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1. Twitter

Fantastic time waster. Brilliant. But I found out how really handy it can be today. I was having some trouble signing up to Vodafone Broadband Lite (more on that further down) and getting no where with customer services. So I twittered a tweet to @vodafoneNZ and the lovely man there asked me for a DM (Direct Message) with my mobile number and within 5 minutes, I was sorted. This is verses the 20 minutes I had ripping my hair out with their customer services desk the old fashioned way.

2. Dandy Warhols

Dear Vodafone, please change your hold music. They were a one hit wonder and 10 minutes of the same song, Bohemian Like You, is too much and drove me near suicidal. Thank you.

3. Vodafone Broadband Lite

I have noticed an increase in my mobile broadband data useage. I am lucky enough to have a nice Nokia 6121, while not the coolest phone, and lacking QWERTY sophistication, it does the few things I want. Lately I have noticed more and more, I rely on Mobile Broadband. Be it accessing my facebook page while I’m at the racetrack, using IRC while travelling to Hamilton (NOT while driving… ), or uploading funny photos to Flickr. Yes. I have become so internet addicted that I can get it all on my mobile.

Now until Vodafone brought along this nifty new plan of 100mb of Data for $10 a month, I was using their casual useage plan of $1 / Day, limited to 10mb. This was all good, but I rarely use 10mb a day, but I use my mobile interwebs most days a month, resulting in bills of around $20/month for mobile data. At least now I have the added bonus of not having to pay for expensive hotel data when on the road as well. Doubly awesome!

So from now until eternity, or whenever I buy a laptop with bluetooth, I will have to ensure I travel with my Nokia Data Cable!

4. Firefox

How I lived so long without this browser, I have no idea. I have a fantastic add on called ‘Yoono‘ which sits on the left hand side of my browser window and updates me with new tweets and facebook happenings like pokes and status changes. I can also use MSN Messenger on it, check and read my gmail and it also gives me my RSS feeds – something I was looking at useing to keep up with the play. I haven’t had a look at any other Firefox addons, but I will soon.

5. Ubuntu on the Acer Laptop

I took the plunge and gave Ubuntu its own 10gb partition on my Vista “powered” laptop. I put powered in quotes as running vista, it is a complete dog. Its very slow and painful and whilst I disable most of the pretty vista features, it was not designed for Vista. But just for booting up for an internet surf, quick internet check, Ubuntu serves me just fine. I’m still attached to MS Office tho. Read No. 6

6. Kudos to Warehouse Stationery

I got a flier in my local paper last week from the Papakura Warehouse Stationery. $49.00 to buy a copy of Microsoft Office Home & Student Edition. Limited to 15 copies only. So I was there before the store opened. I got one of those 15 copies and am now very chuffed to finally own a legit copy of Office. I will save up now to buy a legit copy of Outlook.

That said – Going without internet for more than 24 hours helped me realise the extent of my internet addiction. I do not know what is the more desperate sign – going to my parents to bludge their connection, or connecting up my mobile phone to my laptop to use as a Modem.

Either way, I have to face facts that I am hooked and live my life online. A sign of the times perhaps? Maybe not these times. Seems like only yesterday I was in IRC channels talking to people in Mississippi. And thanks to them, I can spell the name of that state.

Without internet, I wouldn’t have ordered the organic parrot food, the HP printer cartridge, shopped around for the best deal, so that I got a free 100 pack of 6×4 photo paper. I wouldn’t have purchased two SD cards an a camera battery from the online retailer who makes some bricks and mortar stores look like rip off merchants.

Given that I have grown up on PCs and can chart my childhood, teenage years and the first decade of adult life through the generations of dial up, x86 series intel chips, I can remember when there were three chip manufacturers – AMD, Intel and Cyrix. When RAM cost more than a tyre for a car and still does, depending on the tyre.

Because this generation is wired and going wireless. Ask me two years ago if I would have had a laptop and a wireless router in my house and I would have said no. Today, I have a laptop, wireless router and other devices that all access the wireless access point. Somethings that never crossed my mind two years ago.

So maybe I shouldn’t turn a blind eye to this new technology. I am reading computer magazines and forums again, because when it comes time to embrase the next big thing in IT, I want to know what it is and how to get the most value from it.