Prior to my February 24th blog entry, I had not written since August 2010. Possibly too long of a time to allow to pass. I’m long past the concerns that I had about writing this blog in the first place. I chose not to write as I believe that I could possibly have gotten myself into some significant trouble. My wife and I put our heads in the lion’s mouth since I blogged last and we have lived to tell about it.
Unlike Mr. Julian Assange, my wife and I can go almost anywhere in the world we want to within reasonable bounds. The reasonable bounds mainly being our wallets. Mr. Assange can’t say the same. This blog of mine will not look anything like Wikileaks mainly because I don’t have access to a bunch of secret military data or data about corrupt government or company activity and I choose not share such even if I did. I believe that a major lack of wisdom was shown by releasing much of the data that Wikileaks released.
My bringing up Wikileaks as an example is that I chose not to use my blog as something to attempt to embarrass or expose others in an inappropriate manner. Who suffers when that happens? The innocent and those in harm’s way which are quite probably innocent. Instead of blogging about some of the things that I have seen since August 2010 I chose to stay silent. I may write about some of my experiences sometime in the future should I deem it safe to do so. I chose not to do so now.
Since I wrote last in August of 2010. I acquired a smart phone. Yes, even though I wrote a paragraph about not wanting an all-in-one device, I have one. My Android OS phone has been fantastic! I still have my concerns about what would happen if this gadget stopped functioning properly. The phone has worked well and yes, I would be another one if such a need presented itself. No! I don’t need two smart phones. I’m saying that when times comes to replace the phone I have I shall do so with another smart phone.
My attempt to become paperless is working out fairly well. The Sony PRS–600 Reader has been a most enjoyable companion for reading. The majority of my PDF documents and book are now on my Sony Reader. Reading books electronically took some time to get used to.
I have reread classic books such as Jack London's “Call of the Wild” and “White Fang” that I read as a child on my Sony Reader. I downloaded these books and others from Google Books through the Sony Reader Library software free of charge. My Sony Reader has rekindled my interest in reading books. Prior to purchasing my Sony Reader I mainly listened to books on my iPod from Audible. Audible is a web site where you can download recorded books for use with many MP3 type players. Anyway, an electronic reader has been well worth it.
The usage based billing issue that I wrote about in February is going to be very interesting issue to watch. As I stated in February, all of us as Canadian Internet users should be concerned. My submission to the CRTC February 22, 2011 made the deadline for participation in this wholesale Internet issue spelling mistakes and all! Slightly embarrassing indeed. You may be thinking I'm making something out of nothing. If that is the case I can tell you I'm not the only one!
This is the first blog entry that I have not entered text using a keyboard. After using Windows 7 for the last two years I thought it was time I learned how to use the speech recognition software built into Windows 7. I am still learning the intricacies of speech recognition and the computer is still learning what my voice sounds and how I speak words and sentences. I’m not sure why it took me so long to get around to using Windows 7 Speech Recognition. Having now done so means I shall be using this feature more often in the future.
Part of my reasoning for using speech to text is to demonstrate to members of my family (Particularly some of my dozens of cousins whom I’m still getting to know.) that doing so in 2011 is cheaper and easier now than at any time before. Recording our family's story is now potentially easier to do. Would you rather talk or type? Me? I'm going to talk to my computer just like they do on Star Trek. Yeah!
Until next time, be safe and enjoy life.
