Personal Technology: Skype might have saved the day

Having multiple technologies at one's fingertips is the key to productivity. No, remembering the technologies is the key....

So, when the iPhone froze yesterday and my feeble attempts at recovery were too feeble, I stared at my many computers for a while. Then decided to send a couple of emails to the folks who I knew were trying to call me at 11 o'clock. The people gathered for the conference in another state were sitting around a speaker phone; no one was checking email. (In some groups, there would have been an undercurrent of email, of course. Just happened not to be the case with this group.) So, in email I offered my skype username but no one saw it.

After 15 minutes, I remembered that my skype account could dial phone numbers. Unfortunately, my contact person had never included a phone number in her emails. I located a web directory displaying her office phone and used skype to call it. Of course, she wasn't there because she had gone to the speaker phone gathering point in someone else's office.

I gave up on making that connection and drove 8 miles to the Apple store where a pleasant young man pushed two buttons and re-set the phone. I don't mind admitting that I had to be shown how to press the only two buttons on the unit. It's not as if I could have pressed the wrong buttons.

And then, two hours later, it occurred to me that I could have used skype to call Tom Bold to ask him if he had any ideas about what I could try to turn on my phone. What amazes me is that it took me two hours to realize I could have called Tom Bold to get him into tech mode. Or I could have used skype to call either of my adult offspring to ask what to do with the non-functioning iPhone. Or I could have used skype to call the Apple store. Or I could have simply googled for iPhone tips and likely found out what I needed to do.

Next time.

© 2009 Mary Bold, PhD, CFLE. The content of this blog or related web sites created by Mary Bold (www.marybold.com, www.boldproductions.com, College Intern Blog) is not under any circumstances to be regarded as professional, legal, financial, or medical advice. Or education advice. Or marital advice. Or even a tip.