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My second AirDesk

I’ve had an airdesk for a little over 6 years, since a friend introduced me to one. I love it – it was in my office in TN and i used it all the time. I put it in the office here and used it when i worked in the office, which is not 100% of the time (like i did in TN). I’m under a deadline and have been working in the living room a lot lately but tired of using the laptop on my lap – for some reason, it was too easy to get distracted with the laptop on my lap  (plus my arms were getting sore). So i moved the airdesk to the living room. But now I don’t work in my office at all because i don’t have a laptop desk there… so i ordered one for my office. I also got a mouse shelf and cup shelf. I’m not sure which desk i will use those on yet.

Yes, there are cheaper “solutions” for using laptops on couches… but its highly configurable. It’s easy to adjust – and adjusts in every way imaginable. My laptop DVD was broken twice because i set it on the floor – with the airdesk, I just need to push it out of the way.

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You know you are old…

Year: late 80’s, early 90’s. Chris was about 12 or so. We were at the farmhouse and mom told him to call my sister’s and talk to her kids. He stared at the rotary phone and had no idea how to use it.

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GPS & Weather Radar

We went to see Mom over the weekend and had to drop Cece off at school on the way home. The forecast called for possible freezing rain in the higher elevations so we left early to avoid the bad weather. I had the GPS up, Desktop Weather Max set on radar maps, and updated the GPS fix on the blackberry weather bug app every 10 min so we could get current temps (radar maps load slow) . Based on the radar maps, it looked like we were running about 15 min ahead of the storm as it moved into northern tier of PA and southern tier of NY.

I’ve used a GPS for years with my Tablet PC and Street Atlas (from Delorme) and often wished I could overlay weather radar so we could see where the storms were.  Both when we lived in TN and also now when we head east on I-90 along Lake Erie or west on I-80 through IN, it would really be nice to see the local temps and radar so we know what we’re running into when the weather is bad.  My Blackberry and the weather bug app can do this and its really helpful, but I wish my GPS map could do it – I like the bigger screen and it seems like it loads faster than the blackberry maps.

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“Are you at the computer?”

I hate it when the kids call (from Chicago, Philly, Canada etc) and that’s the first thing they ask. It means they want me to look something up for them, often an address or phone number. Hopefully, they’ll do it less with smartphones, although it usually is easier to look it up on a computer than using a phone’s browser.

When I lived in Tennessee, my son used to call from the grocery in Ohio and ask where to look for something. As if i know how his grocery store is laid out! I suppose I encouraged it by answering correctly “try the isle where the canned veggies are”.

Cell phones might make life easier… for the caller.

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“I can’t find the Internet”

How awful! I couldn’t find the Internet. We were already behind schedule for a road trip and I wanted to get some work done in the car, so I needed my MiFi, but it was missing from my laptop bag and wasn’t in the glove compartment. I finally found in it a handbag I don’t usually use, but it’s the perfect size for the netbook and has a slot for the MiFi. 

I really need a case for “the internet” so I can clip it to the computer and not lose it. (Losing the MiFi is my biggest fear – I never had that problem with the PC Card – it was always in the computer. )

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Ain’t technology great?

Background: My father-in-law is seriously ill. He lives 520 miles away. They don’t have Internet. I have a Verizon cell phone and null modem cable so I could use it as a modem, but the battery dies after 2 hours and I can’t talk on it when I’m using it as a modem, but it’s free after 9 PM and on weekends. We go up Fri afternoon and I can’t work in the car until we’re almost there, unless I want to waste my plan minutes. So I got a Verizon modem for my tablet pc and now I can get some work done during the 8 to 9 hour car rides. It’s really nice and well worth the $60 a month I’m paying for the service because I can earn it back working Fri afternoons.

My daughter came over from Ohio with her toddler and husband to visit her grandfather and we all left Sunday afternoon. My daughter called my cell phone when we were a couple of hundred miles into VA on I81. They were about 90 miles inside Ohio (I80) and needed the phone number of a Chinese restaurant near their home so they could order take out. While I googled it, her husband called his brother to look it up in the phone book. I found it first – while flying down the highway at 75 MPH. Mucho cool.