Random Nostalgia

There's a song by Trace Adkins where the chorus goes like this:

You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These Are Some Good Times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you're gonna miss this

I was looking randomly online to see how much 1st generation iPod Nano is going for these days. Because I remember those days. Mine got stolen. It was a 1GB. (LOL) It's so hard to believe it's been 7 years since the iPod Nano 1st generation.

It was my first year of high school. And then I start thinking about how trends have changed over the years, even if minutely.. It made me think of when I was 10, how much fun I had scootin around the neighborhood on one of these:

Those were the days. Get off school, ride down the street to play one of these:

or trade some of these:

Good times, when things were fun and simple. Everyone had GameBoys, instead of iPod Touch or PSP or DS. Because those didn't exist. No one really had computers, laptops were not even cool. Internet was Dial-up and intolerably slow. People had house phones, and sometimes even a Nokia or LG flip phone. With no camera or colour screen. Texting was not even thought of, and people had limited minutes. People had pagers still. And most people had to remember everyone's phone number because there wasn't a contacts app except on mobile phones. And even then, many people didn't even use it because they remembered the numbers anyway.

LOL I am so old.

I remember when VCRs were the latest and greatest. And when DVDs first started being cool. And CDs. And now look. None of those things are even relevant. Blu-Ray and digital downloads are the latest.

But yeah. I feel like I'm getting so old now. I'm only 22, but sometimes I just feel old. And remember the good times of when I was a kid. Not that times now are bad. Just different.

I swear time is accelerating. Anyone else notice that? The older you get, the faster time goes and seems to pass you by.

Google+

I really like Google+. For those who don't know, Google+ is a social network site that Google came out with a few years ago. It was at first a huge success, getting lots of users, fast. but then it slowed down a little bit.

Everyone who does social does Facebook. Or has. Facebook just keeps sucking more and more every year. I'm not liking what I see when I log in. Those huge ads taking up space in my news feed is the latest final straw. The interface is annoying, too. And in my opinion it looks cluttered and kind of thrown together, so much stuff all up in your face. Google+ though, I think, got it right. The interface is much simpler, and you only see the stuff you actually care about. It's organised, and easy. It looks prettier.

I'm one of those people who really likes and enjoys Google products and the Google environment. I think Google is awesome. Gmail is by far my favourite email site. I like how all my stuff is integrated. And it's on all of my devices. And now that Google+ is integrated with Blogger, it's so easy to use photos that are tied to my Google+ account. I have my iPhone and Nexus 7 automatically upload photos to Google+ so all my photos are in the cloud privately stored and ready to share either here or on Google+. And whenever I make a post on Blogger, I get a prompt to share the post on Google+ to either Public, or whatever Circles I want.

Circles. I really like the idea of Google+ Circles. It makes the organisation of family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and people/pages you follow so easy. You can create a bunch of circles, and on your home page you can just click on what circle you want to see updates from. When you go to post, you select which circles to share it with, or all of them, or Public. This way, people only see what they feel like seeing. You share stuff with only the people who actually care about it. Or, you can just post everything publicly, or just share stuff with one person at a time. It's up to you.

Communities. The Communities on Google+ are awesome. You can search for topics on Google+ and join huge numbers of Communities. They are actually quite active with many members posting all day every day. In a Community, you can go in and see what people are writing in the group, and contribute your own posts. It's a great way to meet many people like you who share your interests. Google+ really is not the "ghost town" people think it is.

My Google+ home page feed is always moving with a lot of content. The sad part is, it's all from people I mostly don't know personally. Most people currently on Google+ are tech geeks and fans of Google stuff, or photographers, artists, and people like that. I really wish all my friends would give Google+ a decent chance. I would love so much to ditch Facebook. I hate the vicious cycle going on:

"No one" is on Google+ because "no one" is on Google+.

or

No one is joining Google+ because no one they know is on Google+.
No one they know is on Google+ because no one they know is on Google+. .......

The solution to this is, get on Google+ and invite people you know. If everyone did this, there would be more people on Google+... Obviously.

Seriously, Just give it a try. If you're bored one day, and you find yourself on Google.com ... just move your mouse to that black bar at the top and click on +You. If you already use Gmail, then you're basically more than halfway to joining Google+.

Why I Use The Dvorak Keyboard Layout And Love It

So everyone in the English-speaking world uses the qwerty keyboard. It's a huge seemingly universal standard. And it has been for ages. But one day, my friend Michael (aka Seze) showed me the Dvorak keyboard and explained why he uses it and loves it: It's comfortable, it makes a lot of sense, and it's just amazing. One does not simply go back to qwerty after having used and learned Dvorak.

What in the world is a Dvorak keyboard? It's this:

Compare that to your keyboard.

Notice how lots of stuff got moved around. Before you call this stupid or weird or whatever, consider the genius of its design.

Qwerty was literally designed to be awkward. It was designed in the days of typewriters such that the chance of two adjacent key hammers sticking would be as low as possible. It was by no means designed to be ergonomic or fit well with comfort and ease of typing. It's just so your typewriter doesn't jam.

But now, No one really ever uses typewriters. Everyone uses computers. So that problem is now irrelevant. But the keyboard layout has never changed. Because no one likes change, even if for the better and for comfort. It's just too inconvenient, I guess.

Dvorak was actually designed to not be awkward. It was designed for maximum comfort and speed and minimum finger movement distance. All the vowels are on home row. All the most commonly used consonants are on the rest of home row. Therefore, a huge amount of legitimate English words can be typed on home row alone, without ever moving off it. Then from there, all the other letters frequently used are close by. The design totally minimizes two-row jumps (look at qwerty, at how you have to type words like decade, because, but, deceased, etc. then look at Dvorak how those would be typed)

To me, It just makes sense. It's just so comfortable to type on. Every time I try to type on a qwerty computer keyboard, it just feels so awkward and wrong and horrible.

I use the Dvorak layout on all my devices that support it. Basically, everything that isn't an Apple device. (Mac supports it, but for some reason, iPad, iPod, iPhone do not.) My Netbook, my Chromebook, my Nexus 7.

Trust me, It is very worth it to learn this layout. And the best way to learn it is to just permanently switch to it and practice it. Force yourself to use it. Your brain will get used to it and once you're used to it, it's a dream to type on. Try it, and once you are used to it, you'll love it. (check out this website) You'll wonder WHY in the world does ANYONE still use qwerty?