10 Reasons Why GPS Is The Best Invention

I’m just sitting here, doing some thinking about they ways in which technology has changed our world and I wanted to express my thanks to MapQuest, Google Maps, and GPS systems everywhere. I don’t know what I would do without these things because, moment of truth… I can’t read a map to save my life. Yes, the little ones for amusement parks and what not aren’t that bad, but put me in a car with a map and tell me to give you directions and we will be lost within a matter of minutes. All those lefts and rights and tilts of the map, I can’t handle it.

I remember when MapQuest first came out, my mom was so excited to have printed directions that she could look at in the car. She no longer had to have her head buried in a map the entire ride and was able to avoid arguments with my dad when she told him to go in the wrong direction.

The emergence of electronic maps has made life 100 times more simple. I never really had to worry about relying on only a paper map for driving directions, because by the time I was driving GPS systems were everywhere, and I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Sometimes I get lost with my Google Maps speaking the directions out loud to me. Whoops…

GPS systems have had a very large positive impact on society. In my opinion, here are a few reasons why GPS is better than paper maps.

1. It takes two seconds to map out where you need to go because the computer system does it for you

2. You don’t have to worry about poking your eye out because there is no map to flip

3. You can avoid screaming arguments with your co-pilot, about making a wrong turn because the only person you can blame is yourself

4. You don’t get nauseous and car sick from having to read a map

5. You don’t have to try to pronounce complicated street name or cities

6. It’s rare that you’ll leave your directions behind because they’re usually on your phone or already positioned on the windshield in your car

7. You can turn up the volume and belt out songs as loud as you like

8. You can easily travel alone

9. You get an estimated arrival time that you can make your mission to beat

10. YOU HARDLY EVER GET LOST!

Incognito Fashionable Wearables

Wearables are becoming a bigger thing in society. More and more companies are now creating devices that you can wear. The only problem is most of them aren’t so fashionable and trendy.

Mashable has shed light on some new wearables that do make devices socially acceptable because people won’t even be able to tell you’re wearing them! They came up with a list of ‘seven incognito wearables that you’d never guess were gadgets.’ Some of my favorites/most impressive ones included on the list are the Dash headphones, the Ring, and the Glucose monitoring contact lenses.

I am actually quite mesmerized by Ring. As I watched the promotional video my eyes grew larger and larger with excitement and curiosity. It’s such a cool gadget, everyone needs to check it out! If I could turn off the upstairs lights without having to walk all the way back upstairs I would love that! So what if sometimes I want to be a little lazy… 

I don’t own any wearables, but I would be interested in purchasing some if the price went down. I am excited by the fairly new trend of wearables but I think that if companies really want these types of products to go viral and spread that they need to A) make them more affordable for the general public and B) advertise them more heavily and in more places where people will see them, not only on tech websites and forums.

Since wearables are a new hot thing, I think that a lot of companies are heavily competing to come out with the next best gadget. However, this results in some very unnecessary new items, cough cough… Smarter Socks. Yes, I know socks disappear almost as fast as bobby pins do (girls, you know what I mean by this) but, I feel like it would be a little superfluous to spend $189 on something to help sort your socks and keep the pairs together. But hey, if that’s your thing and you’re really into keeping the same socks paired together then go for it!

While there definitely are some over-the-top and extravagant wearables I commend these companies for taking the risk. The key is they just need to find more ways to attract people and keep them interested. But how is the big question. According to The Guardian, ‘one-third of American consumers who have owned a wearable product stopped using it within six months. What’s more, while one in 10 American adults own some form of activity tracker, half of them no longer use it.’

I believe that wearables will become a big thing soon, it will just take some time!

Your Computer = Your Life

Earlier this week I was having a lot of issues with my computer and I thought it was going to crash on me. A little bit of liquid spilled on it over the weekend and then for three days after that my computer was doing crazy things. I starting looking into new computers and began putting all my pictures onto flash drives as a precautionary measure. The thought of losing every picture, song and file on my computer made me realize how valuable my computer is it me. It’s kinda like my life compressed into a small silver rectangular box. I could bare the idea of having my 2,000 songs, thousands of pictures, and homework assignments disappear into thin air. I have nothing backed up so if they went missing off my computer I would never see them again.

