Vacation is just not the same without Wi-Fi

Yes. I am officially addicted to the internet. I suppose having my Crackberry connecting me to the etherworld should be enough, but no. So, here I am in a coffeehouse stealing wi-fi airtime and getting my fix.

But in my defense, I have a deadline and the noise of the surf outside my sliding glass doors is a bit distracting.
*sigh*

Let it be known that as soon as the sun shone down ever so brightly, I closed the lid and ran outside, espresso in hand....
next stop?
beach.
and picture downloading
You can take the geek out of the suburbs but you cannot take the laptop out of the geek- or something like that.

In a status message world, there's a fine line between pithy and concise.

Sentences come to me in the middle of the night. Perfect opening lines find me in the shower.
A string of words that I imagine will become the well loved and much quoted words of the perfect ending to The Great American Novel pop into my head as I drive to the gym.
I can't turn it off. I don't want to turn it off.
But lately, I find the inner voice is distracted, slightly disembodied. The single sentence shudders to a halt. The string of words doesn't have a wrap to the unwritten beginning.
My brain is writing status messages.
I have been mentally hijacked by technology.

In a single day, 140 character twitters tell the world that I had my coffee and am omw to the gym. Two sentences on Facebook let over 300 friends know that I did all my errands with a pencil sticking out of my ponytail because I spent the morning editing. On Yahoo Instant Messenger, my contacts see I am drinking wine and listening to Poe. A Myspace frowny face tells people even before they read my snippet, that I can't be bothered by pettiness.

What's the solution?
To visit these places less? To stop writing status messages? To refine the reasons I started any of these internet social pages to begin with?

I know that the blog is useful when it jump starts a writing day.
Facebook helps me connect with other writers and feel the camaraderie.
Twitter might be good if you're at an event that others can't attend...but frankly,
Myspace has become an eyesore and a place I rarely visit.
(Though I keep one to check on my kids.)

Here's where the pithy and concise parts collide.
I had an idea when I first started blogging in 2005, that I would follow my path to publication. I had a novel and I was querying agents and marketing myself to the world. I had a plan.
And it worked.
I published a fair share of short stories, essay and articles, won some awards, met lots of folks and just recently landed an agent.
It's all good.

But I wasn't writing with focus. I was just writing- about trips and family and friends and parties and shopping and shoes. Oh yes, shoes. And authors and books and kids and dogs and life. Each post starting with a single word that opened up an idea, a self commentary that may have been a phone call if I didn't despise the phone. It might have been a conversation with a friend over coffee, if I had friends that I could meet over coffee. They became pithy blog posts that might have been called diary entries if this was 1982.

Maybe that is exactly what was supposed to happen. Maybe that's what these social outlets have become- a combination of journaling for those of us who need to be heard - and some that don't- Lord, do not get me started on the stream of consciousness bloggers... I can see the benefit of re-connecting with our past by finding old friends and classmates, even hunting for jobs. Of course for some, these social pages are a further connection to their future as they seek friends, romance, or just a cyber-connection virtual date.

There is no wrong or right way to use social networks, just the way that works for you. (though if your boss, your kid or your Grandma is one of your connections you probably need to watch your content more).
A writer friend said that if blogging takes away your urge to write the "real stuff" you need to stop, or at least place limits, and if you are spending more time on Facebook playing games and poking around people's friends lists, than finishing your wordcount for the day, you really need to unplug your modem.

Unplug. That is about as concise as it gets.

What's the secret password? And "unfriending."

So, because I friend EVERYONE on Facebook, I was faced with the new problem of "unfriending" someone, actually a few someones... but I wanted to be sure they didn't know. Repercussions and all that. So, in googling for an answer to my, "Will someone know if I unfriend them on FACEBOOK question," I found a whole page of people asking for help in stealing passwords.
Yes. Stealing.
Passwords for email accounts, for Facebook and Myspace, for instant messenger accounts. I don't know why I was surprised, I'm sure people hack into accounts all the time, but it seemed so creepy. And the funny thing was people were replying to other's requests and giving relationship advice, like, " Have you tried therapy, asshole?" to "Just trust him, man." And, "You should be asking her about this, not trying to read her mail."

