Category Archives: The Union-Recorder

It’s official, I’m now a traitor. Well, arguably I may be to the Apple community.

I’m an Apple fan girl. I use only Apple products. I have a MacBook Pro, an iPod, an iPad and an iPhone. But all that changed yesterday. I stay pretty tuned in to all things Mac. In doing so I often read about Apple’s comparisons to Android, the other mobile tech giant on the block. It wasn’t until yesterday that I decided to take the leap, a switch to the ‘dark side.’ A year ago I played with my sister-in-law’s Android phone and scoffed, “it’s no iPhone!” Indeed, it’s not. If you’re looking for simplicity and a very solid uniformed product and platform, then the iPhone is for you. I’ve used and loved the iPhone since it first debuted in 2007 and now, I hang my head in shame as I try out the competition. Read the rest of this entry »

The telephone. From its invention in the late 19th century to now the telephone and its use has continually evolved. Switchboard dialing to cellphones, telephony has dramatically changed our communication and memory recall behavior. As with any technology the telephone has seen a number of innovations. The candlestick phone, rotary phone, touch-tone phones and now the cell phone. What will be next? And what else will it change? All I know is that the way we use telephones is quite different from how we used them a decade ago. Read the rest of this entry »

Steve Jobs was a connoisseur of music and his favorites were Bob Dylan and The Beatles. The irony is that both Dylan and The Beatles were among several artists whom it was difficult to include in iTunes. In the recent Steve Jobs biography, knowing that he would die soon, Jobs even discussed how important it was for him to secure the rights to The Beatles catalog. These may be somewhat trivial things to the everyday person. It may also be of little consequence to those who aren’t Apple fans. But there were many layers to Steve Jobs that have impacted our lives, our views on leadership, interaction with technology and how we watch movies.

I recently finished the massive tome that is Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Even if you could care less about the man, Steve Jobs was a force of change. He (and Steve Wozniak) made the personal computer for the masses. And if it weren’t for the Microsoft and Apple rivalry, computing would never have catapulted us into the computer age. What I found most interesting was Steve Jobs’s management style. There was little attempt in the book to hide the quirks of his genius and it would be virtually impossible not to see similarities in genius behavior. From a very early age Steve was headstrong and acted at his own whim. He would show up unbathed and barefoot to meetings and was constantly berating his employees and others. Read the rest of this entry »

Social media overload. We all suffer from it. Okay, well most of us do. I go to extremes. Most days I don’t do much social networking at all whereas there are days, as my sister-in-law says, I post in excess. It’s really hard to find the balance between the life in front of you and the presence you have online. It’s often easy to get caught up in the social networking craze. I think about whether or not I should even take part. I suppose I don’t want to be behind the times. However, sometimes taking an extended break can do a great deal of good. Read the rest of this entry »

Most days I struggle to pack myself into my size 14 jeans (or twelve depending on the designer) and try to conceal my muffin top or, as my mother puts it, my unmentionables. On the rare occasions that I go to the department store I gasp at the number of small and medium clothing on display. Seriously, they expect me to fit into that? When so many of us are, by medical terms, overweight, why is this the case? Indeed, our eating habits and lack of doing the necessary exercise has Super-sized us. After hearing more about the controversial Georgia initiative to stop childhood obesity I thought more about how obesity affects me.

There are projections stating that by 2019 obesity will overtake smoking as the number one cause of preventable deaths in the US. This is attributed to the long line of ailments that are often caused by being overweight. The list includes but is not limited to type II diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and disability. Let that just sink in a little. Read the rest of this entry »