I got my computer thoroughly looked at and thankfully NOTHING was wrong with it! It was screaming very loud, not normal, beeps at me on Monday night, but since then nothing weird has occurred.

I hate how all of our important information and files are in the hands of a very unpredictable and unreliable thing. I know I’ve mentioned this before, in a blog post about photographs, but this kind of scare just solidifies my weariness toward technology. I have so much trust in my computer when really I shouldn’t. I hear of people’s computers crashing or getting bad water damage, till the point of no repair, but I always think, “nah that’ll never happen to me.” The truth is, it can happen to anyone!

One of my best friends just had her computer randomly crash on her yesterday and she didn’t get as lucky as me. She lost every file she ever had on her computer. That is not a situation you want to be in so make sure you have an external hard drive for your computer so you can back everything up!

I love technology, but I’ve learned I have to be very careful with it. My computer is my life, actually, it’s kind of like my baby, and if anything ever happened to it I’d be really upset. That is why I went out and bought a hard drive so that I don’t ever lose the info on it.

I say, print photographs out, make CDs, and store your most valuable files in more than one place. Computers have changed the way we work because we have everything saved online now. It is great because it makes editing a paper soo much easier and it makes sharing photos as easy as clicking a button but it also opens up the possibility of losing all of that in a matter of seconds.

On The Radar – Your Online Presence

Two years ago if you had asked me if I monitored what I put on social media I would have told you no. I never thought twice about the pictures or tweets I put out there. If something funny, yet kind of inappropriate came to mind I would tweet it right away, in hopes of obtaining many favorites.

A lot has changed since I’ve been in college and since I’ve been in my mass communication class. I’m starting to realize that what you put on the internet needs to be heavily monitored and censored because you never really know who is viewing your stuff. It could be a future employer, a professor, a grandparent, or just a random stranger but regardless, so many people have access to the things you post.

Everything you put online is also a reflection of who you are. The amalgamation of your online posts essentially brand you and give you a name. This online profile is a representation of the kind of person you are and is a showcase of the work and things you have said and done. For this reason, you need to be selective in what you share with the public. I want future employers to look at my tweets, blog posts, tumblr posts, online art portfolio, etc. and say wow I like her stuff, not ooh I can’t believe she would post these things for all to see. I am starting to build up an online portfolio of all that I have done and I want to be proud to show it off, not scared that someone will find it.

In this day and age it really is important to have an online presence. It is one of the easiest ways to create a name for yourself and begin to gain a following. You never know when the HR director of a great company will stumble upon a blog post of yours that seriously sparks their interest in you. For this reason, you always have to think about your audience before you publish something online.

I know that sometimes this is a hard thing to do because, lets be honest, every so often you just get so heated or excited in the moment that you post or say something that you wouldn’t normally post. I can attest to this and am guilty of posting things in the past that probably would have been better off left as a thought in my head.

I think that any student who goes to UNC Chapel Hill will agree with me when I say that Connect Carolina might be the most blood boiling invention out there. Helplessly sitting there watching all the green circles turn to blue squares makes you want to throw your computer and/or drop out of school (for those of you who aren’t familiar with Connect Carolina, a blue box signifies that a class has been closed out and you can no longer enroll in it).

Well, my Fall 2014 registration date was three days later than the entire sophomore class, because I lost hours when I transferred, and I therefore got into precisely zero classes. In my rage of furry, I tweeted some harsh things about UNC and how I was unhappy with their registration policy, regarding transfer students. I knew it was probably wrong of me to do, but at the time I was so mad that I didn’t care. Directly after I posted the tweet I thought about my audience though and remembered that my JOMC 240 professor, John Robinson, follows me on Twitter. I was trying to make a point though so I didn’t want to delete the tweet and I thought eh he’ll probably never see it anyways! Sure enough, about five minutes later my professor responded back to the very tweet I was worried about posting. He was really cool about it though and told me that he would let me into any of his classes! Thankfully no mention of my inappropriateness.

