Technology – Helpful Upgrades

When I bought my laptop three years ago, I loved it because it was so light compared to anything else I had previously. I was looking forward to sitting in bed and being able to use the latest Dragon NaturallySpeaking on it without staring at a desktop. When I went to take a test in my second language it was this computer that I carried along. Unfortunately the program didn't come in the language I was learning to speak. I'm slow at typing and so, if I can get away with it, I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

The test didn't turn out as planned, but I was never good at testing anyway. It didn't help that my cell phone went off unexpectedly in the middle of it. Of course I ignored the cell phone completely. It wasn't disturbing anyone else since I was taking the test alone in a windowless, hot room. Who would be texting me anyway? By the time I got out of that modern torture chamber, all I wanted to do was call the taxi company I had an agreement with, and make some distance between me and the school. I pulled out the cell phone, bought for just such an emergency, and realized I couldn't make outgoing calls. The text I got was to tell me that the number I had was now expired. I found myself thinking that I should've actually checked the text even though I was in the middle of the final test. I struggled to keep a cool head, knowing that the test had run too late for me to go back in use the phone in the office that was offered to me earlier. Luckily I flagged down a willing pedestrian with his cell phone. He was definitely willing to lend it to me for 30 seconds. But there was a problem – I had never used a touchscreen in my life. He looked a bit strangely at me and dialed the number without problem. Long story short, I'm not writing this from a street corner in the middle of Copenhagen.

My next upgrade happened just recently. Since the aforementioned cell phone still works, and is sturdy to a fault, I decided against getting another cell phone. Why replace something that still works? However, I had come to the realization that the only thing I did on the laptop on a daily basis was checking email and social media sites. As I write this, which I term more "serious work", I am sitting in front of the desktop computer.

The next decision was my own foray into the world of touchscreens. The decision was helped by the fact that my laptop is a bit broken. Windows 7 will no longer allow me to install new programs. This includes the latest version of Dragon. I purchased a "budget tablet". The selling points for me for the Nexus 7 were: no camera in the back, larger than cell phone, not a Windows OS. In the past I've had nothing against Windows and I think Windows 7 has worked well, but Windows 8 has iffy reviews. After watching numerous reviews on video for the tablet I ended up purchasing, there was no question in my mind. This statement should be compounded by the fact that I have trouble making buying decisions normally. Of course the tablet does have its drawbacks. Because the Skype application doesn't work in portrait mode the way it should, I still have to pull out the laptop in order to use the camera while chatting. It might also be worth mentioning that there is a dictation program built into the tablet, which more often than not, I rely on.