I think I Just Lost My Galaxy Tab 10.1

Obviously I'm disappointed for the financial loss, but it was interesting. I'm traveling with four gadgets: my Nexus One, my Kindle, my Galaxy Tab 10.1, and my laptop (Dell Inspirion 17, though it hardly seems worth mentioning by brand). I made sure I had my phone - it sits prominently on my desk, and it's the one thing I use on a daily basis. My Kindle was in my backpack, where it usually sits unless it's being charged. And my laptop - it's so big and my only full computer, so I'm damn sure to not leave that behind.*

But my tablet? Sure, it was fun to whip out on the plane ride over, but I have hardly used it while my laptop was out and available. I hadn't used it in a couple of days, and I had completely forgotten about it. What does that say about its niche in my life? Even while I was at home I had it replace my laptop as my kitchen gadget, but where I could look up any recipe on any website on a 17" screen, I now had to make due with a very stretched out Food Network app that was a little difficult to search while I was in the thick of it.

When I was in five year-old kindergarten I brought my Sega Game Gear to school and promptly got it stolen from my backpack. Tears were shed (and not just because I never figured out how to beat Sonic the Hedgehog 2). Now that my second portable electronic device has been ripped from my hands, though I'm not nearly as torn up about it. Where does that leave me? $600 poorer, for starters, but as much as I used to tell people just how much tablets really were content consumption devices, I didn't realize it until I owned one myself.

- I watched videos on it.
- I surfed the web on it.
- I played games on it.

...And I think I want something more out of my devices.

My biggest fear was the vulnerability of my personal information, but I rectified it by activating Google's Two Factor Authentication. Any device that isn't explicitly granted access will not be allowed to access my Google Account, and you can revoke access from your computer at any time. I recommend all Google users do the same.

I put my name and phone number on the lock screen. If it was just a serious case of me misplacing it, I might get a call. Otherwise, I hope they enjoy playing Fruit Ninja and watching Seasons 1 and 2 of Taxi for six hours, because the battery's not going to last much longer than that and I have the power cable.**

*Incidentally, my laptop cost just about as much as my tablet.

**Turns out this is a benefit to having a proprietary cable design.

Replacing Facebook

Six years after getting in on the ground floor of Facebook (well, the first or second floors, at least - December '06), I've come to adamantly despise the site. I signed up for a private communication tool between me and my college friends; the Facebook of today is an all-inclusive public communication tool, chat client, games hub, search engine, universal commenting system, like-harvesting, check-in, and Q&A site that fights against me to make as much of my content as public as possible in order to sell to advertisers.

With each passing year comes an increasing burden upon us to control our digital identity. The data I share on my profile dictates that I keep my privacy at a high level, and that makes it a poor choice to broadcast to the world. At the same time, there are aspects of Facebook which I like, but don't like the manner in which they implement, or have found sites around the Web that do a better job of it. My favorite TV Shows and movies are a good example - on an older version of Facebook, I listed Dexter as a favorite show of mine and was done with it. A couple of upgrades ago, they forced me to convert it into a Like, so now I have "useful" promotional information about the show shoved into my News Feed with no way to completely remove it. Similarly, my "favorite movies" section included the phrase "the films of Mel Brooks," which got converted into a gibberish Like link that went nowhere, and which I could only fix by removing entirely. Now it looks like I don't like any shows and movies, when the exact opposite is true.

My news feed is a collection of people who think other people care about every minute slight that occurs against them in their daily lives; a place for recent or soon-to-be mothers to complain about the inconveniences of pregnancy or to document how raising their ugly kids has completely put an end to them doing anything interesting with their lives; a trap for stupid people to display to the world their stupidness by posting status updates riddled with misspellings, the latest plea for those suffering from the Whogivesashit disease, or a request to be their friend in whatever time-killing game is currently distracting them from contributing to society.

As each incremental update has been met with more consternation by Yours Truly, I've made a bigger push to move as much content as I can outside of Facebook and into more powerful and more segregated platforms. Thanks to Google Profiles and a slew of other services, I think I've exceeded what Facebook has to offer in many respects, but there are still some aspects that work best within the service. Photo tagging, for example. The all-inclusiveness of the News Feed can't really be found anywhere else, either, which affects engagement, and it's really one of the only reasons why I don't just shut down my account altogether. Despite the participation of seemingly the entire world, Facebook isn't too big to fail, and once more people reach the point at which they are sick of the site telling them how to be social, maybe we'll realize that for social to be effective, it needs to be on the open web. In the meantime, I'll still have some sort of presence on The Social Network, though it will continue to dwindle, so you can reach me there, doing a search for "Brad Seehawer" on Google, or by going to www.bradseehawer.com . 

The Hangover Part II, or How Many Times Will We Reference This Exact Premise Happening to Us Three Years Ago

Check-in Fatigue

I just checked in four times with four different services. The thing is, they all still each have their own unique features that make me want to continue using them, but if I'm getting sick of it, I can't imagine how regulars users feel.

By the way, the new Blogger app is pretty nice.