How Do You Keep Up With Tech?

[Dawg52]

My DW knows how to operate our Betamax. As long as both of them keep working, I'm good!

Yeah.....I'm not needing to know the latest and greatest in tech. When I do have a need to update something, that's when I go to youtube. Some ideas of what I might want to investigate comes from forums like this one. Or from articles I have stumbled across on the net. But I admit....I'm behind the times. The phone I just purchased is a refurbished 2016 model(Samsung S7) but lightning fast compared to what I was using. And at the fraction of the cost of a 2018 model.

 

[flintnational]

^^^ When personal computers became common place, we made a decision to buy new but stay a couple years behind the leading edge. We do the same thing today with TV's, phones and other electronics. I keep up by researching forums, youtube and various internet articles. My big thing the last few years has been Alexa and phone apps . A couple times a year I search for "best android apps". CNET and Tom's guide provide pretty good tech product reviews. Currently struggling with Toyota's Entune system in a new truck. I received an email a few weeks ago indicating the system would no longer support Pandora. Huh, what about adding apps? And, maybe its my Southern accent, but the voice recognition can't understand a thing. It's trash.

 

[donheff]

Like Midpack I am slowly getting behind. I used to run Linux servers in the basement to host a family website, a print server, and a gateway firewall and intrusion detection server. Keeping after all of that forced me to keep up with tech to a degree but I dropped all that stuff about 10 years back. Now I have a lot ot tech sources in my RSS feed (including Slashdot and ArsTechica) but I rarely skim through them. There is just too much other stuff including ERdotOrg and a bunch of health sites that draw most of this old guy's attention.

I have to add that a lot of the stuff kids are interested in like Snapchat and Instagram don't appeal to me at all. Get off my lawn you danged whippersnappers.

 

[MRG]

My j*b was technology, I'm retired now.

Honestly it got old chasing the latest and greatest technology all over the world.

Certain things I'd follow very closely as I had to stay ahead of the competition. It did add credibility to certain relationships.

 

[jollystomper]

I'm never going to keep us as much as I did when I was working, as my job required me to keep track of and test/implement many new technologies to determine their value to Megacorp (which in truth was a fun part of my job!). Since retiring I took a 3 month break from technology, but am starting to get a little back into it more driven by my own personal interests based on what my connections on LinkedIn are doing that seems interesting, or researching tech projects to help a couple of organizations I volunteer for.

I still have not yet dismantled my home setup of 12+ servers (and that is not counting laptops and tablets and other smart home devices), but some have not been powered on since I retired.

 

[JoeWras]

I was in high tech for years but got burned out on the whole idea of chasing the latest and greatest. I actually think that we are over-tech'ed so I try to keep things simple and only grab apps and gizmos that I am sure will be a big plus in my life. I find out about those things mostly by word-of-mouth. Having people around who are in their 20's helps but I still only am interested in 10% of what they find intriguing.

I came here to write the above exactly! So, +1 to TwoByFour.

My j*b was technology, I'm retired now.

Honestly it got old chasing the latest and greatest technology all over the world.

Ditto. I also started making a few mistakes at w*rk and that was my clue to throttle down from tech.

I eventually take up new tech when they are pervasive and unavoidable. I'll search the web for details. I don't keep up with the newest stuff. I find most of the newest stuff is all about getting as much information from you as possible, or extracting a subscription from you. Blah!

For fun, I follow a youtube channel called "Techmoan." This guy reviews technology from 15 to 50 years ago. It is a nice memory.

 

[kcowan]

When we got our airprint device, I retired the XP laptop connected to the old multifunction printer/copier/FAX. Put them in the garage and they were gone with an hour. Freed up a lot of space in the den.

Son showed me airdrop in September. The many uses of the camera to read labels, translate signs, identify stars and plants are very impressive. Lots of justification for a robust data plan.

 

[Cobra9777]

One category of Google News is "Technology." I glance through the headlines every day and read if something interests me. Google has thus figured out which "technology" topics interest me. So I get spoon-fed updates in a variety of ways, such as on my phone's Google Now page, which is one swipe left of home on my OnePlus 3T.

BTW, I do the same for Science, Health, and other topics, which are far more interesting to me than today's shenanigans in DC.

I also get tech information from my 29 year-old son who is an engineer by day and self-proclaimed Geek of all Trades. He and I like to discuss recent techie topics like AI and cryptocurrency, but also more down-to-earth stuff like developments in TV streaming hardware.

 

[happy2bretired]

I like Apple News for a bunch of stuff. There are “channels” that have very interesting news articles and subject matter. One subject is technology. Lots of interesting channels available.

 

[happy2bretired]

Oh and I can feel my age with technology. I like technology but I only use what I can handle. It takes me awhile sometimes. I still like books for reference along with online help and sometimes I need lots of online help.

 

[Walt34]

My job used to keep me up to date but like many I've slowly fallen behind. And unless it is something that will solve a problem or enhance our quality of life I don't care.

DW's grandnieces keep her up to date and later on the grandnephews will too.

