Do I really need that new smartphone?

I broke my Android, again.

My faithful T-Mobile G2, one of the few that Google had worked to keep all the “bloat” off of. That was why I bought it, plus it had that weird flip-slide/hinge/keyboard thing. It was quite cool, it had a full keyboard, but not really, because it looked at first glance like a full QWERTY board. Until you try to use it and realize that no key is where you think it's supposed to be. Everyone knows that the ! is above the 1, right? Or the ( and ) are over the 9 and 0. Well they are NOT THERE! And I don't know where they are! or the @ or the % or the &.

That's when you give up and close the keyboard, and now you have a stainless steel computer jumping around like a fish in a kid's hands at camp.

And let me tell you it jumps!


So it jumped, and I dropped it.

Again.

And the screen died, and this is the 3rd time.

I had a previous warranty replacement for charging / battery issues, then I replaced the screen myself after the warranty expired, and now I've dropped it again. This time the screen's dead again, but now I'm having issues with the power switch also. I'm still looking into it, but until then I need a daily driver. So at this point, I'm going to abandon this phone.

The first urge is to go get the new “Universe-1000” from my current carrier for a "small" monthly fee. I must admit, I have that urge.

I think of all the apps and the stuff I have on the Android. I must replace all those apps on the new phone, right? Why? Do I really need all those apps? What do I really need?

I need what I need.

I do not need what big business tells me I need.

This is where they take my money, or I keep it.

How much tech do I really need?

I need to keep in touch with my family.
I need to keep a few funny moments on video / film.
I need to avoid a traffic jam.

If you boil it down, What I really need is:
E-Mail
Internet
Media Playback
Text
Voicemail

That's not much, but it is a lot of technology if you sit back and contemplate it.

Since my Android kicked the bucket, I  have been using a phone that was made in 2007. But that's what all the advertising is about. They want me to believe that I MUST have the phone they just released yesterday

But that doesn't work for me... I can chose to buy into the new model frenzy or to deliberately reduce my new tech spending.

I have technology that has worked just fine since 2007, and still does.  In reality, no one I know had these things on their phone before 2007 anyway.  So as I see it , right now, I have the advantage.

So I have decided to I re-use old technology. 

I will use it until it doesn't fit MY needs, and only purchase new tech when necessary.   I will recycle it when it has served it's useful life, and I will NOT be influenced by the flood of corporate advertising.  And please don't ask me to post anything on Facebook!

Switch from Windows to Linux - So far, so good.

It's been about 6 months since I switched to Linux.  Right now I'm quite happy, but there were a few bumps.  I'll make this quick, but let me point out that I will NOT be using terms like AVG, Avast, ESET, MSE, Norton, or even the word de-fragment.  Just a reminder that it's more secure, but not bulletproof.  Read on to the end. 

I tried Xubuntu first, because it uses XFCE, a very lightweight desktop (faster on old hardware), but forget about getting the video card drivers working.  Not exactly sure why.
I tried Linux Mint, which found the additional drivers necessary for my AMD video card within minutes of getting the networking up. It seemed to perform well, but I had problems with the screen turning back on after sleeping.

So I finally settled on Ubuntu Studio which comes packaged with  XFCE desktop, and I've got the drivers going on my video card. This distro is built more for graphic & audio/video use, but It's working just fine on this old machine (Single Core AMD 64 3400+ 2 GB RAM, AMD 4650 Graphics)

In addition to all the A/V and graphics apps, I've got all the essential stuff like Libre Office, Chromium Browser, Media playback, and basically everything else one could imagine on a traditional Windows machine.  I've added a remote desktop client (Remmina) to control my WinXP NAS/print server/backup machine. I believe it works with less lag. Dropbox works exactly the same, Teamviewer remote works flawless when I'm at work and need something, and the Ubuntu Software Center is catching up to the Google Play experience (slowly).

I use box.net for work files, and I was shocked to learn there is no Linux equivalent to box sync for Windows. That's because Linux doesn't need an app.  The file system supports WebDav out of the box.  With a catch, though.  I had to learn about WebDav, read a few forums, and edit a few files.  It was worth the work, and now it mounts just like a removable hard drive. Done.

Here's the problem.  Crashplan.  When I made the decision to re-install after the original hard drive failure, I knew I had backups within the last 24 hours.  No risk, I thought, just get Crashplan running on the new machine, and restore my stuff.  As of today, I don't have that working yet.  I have gone back to get a few individual files as they come up, but no full restore.  At this time Crashplan is not running on this machine.  I'm not bashing Crashplan, I'm just having some issues.  In reality, I've only needed a few files in the last 6 months anyway.  The point is to keep looking, keep reading, and eventually I'll find someone who has done it and can get me through it.

I would usually check the Ubuntu Forums, but not today, because someone hacked it and ran off with everyone's info, so I'm off to Linuxquestions.org, or maybe even Google+

After I change my Ubuntu password...

After dinner I thought I would check my e-mail, etc...

But my Lenovo won't boot.  I just got through a couple of tests, I'm pretty sure the hard drive is gone.  I'm actually kind of happy about this.  Let me explain.
First, I'm not worried about data loss, the last backup (Crashplan) was about 8PM yesterday. As far as the OS, I have the OEM drive stored  (been running on a clone of it for years). I could swap drives & be back up before midnight. Not to mention at least 100 other ways to try and recover the drive.
 
But I'm NOT going to...

I've been tinkering with Linux since around '06, mainly with under-powered machines & laptops.  I've learned a lot from the community, & I really believe in the opensource movement. But I feel kind of hypocritical because even my old laptop is a dual-boot because I could never figure out the Linux wifi drivers.  So today I'm going to make the "Daily Driver"commitment and make Ubuntu my main machine (my son too, he just doesn't know it yet)