His response is what really got me thinking about my audience. My account isn’t private so virtually anyone can look at what I post. I wouldn’t have wanted any other UNC staff seeing my rant so a few days later I decided to delete the tweet. From this experience I learned that you really do need to think twice before you post anything. Professor Robinson knows I’m not a crazy hot-headed person, but a random person reading my tweet could have gotten that impression. I’m actually quite the opposite and like to think of myself as a rather calm, easy-going person.

An individual’s online persona is something that has been growing in importance over time and is something that needs to be nurtured and protected. Even though posting that angry tweet feels like somewhat of a stress reliever, trust me, it’s better off to leave it alone. Save it as a draft, text your friends or mom about it, but don’t share it with the world if it’s not something you’re proud of calling your own!

New Tool Computes How Much Time You Spend Watching TV

Sometimes just one episode turns into just one more episode and then eh why not just one more. If this has happened to you and if you’ve ever wondered how much time you’ve spent watching these shows then you’ll like this new TV calculating tool.

This tool computes how much time you’ve spent sitting on the couch watching a show. A little scary right… All you have to do is type in the name of a show and select how many seasons you’ve seen and it will tell you how long you’ve spent watching it in days, hours, and minutes. And, if you can brave the number, it can add up the total time you’ve spent watching all TV shows.

I’m not a very big fan of TV. I have my few select shows that I watch, but even then, I find that I hardly have time to watch them. I’m not the kind of person to just pick up the remote and turn on the TV. Usually there has to be something specific on for me to do that.

This scared me because I tried out the new tool and the numbers I got were pretty bad, which made me think about how much higher probably everyone’s else is. Like many other girls, I watched every episode of Gossip Girl and 90210. I have spent 5 days and 1 hour watching Gossip Girl alone and combined I’ve spent 8 days, 14 hours and 30 minutes. That over a week of my life spent sitting on a couch watching a screen. Yikes!

Try it out! Is yours higher or lower than mine?

 

France’s 6 p.m. Phone Curfew

France just enacted a legislation that prohibits the sending of work related emails past 6 p.m. According to the Guardian, employers’ federations and unions just signed a “new, legally binding” labor agreement on Thursday that will require all staff to turn their phones off after 6 p.m. and ignore their bosses emails, without consequences! This means that after the 6 p.m. deadline, employees are no longer required to tend to their work-related emails and can instead focus their time on something else, such as family or friends. This law was created to ensure that the working people of France don’t feel the need or pressure to work after hours, like most people do.

At first, this might sound like crazy talk, but when you think about it, it’s actually a really great idea. The invention of the email has spawned the 24-7 work day. When people get off of work and head home they never truly get off of work because they are constantly required to check their email and keep up with whatever else is going on past hours. Before the expansion of technology, when you locked up your office and went home that was it, you were done with work for the day. People were able to leave work behind them and not have to worry about it again until the next morning. They could focus on spending quality time with their family and friends. There were probably a lot more dinner conversations because there were no urgent business emails to be sent.

This is not to say that I don’t love email, because I do, I just think that it has given way to a lot more work related stress. People are expected to be reachable at all times, which can cause a lot of anxiety in making sure you always check your phone or computer. This predicament reminds me of a scene in the Sex and the City Movie when Miranda’s husband gets mad at her for always being glued to her phone. She replies with a snarky comeback about how she has to be because she has a well respected job and her boss expects her to reply to his emails at the drop of a hat. So this is why I think that a 6 p.m. email curfew wouldn’t be such a bad thing, you’d be able to avoid situations like this.

My question to France is, how are you going to implement this new law? I wonder if people will really put away their phones and not send work email after 6, or will they continue to do so behind the government’s back? Will the people who abide by this law be seen as lazy and will the people who break this law be seen as dedicated workers? 

