Tag Archives: Google

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Embracing smart phone navigation … fully!

I have an announcement to make, so take your seats and get hold of yourselves.

As of this morning I have embraced fully the value of Internet navigation. I believe I can say I have arrived with both feet into the 21st century.

What prompted this revelation? My wife and I had to drive early today from our residence in Fairview, Texas to Dallas Love Field airport. It took about 40 minutes to drive nearly 30 miles. We had not made that drive — ever!

How did we find our way from Fairview to Love Field? I called up the Google application on my smart phone, punched in “Dallas Love Field” and then hit search. It prompted me to punch the “Get Directions” button. I did. The directions came up and a clearly speaking female-sounding voice guided my wife and me to our destination.

I know what you’re thinking. Big bleeping deal, dude. So what if you’ve finally hooked your wagon to technology that’s been around for years now?

Hey, man! It is a big deal to me!

Some years ago, a niece of ours was traveling from California to Washington, D.C. She and her husband were moving from one coast to the other. She was traveling alone in her car and she wanted to stop in Amarillo overnight to see her aunt and me. She called me on the phone. I then offered to e-mail her explicit directions on how to get from Interstate 40 to our home in southwest Amarillo.

Our niece chuckled and said, with just a hint of smugness, “That’s OK. I have my phone. I can find you.”

Now I, too, can be smug if I so choose to be if someone dares offer directions to me. That’s all right, I’ll tell them. I have my phone.

And it’s a hell of a lot smarter than I am.

media news

Total strangers become foes, even enemies

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One of the downsides — and there aren’t many of them — of writing a blog is that I might be guilty of turning total strangers into enemies.

I post these musings on my High Plains Blogger website. I then transmit them via several social media outlets: Twitter, Facebook, Google and LinkedIn. My aim, of course, it to maximize exposure for this blog with the hope of getting those with whom I’m connected on all those sites to share these messages with their friends and social media acquaintances.

That’s straightforward enough, don’t you think?

But then something happens. My friends/”friends” on Facebook start tangling with each other. They read what is circulated on that social medium and respond to it. Then someone else reads the response and responds to that; it’s quite often — if not mostly — a negative response. That draws a rebuttal, which then attracts another reply.

On and on it goes, too often to no good end.

I do not like getting ensnared in this back-and-forth. I prefer to stay — if you’ll pardon the high-minded tone — “above the fray.”

I put the stuff out there, having stated my piece. Then I let others have at it.

Now, if someone asks me a direct question that requires a direct answer, I’m inclined to answer it. But I don’t always respond. I also might respond to an insult, which I do get occasionally.

The upshot of this is that while I (more or less) regret the hard feelings that erupt on occasion from those who respond to my blog spewage, I won’t back off from sending this stuff out there.

It provides great therapy, even if it comes on occasion with a bit of angst over the anger that boils up.

***

I made what some might consider to be a strange reference in this blog post. I describe my Facebook contacts thusly: friends/”friends.”

I do that to delineate between actual friends and those who I know only through Facebook. I have a number of folks out there who I consider to be — if not friends in the classic sense — friendly acquaintances. Truth be told, my actual friends amount to a tiny fraction of those with whom I have a friendly relationship.

There are others I know only because we’ve connected on social media. Those are the “friends” to whom I refer.

So, there you have it. To my many friends/”friends,” I say: Peace be with you.

media news

Self-consciousness sets in

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social-media-people

I am feeling a bit self-conscious these days.

Why is that? Well, I’ve been pretty active on Facebook for about five years or so. I’ve developed a pretty healthy list of “friends,” many of whom are actual friends; others of them are “friends” only according to Facebook parlance.

Of late, some of my friends have expressed concern — some of them outright anger — over the politicization of this particular social medium. They don’t like all the politics being spouted on what is supposed to be a place for people to connect, interact socially and exchange good tidings.

I use Facebook, though, as a vehicle on which to distribute my blog. Many folks who read High Plains Blogger’s musings/spewage/commentary do so on Facebook.

High Plains Blogger is meant to be a platform to talk about politics, public policy and what I call “life experience.” You get plenty of politics and policy, for sure. You also get a decent dose of life experience as I enjoy writing about upcoming retirement, and ownership of a rambunctious puppy.

In order to boost my blog traffic, I like using Facebook — along with Twitter, LinkedIn and Google — to spread whatever word I feel like spreading at the moment. Indeed, my Twitter feed is linked also to my Facebook feed. Therefore, when I tweet about this and/or that political event, it goes to Facebook, too.

I should add that I generally don’t post things exclusively on Facebook that deal with politics, although I do admit to “sharing” others’ political points of view.

The day might arrive when I get so much blog traffic that I no longer feel the need to use Facebook to transmit High Plains Blogger’s message — whatever it is.

My particular problem, though, might be in determining when I’ve gotten enough traffic, that I longer need to distribute it on other social media.

Perhaps that day will arrive when I’ve decided I’ve got enough money.

For now and perhaps for the foreseeable future, I guess you’ll have to bear with me.

In the meantime, I also will just have to deal with my self-consciousness.

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They may be right

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Mencken

Someone once told me years ago that the Bard of Baltimore, Henry Louis Mencken, used to end arguments by telling the other person, “You may be right.”

Then, I suppose, he and his foe would go on to something else.

Well, in this new age of social media, I think I’ve discovered a 21st-century version of that old dodge.

Every now and then — and it’s becoming quite a frequent occurrence these days — I get into these snits with Facebook “friends,” and actual friends with whom I have a relationship on the social medium.

I like using Facebook — along with Twitter, Google and LinkedIn — to share my blog posts. Some folks like getting these musings on Facebook. Others, I reckon, do not, to which I only would say: Don’t read ’em.

But the individuals with whom I argue on Facebook sometimes get pretty relentless in their attacks. They cling stubbornly to the idea that they must have the last word. I don’t mind ceding that honor to these folks. I generally don’t have the time, not to mention the patience or the intestinal fortitude, to keep going back and forth on a topic.

Quite often, we end up talking past each other, with the point of the initial post getting lost when folks take the discussion down some blind alley.

So, when that happens and I grow tired of engaging individuals on endless — and seemingly pointless — discussions, I simply hit the “Like” button on my Facebook news feed.

Look, I know I’m not going to change their minds. They won’t change mine.

What, then, is the point of continuing?

When I get tired of the back-and-forth, I’ll tell my “friend”/friend/foe that I “Like” what they’ve said.

Then I’ll move on.

Mr. Mencken, wherever you are, I hope to have made you proud.