First Word

I remember this perfectly. I was 21 years old at San Jose State University, and I was taking a public relations class as part of my degree program. In the class, which I don't remember the name of it, we had to create our own brochures. The instructor told us we had to design the brochures on boards, which seems insane to me today. He demonstrated how we could create headlines on this new beige box called the Mac. Of course, I had seen computers, but the Mac was new and looked different. It was this small box with a tiny screen. You could use a piece of software called PageMaker to create limited graphics using fonts. I was impressed and intimidated all at once. About three years later, I worked for a publishing company and what did I have sitting on my new desk? A little Mac SE. For the next four years, I abused my Mac SE writing hundreds of articles for the now defunct California Computer News . The Mac SE, unfortunately got replaced with a PC (groan), and I had been marched to ...

Ever had one of those moments when you thought, "Man I am just out of it." I had one of those moments last night when I was at a presentation for Sacramento eWomen Network. It was on the emerging Quick Reference Codes (QRC ... for you acronym consumers out there). These ugly codes are like instant readers that you put an app on your smart phone and it automatically reads these codes like a business card or directs the user right to your website or special promotion. Now some early adopters out there are nodding and thinking, "Yeah, I use those all of the time." The fact that I, the person once immersed in technology and ate it for breakfast every day, had never seen or read about these was a bit alarming. When over half the room comprised mostly of middle-aged chicks knew about them, super alarming. I suddenly realized in a flash I am truly out of it. I wonder if that's what senior citizens finally realize when they don't know how to turn on the ignition in ...

We have become a world of people that look like this: bent over, face lit up by LCD screen, fingers moving. I don't even have to tell you what I'm talking about and you know exactly what I'm talking about. The worse part of our little e-world is the completely loss of social graces. We text (at least try to) while driving, so they have to make a law to stop this. Now texting while driving is the craziest thing -- and obviously not safe. I once drove with a former associate that I had to tell her, "Quit texting! You're scaring me!" But the biggest offenses include: talking on the cell phone while socializing with someone else, talking on the cell phone during a meal with someone else; talking or texting in the car while you're with someone else; and my favorite, texting in the movie theatre. I once worked with this woman whose obsession with texting ran so deep, she texted non-stop. The only problem was it wasn't really for business. And when it came to...