I couldn't help thinking movie plots... girl meets boy, girl and boy connect, girl and boy marry, boy meets up with old frineds on facebook, neglects to check the married box and starts up internet love affair, girl suspects and wants to hack account to prove herself right, girl falls for hacker who exposes cheating boy...

Or something like that.
But it's probably already been done.

And also, you CAN buy software that does effectively hack passwords and keystrokes, and site visits... I won't tell you where. I'm just sayin'.

At any rate, I unfriended and ungrouped and uncluttered my FB, but I was still thinking about the password thing, how I use lots of different ones for all my accounts, how I have to write them down, because I am afraid if I use the password keeper on the computer, I will forget the password to open IT, and then, I will be screwed.
When I forget a password and if I can't find where I wrote it, I have to set it all up again, which in this day requires a security question. Most of them are stupid and I lie.

"What street did you grow up on?"
I say MAIN STREET, because even if I get Alzheimer's, I will know MAIN STREET.

As I was thinking about all of this a friend told me how she had forgotten a password she thought she'd never have to re-use and was mortified when she had to call in to retrieve it, and the security question the guy was required to ask her was, "To whom did you lose your virginity?"
We laughed, but I think she was a little offended when I asked her if she knew the answer.

I am SO not a PC.

One look at this webpage- found on the front page of yahoo this morning and I was glad for at least one thing.
Apple.com

Holy crap. What were they thinking letting total retards post their "I'm a PC" message? From the guy who likes cheese to the one who can't figure out his webcam to kids whose parents probably made their choice for them, it's pretty embarrassing- add in the poor video, inept sound feeds and badly aimed webcams, I'm betting this backfires on the whole "Windows. Life without walls campaign."
Or at the very least, gives Apple's advertising team a whole new way to spoof the competition.

Now, more than ever am I proud to say, "I'm a Mac."

i-touch myself

Counting down the hours until I can buy back the software updates I lost in the hard drive crash. Odd how you get used to having certain applications at your fingertips. I want my notepad back!
The new free web apps look fun, from games to productivity helpers, like a check splitter... something I can definitely use. I indulged in one app download that is purely fun.
Apple better be ready for all the downloads at 11 AM.
And geez, next time post an announcement for all of use January software upgrades that have questions. Thank God for Yahoo Answers.

Now, back to packing.

Hard Drive Crash Surprisingly Liberating

After 22 months of daily, vigorous pounding. My MACBOOK took a crap.
Today I wear black, reinstall, update, restore.. put data from online storage sites and try to reconfigure a network of emails that I am certain are going to be important someday.
Yes, it stinks. And no there is no way to retrieve the lost data.
It's weird. I have been calm about the whole thing, made jokes even. So very unlike me.
Because I think I brought it all on myself by complaining just the other day about all the junk I had accumulated on there and wishing I could get a clean slate...

I am glad for a few things... specifically that I have saved many important documents to a flash drive and cds..oh, like 1000 pages of novels in progress.

But the ipod thing is confusing because it no longer recognizes this hard drive and thinks I am a pirate... and I will have to rebuy some software I'm sure...
ARGH.
So, instead of a leisurely week without kids and doing lots of writing. I will be be recreating my MAC world and probably swearing a lot. and apologizing to all the people whose emails I lost...

Attention writers!

The monthly writing contest is up and running, with only a few more days
until the February 22nd deadline.
Go to scratchcontest.net for all the details.

Talk MAC to me.

Okay. I really should be doing something else. But, I need an answer. Do I need to buy the upgraded I-photo /office package to be able to manipulate photos on my macbook, or since I don't use any of those other "office-y " things, can I buy a separate "pc photoshop like" software and will I be able to learn it myself?
Thank you internet darlings.