 

[Lsbcal]

As an EE I still felt like I didn't understand where consumer electronics was going. Now I can concentrate on what is interesting instead of what I needed for the tech job.

I create a folder on my bookmarks toolbar. Then I populate it with sites of interest. I'll then move the most interesting to the top of that list. Here is the current list:

How-to-Geek (daily snippets)
CNET
iPhone MacRumors (going to buy the iPhone XR, had it with Google's phones)
Ars Technica
WIRED (new on this list)
TechCrunch (new on this list)

 

[audreyh1]

Been using Google Translate for years. Didn’t really need to learn about it, I just found the tool as soon as I needed it.

 

[audreyh1]

BTW Airdrop has been around for years, but many times it was quirky and unreliable. Guess it’s more robust now.

 

[Pellice]

Today I almost accidentally wound up "organizing" all of my "old tech." (I was looking for a battery). I'm far from an early adapter, but it is humbling to see how soon the tech is supplanted. What has remained stable (in terms of utility) is language. Our tech is all about moving language around. I suppose pictures as well, but pictures, which are supposed to convey so much more than language, (a thousand words, remember), actually do not. They are remarkably static. It is language that tech serves.

My Palm Tungsten - it still has a bird application on it - I can't get rid of that, can I?

 

[Freedom56]

Keep up with the latest here:

https://www.engadget.com/

The buyer's guide has reviews of the latest gadgets.

For technology news in general, I read:

https://www.recode.net/

 

[Music Lover]

I don't see any reason to buy a new product and not be aware of most or all of the features. When I buy a new tech item...whether it be a phone, car or something else, I always (eventually) read the manual cover to cover to learn all of the capabilities, then simply learn how to use the features that are useful/relevant to me.

An example of what I did with my new phone: 20 minutes on YouTube to view a couple tutorials, then a quick glance through the online manual for the basics which took maybe a half hour. Then, after getting familiar with the phone I read the manual bit by bit over a few weeks at my leisure to learn more.

 

[audreyh1]

Good news for us is we have fewer gadgets today, because our iOS devices have replaced so many of them!

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Seems like a lot of folks are unaware that Microsoft Excel, Word, Powerpoint and OneNote are available as free apps in the app store for iOS devices? I have generally switched to Numbers, but still use Excel on my iPad for a few spreadsheets I downloaded that don't translate.

It's worth reading the release notes when software updates come out (thinking of airdrop). When I was working I used AutoCAD and Revit for most of the day and MegaCorp never paid a dime on training. So I had to search the web for "what's new" in each major release. Then I learned not to spread the word around because others would just ask me, the "expert," instead of taking a few minutes to RTFM themselves.

 

[HFWR]

 

[ERD50]

Good news for us is we have fewer gadgets today, because our iOS devices have replaced so many of them!

So true! For many of us, our phones can replace our old devices like GPS, Camera, music player, voice recorder, note taker, calendar, alarm clock, timer, and on and on.

You still need to learn how to use the apps, and learn what apps are out there that you might benefit from, but it is nice to be freed from all these separate pieces for most of what we do (serious photographers, and serious music listening may prefer special devices, but the phone versions are 'good enough' for many cases - and better than the consumer level devices of a decade or so ago).

-ERD50

 

[Clone]

It took us a while to find out how to turn the light off.

I was operating one of my brother's newer tractors. As it begin to get dark, I realized that I did not know how to turn the lights on! I had to get out the manual to understand where the lighting control panel was, and how it worked!

 

[Lsbcal]

So true! For many of us, our phones can replace our old devices like GPS, Camera, music player, voice recorder, note taker, calendar, alarm clock, timer, and on and on.

....
-ERD50

That's the reason Apple gives for charging higher iPhone pricing.
Just bought my first Apple iPhone today.

 

[ERD50]

Quote:
Originally Posted by ERD50 View Post
So true! For many of us, our phones can replace our old devices like GPS, Camera, music player, voice recorder, note taker, calendar, alarm clock, timer, and on and on.

....
-ERD50

That's the reason Apple gives for charging higher iPhone pricing.
Just bought my first Apple iPhone today.

But I got all that (and more) in an Android Phone for just $200. And you can expand the memory cheaply with a micro-SD card, and can swap it out, rather than getting locked into a fixed amount and pay the 'apple tax' for built in non-swap-able memory.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DZJFSZ4/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&th=1

Probably a later version by now, that one is down to $179 now...

-ERD50

 

[Lsbcal]

But I got all that (and more) in an Android Phone for just $200. And you can expand the memory cheaply with a micro-SD card, and can swap it out, rather than getting locked into a fixed amount and pay the 'apple tax' for built in non-swap-able memory.
...

OK, I get the cost issue with Apple. I've been an Android user for years but after a few bum Android phone issues I'm going with the iPhone XR at $750.

I don't have memory issues on my phones. 64Gb is more then I need. I could go into my good/bad experiences with Google phones but don't want to bore you or start a quasi-religious iPhone/Android discussion. I will be using some Google apps on the iPhone as I do on my iPad.