[games_access] NYTimes Article [Re: You Can Make a Difference]

[D. Michelle Hinn]

Interestingly, this article in the NYTimes -- What I Bought This  
Year, by technology columnist David Pogue -- just landed in my inbox. :)

I know I shouldn't post this article in full but I thought, well,  
maybe this would help people save some time...sorry David Pogue!! But  
your post is very timely! :)

Michelle

Personal Tech
The New York Times Thursday, December 3, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2009/12/03/technology/circuitsemail/ 
index.html?8cir&emc=cir

- From the Desk of David Pogue -
----------------------------------------

What I Bought This Year
By DAVID POGUE

Every week, I throw out some column ideas to my editors, and
we work out the schedule for my Times columns for the next
couple of weeks. Recently, I suggested a column called
something like What I Bought This Year. People seem to be
interested in what the consumer-tech columnist would buy
for himself and his own family, so it seemed like a
slam-dunk.

But when I actually sat down to write the thing, I realized
that there was one tiny problem: I didn't buy enough stuff
this year to justify a column! In fact, the entire list
went like this:

* Neat Receipts. I blogged about this $200 receipts scanner
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/technology/personaltech/20pogue- 
email.html
earlier this year. It's a tiny, self-powered (USB) wisp of
a scanner--a bar that could probably fit in a paper-towel
core tube--with a slot where you feed in your receipts.
Software analyzes each receipt, even attempts to read the
printing and fill in the blanks like Date, Amount and
Vendor. It can then spit out a single PDF document with the
images of all your tallied receipts, for submitting for
reimbursement. (I realize that some institutions require
the originals, but for the rest, it's a dream.)

The Windows version has more accounting features, including
tax tracking. The Mac version adds a delicious Send to Neat
Receipts command to the standard Print dialog box, so any
time I book some flight or hotel online, I can add that
receipt directly to the software without scanning anything.
This contraption has saved me hours of tedium and a lot of
lost dollars (from lost, unreimbursable receipts).

* Canon PowerShot S90. As you probably know from my review
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/technology/personaltech/12pogue.html
, this is, in my opinion, the best pocket camera made. Our
previous PowerShot, the 880, developed a cracked screen
(dang it!), so...it was time.

And that's really about it. Not much of a column.

That's not to say that my high-tech arsenal didn't expand
this year; it did, bigtime. But many more of my
acquisitions were online tools or software, mostly free.
For example:

* Readability. The Web experience has completely changed for
me since I installed this free browser add-on. With one
click, it reformats any Web article into what resembles a
printed book page or a Kindle page, and it's glorious. No
ads, no blinking, no colored backgrounds, no white-on-black
type, no tiny fonts. Read more here
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/cleaning-up-the-clutter- 
online/
.

* Vark.com. You ask a question, you get a free, prompt
response from an expert. Hard to believe, but it's true. As
I wrote here
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/technology/personaltech/03pogue- 
email.html
: "The service makes no attempt to blanket the Internet
with your question. In fact, it forwards your question only
to people who have specifically declared themselves to have
expertise on your subject--and, furthermore, only people
who are already in your online social circle. If there's
nobody with expertise among that group, Aardvark extends
its search to friends *of* your friends, and so on. Trust
me, it works; I've never gotten a bad answer."

* Twitter. This is no secret gem like Readability or Vark;
Twitter is not exactly low-profile at this point. But it
really has changed my life. I use it to let people know
when my latest video is posted, or to collect information
from the masses, or to fill those six-minute waiting
periods in life that aren't long enough for getting any
real work done. What I love is that the expectations for
attendance and responses are far different from e-mail or
whatever; I can disappear for days at a time, respond only
to items that jump out at me, and nobody seems to mind.

The brevity of this list is not to say that I'm a skinflint,
that I've cut back because of the recession, or whatever.
Instead, it just speaks well of the gear I've bought in
past years, all of which is still serving me well: My Nikon
D80, TiVo, Wii, Prius and Honda Fit, Flip Mino HD, and so
on. If there's a better reason not to buy more stuff, I
don't know what it is.




http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/technology/personaltech/03pogue- 
email.html?8cir&emc=cir