Angelo Racoma’s post on simplicity had me thinking of how I really like simple and practical things. When I was in college, I loved high tech gadgets. I wanted cool men’s toys such as watches, music players and cellphones. Now, I prefer simpler stuff.
Two years ago, I had a SmartPhone (of the Voyager series). It was a high tech cellphone that had a windows operating system. It had a camera, access to Internet and PDA functionality. I used it a lot. I soon discovered that, unlike my previous mobile device (a Nokia 5110), this unit had only a 24 hour battery life. The more I used it, the faster the battery drained out.
I bought this device because I wanted to play music and videos on the go. I wanted to surf the net and check my emails. Having a short battery life kinda killed the fun in all of that. After that, I bought a series of Sony Ericsson phones. I liked them all but the short battery life always annoyed me.
Early this year, I bought my mom a simple Nokia 1100 for my mom. The Nokia 1100 had a one week battery life and a simple built-in flash light. I soon found myself using it more than she did so I traded my phone with her. She stays at home and she doesn’t need a cell phone with a long battery life. I was always out and needed to communicate regularly with people.
The value of the cellphone was accentuated when the Milenyo Storm struck Manila and electrical power was out for almost a week. I still had battery life and was able to communicate with people on important days.
For my music, I just have a separate MP3 player now. For communications, I have a simple and useful cell phone.
Last year I bought a laptop. I had a PC at home but decided to buy the laptop for my mobile computing work. My PC had a ton of installed software. My brothers and sisters would regularly try out new games and software on it. It would soon get infected with a virus, or get too slow. At these times, I would reformat the entire PC to get it running smoothly again.
With the laptop, I was stricter. They couldn’t use it without my permission. I wanted the software to run/load quickly and I didn’t want too many unnecessary software installed. I installed the very basic tools I needed - MS Office, A Personal Firewall, AntiVirus Software, and a browser. That’s it.
I loved how it all worked out. I found a lot of online applications that basically allowed me to do a lot of other work done. Before I installed any kind of program, I questioned myself: “Do I really need this?” Now, I actually do some writing on NotePad instead of MS Word. It loads quickly and allows me to note down quick brainstorms that I have.
I use Gmail for my email now. I have a lot of other email accounts that all auto forward to my Gmail. There, I mark all important emails with a star. When I put a Star on an email, it gives me a mental reminder that I need to do something. There is an action that I need do. I actually now use Gmail as a tool for Getting Things Done (GTD). It’s one interface for all my emails. Simple and Beautiful.
Technology can seem very complicated. When you figure out how to make it all seamlessly work for you, without hassles, it can really make life easier.