I HAVE A LITTLE disagreement brewing with O2-Ireland at the moment and that means I've been cut off from most of normal network access by the operator. It's just like living outside of the range of data coverage and without even a hope of being able to text out, ring out or call my voice mail. So I'm using the time to become more acquainted with my peripherals. I have seven banker's boxes of stuff to digitise and four external hard drives that need cross-indexing. They contain 10 years of images, videos and sound clips. I have a sling sack with my Nokia N86, Sonyericsson Xperia X10 and Fujifilm S7000 on my back--all those need to be pulled into my data trove.
A standard laptop hasn't been the centre of my tech world since 2005. Something that connects me to my preferred stream of consciousness on the internet is most important. This is happening around the world and evidence. People are no longer compelled to set aside space for a desktop hog. Most would rather buy a pocket-sized device or a computer peripheral. Like many of my friends, I carry what I need inside my phone or I use my phone to see my stuff stored in the cloud. I expect to see students documenting this same kind of usage pattern when I look at reflective journals that they're keeping this year.
