Until I was about 15 years old, I had never heard of social media, nor had I spent much time on a computer.
All of a sudden, Myspace burst into my life, then Facebook. If social media addiction was real, I had it. I checked my sites hourly, if not more often.
Since then, I've evolved in my choices of social media and technology. Myspace disappeared, and Facebook became too overloaded and ridiculous for my liking. I'm now tweeting up a storm and posting as often as possible on Tumblr. I traded in my parents' PC, which runs on Windows XP, for a shiny new MacBook and an iPhone.
My interest in social media and technology led me to follow news on these topics religiously. If there was something new, I needed it — now. This year, especially summer, I felt this need often
I started off my tech year with an interest in the Google Chrome OS. From what I had heard, it was an operating system that looked just like the wildly popular Chrome browser.
One day, I received a package. It was a pretty large box, and I hadn't been expecting anything. I opened it up to find a brand new laptop. Confused, I looked for anything that would tell me where it came from or what it was. I opened the laptop and the Chrome symbol popped up. I had just received a beta tester for the Chrome OS.
Over the next few months, I messed around with the laptop, but found it limiting beyond taking notes. There was no speed, and it was pretty one-dimensional. Still, it was nice to have another laptop that I could use solely for class.
Using the Cr-48, as the laptops were called, I looked more into Google's apps. I discovered some interesting stuff, but stopped using most after a week or two.
But when Google+ burst onto the scene, I found reasons to start using most of them again. A unified Google experience was exactly what I needed.
The other features were cool, too. I've yet to use the hangouts function, but it seems useful. My favorite feature is the circles function. The ability to separate my friends and news organizations into separate lists is beyond useful.
No longer am I bombarded with the stupid game notifications (though that may change with the recently added games feature) or pointless status updates. I can just move those who post things I don't want into my "Don't Care" circle.
Other than Google+, Spotify has probably dominated the rest of my time this summer. The concept of a cloud-based music library is definitely something I'm interested in. The only topic I'm more interested in than social media is music. Combining them is a dream come true.
Spotify is very useful, but I'm expecting that to change once I lose my premium subscription. Paying $10 a month is a little out of my price range, but in all honesty I think it's worth it. For the price of what was once a single CD, I can listen to all the music I want. Who wouldn't want that?
My final technological find this summer was OS X Lion, Apple's new operating system for Mac.
The system runs like an iPhone on steroids. Launchpad looks just like the home screen of an iOS device. Full screen apps look just like apps on a phone. In truth, there's much more to the system, way too many to list.
The most interesting, though, is Air Drop. From my computer, I can wirelessly transfer a file, or 30, to another computer simply by dragging and dropping into Air Drop.
It's advances like this that remind me why I love technology.
Read More
Ozzy Osbourne, former lead singer of Black Sabbath dead at 76
By Staff Reports / 1 hours agoOzzy Osbourne, former lead singer of Black Sabbath and "grandfather of heavy metal" has died at 76 according to the Associated Press, just weeks after his farewell show.
Ball State Women's Golf awarded for highest cumulative team GPA in the nation
By Staff Reports / 4 hours agoThe Cardinals 3.968 was the highest among Division 1 women's golf, followed by Eastern Washington University with a 3.959.
IPR: Gov. Mike Braun creates task force to evaluate Indiana emergency alert system
By Indiana Public Radio / YesterdayAn Indiana task force will evaluate the state’s emergency alert system in the wake of the recent deadly floods in Texas.