France is not the first country to enact a ban of this nature. According to Mashable, Germany implemented a similar deal whereby the country’s employment ministry banned employers from contacting employees by phone or email after work hours, except under emergencies. So I guess it does work!

France just went from being one of the nicest places to live and dine, to one of the best places to work!

HeartBleed Headache

A new encryption defect called the Heartbleed bug is one of the biggest security threats of its time. It is a flaw in the OpenSS, which is a open-source encryption standard that is used by a large majority of websites to transmit the data that users want to keep secure. It has hit a variety of websites and services, such as Google, Yahoo, and Facebook. This bug could have been exposing massive amount of data, including your most sensitive account information, to hackers for the past two years. That means passwords and credit card numbers are no longer safe… Websites are encouraging everyone to change their passwords so that no one’s information is compromised.

Mashable’s article on the heartbleed bug contains a long list of all the websites and services that have and have not been affected. I was shocked to see how many websites use this encryption because it made me realize that the internet is not as safe as I believe it to be. I like living in this perfect little bubble where hackers don’t exist and all my information online is safe but… unfortunately that is not how reality works.

I hate the heartbleed bug for a number of reasons. First off, hackers suck. Why must they exist…?! I’d say they are about as annoying as the 200 bug bites you get all over your body in the beginning of summer. If not more annoying. They make everything difficult and give me a huge headache, which I do not appreciate. It makes me question giving out my personal information to websites because I don’t really know if anything is secure or not. You can no longer trust websites when they tell you your information is safe because, as the heartbleed bug shows, sometimes not even the websites know about the bug. I feel like now more than ever I need to be extremely careful about what I give out. I’m a very trusting person and I’ve found that that gets me into trouble sometimes. Just like I like to think the best about people, I like to think the best about websites and sometimes that leads me to give out too much info.

The main reason why I hate the heartbleed bug is because it is going to cause me to have to change all my passwords. Do you know how many passwords I already have to keep up with?! Let me give you a hint, well over 15. Every time I log into something it takes at least three tries before I get the right password. Half the time I end up hitting the “forgot password” button because I just can’t keep up with them all.

In order to make sure my information is safe I will need to change ALL my passwords and now I’m really going to have problems when logging in. So thank you hackers because now I’m never going to be able to log into anything with ease again.

If you can bear to hear all the terrible details about the heartbleed bug the Business Insider has a great article that provides a lot more detail about what is at stake.

 

10 Best Fashion Apps

I’m always looking for new apps to keep me busy on my phone and whenever I saw the article named “10 Fresh Apps for Fashion Enthusiasts” I didn’t hesitate to click on the link.

Fashion is one of my greatest passions and I jump on any chance I can get to further immerse myself in fashion trends and styles. My Pinterest currently has 1,009 fashion pins, I have a Tumblr with hundreds of pictures for outfit inspiration, I follow a handful of fashion bloggers on Instagram (my favorite is Aimee Song, songofstyle), and I buy a plethora of fashion magazines including Glamour, InStyle and Cosmopolitan.

Before there was Instagram, Pinterest or any of the other social media websites, magazines were my only source of receiving fashion information. I love that the expansion of technology has opened up many more outlets to explore fashion and trends.

So lets get to the exciting part!

1. Whisp –

This is a messaging app focused on fashion. It allows you to drag and drop the products you like into a messaging box to get your friends opinions on it. I find that a second opinion is always helpful! It is integrated with Facebook to allow friends who aren’t on Whisp to still message you about the item.

 

2. ASAP54 –

If you’re sneaky enough to snap a picture of those cute shoes you saw on the girl in your class then you’ll love ASAP54. This app allows you to upload a photo of the item you like and then it will search for similar products online so that you can buy it.

I think this is a good idea but I question how good it will be at finding the exact or similar product.

 

3. Pose –

This is a weather app that helps you figure out what to wear according to the weather. It checks your location and provides photos and collections to give you outfit ideas for the day. FINALLY, someone has come up with this app! I have been waiting for something like this to exist because I always have a hard time deciding what to wear to be dressed suitably for the temperature.

