Tuesday, November 30, 2004
because I am a geek
In a comment to an earlier post, Caleb said he'd be interested in knowing how I like my flash drive. Well, I've only had it for a week and haven't used it a great deal, but I know I will like it just fine and here's why....it makes me look like a super huge geek. Ok, so I'm pretty much a geek without the USB keychain flash drive, but it certainly helps.
Moving "get flash drive" to the top of my list happened because the Internet failed me. I was typing an exam on my laptop and, as I was finished and the class time was over, I attempted to connect to the Internet and e-mail my word doc to the prof. No internet. Tried the wireless, no go. Tried a different seat (in the biz building, all seats in most classrooms are wired), no go. Sheepishly took my laptop to the front of the room and tried the connection from the podium...no go. Prof handed me a floppy, which would have been lovely except, as I explained, "I have one of those new fangled computers without a floppy drive." Oh, my kingdom for a floppy drive (I have a 6-in-1 card reader, but again, that wasn't helping). So he produced his USB flash drive and I put my doc on it and handed it back to him. I felt thisbig.
So the very next day I put "get flash drive" at the top of my list. It's mostly for documents like in that situation, or presentations for classes, so it's not especially the geekiest flash drive in the world. But I've gotten some great ideas from an Engadget post: "Ask Engadget: What do you keep on your USB keychain drive? so when I get a moment I will put many more cool things on it.
Unrelated to the drive is the tacky yellow keychain I have, as seen in the picture. I'm not the kind of person who screams "I would like a tacky yellow keychain that says 'San Jose' with a heart icon and 'Silicon Valley' with an icon of computer peripherals" yet I have one. It was a gift, and every time I look at it, I laugh a little bit to myself and thus the tacky keychain serves a greater purpose.
See, a few years ago I was building an ass-kicking application with Voldemort (that saw the light of day for about two months until I pulled the plug, but that's another story) and, while looking through clip art elements, came across this little heart icon that wasn't too terrible. She said, "I've seen that somewhere," to which I said "well, we're definitely not using it then." unfortunately, it was the best of the crappy little clip art, so it got stuck in as a placeholder for a little bit until I got real art to take its place. A few months later, Voldemort threw this keychain at me and said "here," in that way that people do when they try to be all cool when giving trinkets, yet fail miserably at the "being cool" part (I am also one of these people). Turns out that when arriving back in San Jose after her many trips elsewhere, she'd walk past the souvenir shop in the airport where these San Jose/Silicon Valley keychains were on display, so that's where she'd seen the icon before. So, now every time I look at the keychain I think of tackiness, and one entire day spent with a non-geek at the computer, trying to find placeholder clip art for an application that would have changed the world had it not been for our own issues...and that makes me laugh.
In a comment to an earlier post, Caleb said he'd be interested in knowing how I like my flash drive. Well, I've only had it for a week and haven't used it a great deal, but I know I will like it just fine and here's why....it makes me look like a super huge geek. Ok, so I'm pretty much a geek without the USB keychain flash drive, but it certainly helps.
Moving "get flash drive" to the top of my list happened because the Internet failed me. I was typing an exam on my laptop and, as I was finished and the class time was over, I attempted to connect to the Internet and e-mail my word doc to the prof. No internet. Tried the wireless, no go. Tried a different seat (in the biz building, all seats in most classrooms are wired), no go. Sheepishly took my laptop to the front of the room and tried the connection from the podium...no go. Prof handed me a floppy, which would have been lovely except, as I explained, "I have one of those new fangled computers without a floppy drive." Oh, my kingdom for a floppy drive (I have a 6-in-1 card reader, but again, that wasn't helping). So he produced his USB flash drive and I put my doc on it and handed it back to him. I felt thisbig.
So the very next day I put "get flash drive" at the top of my list. It's mostly for documents like in that situation, or presentations for classes, so it's not especially the geekiest flash drive in the world. But I've gotten some great ideas from an Engadget post: "Ask Engadget: What do you keep on your USB keychain drive? so when I get a moment I will put many more cool things on it.
Unrelated to the drive is the tacky yellow keychain I have, as seen in the picture. I'm not the kind of person who screams "I would like a tacky yellow keychain that says 'San Jose' with a heart icon and 'Silicon Valley' with an icon of computer peripherals" yet I have one. It was a gift, and every time I look at it, I laugh a little bit to myself and thus the tacky keychain serves a greater purpose.
See, a few years ago I was building an ass-kicking application with Voldemort (that saw the light of day for about two months until I pulled the plug, but that's another story) and, while looking through clip art elements, came across this little heart icon that wasn't too terrible. She said, "I've seen that somewhere," to which I said "well, we're definitely not using it then." unfortunately, it was the best of the crappy little clip art, so it got stuck in as a placeholder for a little bit until I got real art to take its place. A few months later, Voldemort threw this keychain at me and said "here," in that way that people do when they try to be all cool when giving trinkets, yet fail miserably at the "being cool" part (I am also one of these people). Turns out that when arriving back in San Jose after her many trips elsewhere, she'd walk past the souvenir shop in the airport where these San Jose/Silicon Valley keychains were on display, so that's where she'd seen the icon before. So, now every time I look at the keychain I think of tackiness, and one entire day spent with a non-geek at the computer, trying to find placeholder clip art for an application that would have changed the world had it not been for our own issues...and that makes me laugh.
