I am writing on a local train from New Brunswick, New Jersey headed for Newark where I can take a light-rail subway and a bus to get home. I am using an Internet appliance. Uh, it is likely that this post will be remarkably brief. I hate typing with my thumbs, but I have already missed my deadline and, as I always say “The rules are your friends and anyone who offends your friends should be beaten senseless.”

I have been on the road with my freelance writing business for the past three days and, to be honest, I am getting a little too long in the tooth for this lifestyle. I qualify as a senior and get a good price on train tickets, but this running around the state makes me tired and I occasionally have one of those moments where I run into someone who says “Hello, Marc”, but I cannot recognize them. My strategy is to return their greeting warmly and hope that they will give me a hint of who the hell they are. Read the rest of this entry »

I am finding myself in an interesting position. I just got off the phone with a 21-year-old college student who called me to get advice on how to set up a cheap VOIP phone system she could use to send and receive calls over her dormitory network. This is not how it is supposed to be. I get this kind of thing all the time–kids asking ME how to use the new social media and technology. And then I get fellow aging boomers asking the same sort of questions–most of them are just interested in pictures of the grandkids at this point.

I guess that the premise of this blog may, in fact, be wrong–and that is not the kind of admission that you hear from a guy like me without using waterboarding. There may, indeed, be a digital divide between the old and the young, but, when you get right down to it, only a crazy few keep up with the leading edge. Read the rest of this entry »

I am having a lot of problems with my contacts–people who tend to be my age or older. It is nothing that ought to bother them, but it does. I set up my business phone on Skype. I got a phone number in my area code and fax service–a fax number that I can put on my business card and the ability to send faxes if I scan a document in. I only did that because so many of the people I do business with still use fax. I personally do not. Anyway, all of this costs me about $70 a year.

What it means is that my business number is portable. I can access it using my laptop from any place where I have an Internet connection–including Dunkin Donuts.

I also have the capability with my new Skype-based number of sending my business calls to my cell. I tested it the other day and it works fine. It took me a while to get all of this set up, of course, but I got pretty much what I wanted–and then found out that Google Voice, soon to come out, does all of this and more and is, according to Google, completely free. Oh well.

My calls in or out are perfectly clear–that is not the problem. If I tell any of my contacts that I am answering their calls on a USB Handset on my laptop, they freak out. If I don’t tell them what I am up to, they don’t notice anything strange. Unfortunately, I have this tendency to tell them–and face the consequences.

The problem is that my friends freak out when I tell them what I am doing. They tend to be my age–or older. And they tend to see what I am doing as demonic. I do not really mind being something of an outlier, but this goes way beyond what I expected.

I am wondering if anyone can keep up with technology. I can’t, though I am ahead of my peers. There are times when I would just like all of it to stop–or, at least, slow down.