 

4-6. Poshmark, Bib + Tuck, Tradesy –

Poshmark helps you sell items that you no longer want in a easy and efficient way. You post your pictures online and others can comment or repost your items. I find this app a little less exciting because I feel like there are already so many other better ways to sell clothing (Amazon, eBay, and Craigs List). Bib + Tuck is similar to Poshmark, in that it allows you to buy and sell fashion. The difference is that it only accepts select brands and the items for sale are guaranteed to be of higher quality. Tradesy is very similar, as it encourages the buying and selling of premium items.

 

7. Covet –

This is a game for fashion inspiration that lets users shop and style with over 80 designers’ collections. You enter contests to build head-to-toe outfit, which gives you the opportunity to win real and virtual prizes. To me, this sounds like a great app for younger girls interested in fashion but not so much for the college or young adult crowd.

 

8-9. Stylebook, Closet+ –

Stylebook is a virtual closet on your cell phone that helps you make purchase decisions when you’re out shopping. It also allows you to lay out outfits in a collage, make packing lists, and create calendars of what you plan to wear. I personally would probably not get this app because I feel like if you can’t remember all the things in your closet than maybe you have too many clothes… Similarly, Closet+ lets you to upload photos of the clothes you own.

 

10. The Hunt –

This is very similar to ASAP54 in that it lets you search for a product that you like in a picture, but instead of finding a similar item it finds you the exact one. I like that! This app enables users to post pictures of an item they want, while others work to find it on sale for you to purchase.

 

I have already downloaded three of these apps and so far I like them a lot! I’m not sure though if this is going to be detrimental to my wallet or not… looking at fashion and cute clothes is one of my favorite things to do but it is also tests my purchasing will power.

 

The Fancy New Airport

I am traveling back to Chapel Hill and am going from Laguardia Airport to RDU.

As I walk though the new Delta terminal I can’t help but notice the technology I’m surrounded by. iPads, computers, television monitors, iPhones EVERYWHERE!

Delta has recently updated it’s terminal and has installed all the newest gadgets. Each table, booth, and bar has an iPad for each traveler. Off of these iPads you can buy food, check the status of your flight, check the weather, or just browse the web. It’s crazy!

Technology is really changing the way we function. You no longer have to speak with a waiter or waitress to get a sandwich, all you have to do is click a few buttons.

I think this is great and I am so impressed by the technical advances Delta has made. My only complaint is that it makes traveling a little more lonely. I am flying by myself and have no one to speak to. Today I’m fine with it because I have so much homework to catch up on but usually I hate how I sit in silence for hours. I think that these iPads make it so that people now talk even less than they used to. I need very little human interaction to order food or drink. Also people get so busy playing on the iPad that hardly anyone makes small talk with the person their sitting next to. These are just the few downsides I see to the iPads.

I thought it was great though that I didn’t have to lug my gigantic bag through the airport to check the status of my flight.

Well my flight is about to take off so I must go! Just wanted to share my thoughts on the technologically advanced Delta terminal!

The Body Dryer Changing The Shower Game

Most girls like to take endless showers, but not me. I’m 5-10 minutes in and out. Why you may ask… well, I HATE getting out of the shower and freezing to death. I get chills immediately as I step onto the cold bathroom floor and my apartment always seems like Antarctic when I step out of the bathroom.

A startup company, called The Body Dryer, just may change my view on showers though. They have created a device that let’s you skip the toweling off process and allows you to dry within 30 seconds.

This device is similar to a scale, but instead shoots air up from the ground to get off all the excess water on your body. The purpose of this dryer is to avoid the bacteria ridden towel, that many believe to be clean. This would also lighten laundry loads quite a bit, which I love.

I think this is a cool invention and if the price goes down, from the low 200s, I might consider buying one. I’m not really sure though just how well it would dry you in under a minute but I like that people are thinking outside the box. Not only are the radio and television industries being disrupted, but now the towel industry is as well!