. Let me state as that as emphatically as I can. I embrace it. I still remember the first VCR I bought for $560 at Crazy Eddie (but don’t ask me what I wore yesterday). That thing helped me see every episode in the 14-year run of “Dallas,” after all. So I celebrate technology that helps me do what I like to do.

So off I went to the Verizon store. To buy my iPhone, at last. I thought.

Halfway through the discussion with my new best friend Richard, talking about exactly why I need this uber cool device, Richard asked me about my computer use. I have a desktop, a laptop and a netbook, which is too small to do much good but serves its limited purpose of letting me check e-mail or take notes when I travel.

But then he reached into his suit pocket and pulled out the Samsung Galaxy Tab, a tablet computer on the order of an iPad, but smaller and sleeker. I’ve seen iPads, and thought they were a “tweener” size – too big to put in my purse (always a necessity in my book) and a bit too big to hold in my tiny hands. But the Tab fit the bill on both counts. It is sleek and thin – as I am hoping to be someday – and smaller than a book. It was love at first sight.

“So, if I am on a bus trip, coming back from a basketball game” (welcome to my world) “I can actually access the internet and check scores?” I asked. Yes, he assured me, and much more. It can do everything the iPad and iPhone can do except hold the 5500 songs on my iPod – which neither of the Apple devices could do without hogging most of the memory. “I can load pictures, use it as a camera and take video?” I asked, knowing the slim likelihood of the latter since I have a Flip camera. Yes, he assured me as we watched video of his daughters singing in church last Sunday.

Armed with this information but still faced with the need to text, we moved to the “cheap phone” section of the store, where I picked up a new LG phone with a slide-out keyboard for texting (after rebate, $20), ordered a new service plan AND ordered the new Samsung Tab. I immediately took the phone home and mastered its capabilities, appropriately sending my nephew the first text. This time he won’t have to tease me by asking how long it took me to send it.

And now the new Tab has entered the house, and I have allotted the weekend to master it, too. So far I have set it up to check e-mail, local movie times, weather and sports scores. I can look up movies on the IMDB website and watch a trailer as well as see where the movie is playing and when. I can view Facebook, news sites that I have preset, check my schedule (though synching Outlook with Google calendar is a bit problematic just now). I can’t wait to sneak it out of my bag at a soccer game so I can keep up with the Yankees, or play on it while I while away time at the doctor’s office or wait on line somewhere. When I travel, I’ll be able to check on my flights and get alerts. The only downside of all this technology is that I think my carry-on bag will be completely full of chargers so I can keep all these devices working.

Maybe the Galaxy Tab doesn’t yet have the cachet of the iPhone or iPad, but I think the “cool” factor is equally apparent. Being able to call up the website I maintain for the Visiting Nurses and see it on screen at a meeting will come in handy, and, unlike the iPad, this device can access the Flash animation on the homepage. The image is sharp enough to watch a TV show or a movie, and the potential uses of this new gadget are limitless. Hey, maybe I’ll watch the movie “Limitless” on it someday.

I certainly have come a long way since pencils were in short supply in my house. Hi, tech, and welcome to my world!