The Times article tells us why we’re addicted to the Internet and technology use:

The stimulation provokes excitement — a dopamine squirt — that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.

So, for instance, getting notification of a new email or a new tweet gives your brain a little ZING! So does surfing the web, discovering new and exciting things.

The article also discusses focus and multitasking, citing a study in which people were asked questions to determine whether they were heavy multitaskers, and then tested on their focus level and ability to switch between tasks. The results are not particularly encouraging.

Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.

Scientists also found that heavy multitaskers had more difficulty switching between tasks.

Sample tests were included with the article, so of course I took them myself. I don’t know whether I qualify as a heavy multitasker, because they didn’t include that questionnaire. I did very well on the focus test, getting only one item wrong, but apparently I’m very slow at switching between tasks.

I’m not sure whether that’s a good or bad result — or whether there really is a good or bad result. Perhaps we’re just all different in the way we process information?  It might be more informative to test a group of people who haven’t been exposed to technology, then have them use computers or other technology for some period of time, and then re-test them.

Here are the tests, if you want to take them yourself. Come back and report on how you did!

Test Your Focus

Test How Fast You Juggle Tasks

So when my nearly worthless Tracfone was stolen recently, I was ready to buy a new phone anyway.  I chose a Motorola CLIQ because

• It runs on the open-source Android platform.
• It’s available through T-Mobile, so I can share a family account with my husband.
• It has a full, pull-out QWERTY keyboard.
• It has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.
• It has a 5 megapixel camera and video recording capability.
• It has better performance ratings and more memory than the G1 and MyTouch phones (Android phones also available from T-Mobile).

You may now be asking yourself why I didn’t jump straight to the Nexus One, the newest (and possibly best) of the Android phones. It’s because of cost. The Nexus One would be a little more upfront, and a little more per month, mostly because you can’t add a Nexus One to an existing family plan (it wouldn’t be an upgrade for us).  That little bit does make a difference for me.

So far I’m very happy with the CLIQ. I did have to learn how to use it, but it basically ships ready to go. The phone was already activated when it arrived, with the same phone number I had before. The SIM card was installed, but it had been inserted backward (I don’t know whether that’s done on purpose or not). So once I figured out that that was the reason it thought there was no SIM card, I was underway.

The CLIQ comes installed with MOTOBLUR, which is a service that can combine your email and social networking feeds into one, pushing notifications to your phone. You have to open a MOTOBLUR account upon starting up the phone, unless you have one already.

I haven’t really been using the MOTOBLUR system, though. I’m used to doing my Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter separately, so I’ve been using the respective apps for those services. I think the phone is still using MOTOBLUR to notify me when I have a new email, though (I turned off notifications for Twitter and Facebook). You can also use MOTOBLUR to post a message to several services at the same time.

The phone itself has a touchscreen interface with three buttons below: menu, home, and back. The keyboard slides out with the phone in the horizontal position. It’s small but easy to use, and feels quite sturdy.

The home screen is pre-loaded with several widgets, which you can easily rearrange or remove, and is actually five screens wide; you can access the other sections by swiping horizontally. At the bottom of the screen are tabs for phone, apps, and contacts.  A number of apps are pre-loaded, and others (free and paid) are available throught the Android Market (look for Market in the Apps tab or one screen to the right on the home screen).

I’ve downloaded some apps, but I’m definitely still exploring and learning, so I can’t really recommend anything so far except my Twitter client — Twidroid. It works great, and I’ll probably upgrade to the premium version, which includes multiple account support, soon.  Another app I use often is WordPress; I can use this app to access all of my WordPress blogs, approve or delete comments, and even write a new post if I want to.

One thing you don’t have on an Android phone is iTunes syncing. There are apps for this, but I haven’t bothered with them. I just plugged my phone into the USB port on my MacBook, which recognized the SD card on the phone as an external drive, and copied the music files over. There is a music player app pre-installed on the phone, and it doesn’t mind at all that the music was purchased through iTunes.  There’s also an Amazon mp3 app provided for purchasing music directly from the phone.

Speaking of Amazon, there’s an Amazon app for browsing and purchasing, but there is NO KINDLE APP for Android, like there is for the iPhone. I’m still figuring out the ebook situation. I did download Aldiko, which allows me to download and read public domain books. I’m not sure how to go about buying and reading books otherwise, or whether it’s even possible. Barnes & Noble’s Nook reader actually runs on the Android operating system, so it would be nice if they could also develop a Nook app for Android phones. I’d pay for it!

One thing I had trouble with was the sound settings. I initially chose a ring tone and a notification tone from the standard set, but then later I downloaded (through the Android Market) a set of Star Trek sounds/ringtones. I successfully changed the main ringtone to (cue Worf voice) “Captain. Incoming message,” but couldn’t get the notification tone to change to “Console Beep 2.” It turns out that you have to change the notification tone in the MOTOBLUR settings through the Messaging app, as well as in the phone’s main settings.

I’m still enjoying exploring the phone and the apps. I haven’t got it all down. Two helpful tricks I’ve learned are to always try pressing the menu button to see what comes up, and if I’m stumped, to try pressing and holding on one of the items on the screen — this will often pop up a menu, too.

If you want or need a phone that performs multiple functions — photography, video recording, email, messaging, music, blogging, social networking — you’ll be very pleased with Android. I would caution anyone who’s not really comfortable with technology, but that caution probably applies to most smart phones.

UPDATE/NOTE 3/6/10: I just saw a TV commercial for CarToys that said they currently have this phone on sale for $23. WTH? I paid $149.99 through T-Mobile! But anyway, if you’re interested in this phone, try CarToys! No, I have no affiliation with them and get no compensation for this. Just letting you know.

Here are a couple of photos I took today with the Motorola CLIQ’s 5-megapixel camera. Click on the picture for a larger and clearer image.

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On What’s the Mission, I post spiritual reflections and book reviews (I belong to a great program called Viral Bloggers in which I get free books!).  Latest reviews include Picking Dandelions by Sarah Cunningham, Thy Kingdom Connected by Dwight J. Friesen, and A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren.

Six Boxes of Books was started by my sister Wendy (who once read all of the Newbery Award winners), and has expanded to include all three Burton sisters. We mostly write about children’s and young adult books. Some posts are reviews and some cover other book-related topics, like school book orders.

ParkroseGateway.com is a local news site/blog that I started for the neighborhood in which I live. It runs on the Neighborlogs platform.  I write about local schools, community events, sports, crime, businesses, or whatever I see that is interesting. Neighbors are invited to post, too. My most recent post is a roundup of coverage on the Aaron Campbell shooting, which occurred not far from here.

You can also find me on Twitter and Facebook pretty much every day.

Blogger Kiera Butler posted complete instructions for coiling an old power cord into a coaster. It’s from a book called 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer: (And Other Discarded Electronics). Yes, seriously. Other projects include the Scanner Compost Bin, the Walkman Soap Dish and the Power Strip Bird Feeder.

Sure, you could just turn it all in to your local electronics recycler, but where’s the fun in that?

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Disclosure: Yes, if you click on one of my Amazon links and buy something, I will get a tiny commission! Thank you for supporting this site.

If there’s one thing we like in Portland, it’s the whole sustainable and green movement. If there’s another thing we like, it’s the whole shiny technology object thing. So why hasn’t anyone around here had the gumption to marry those two oh so Portlandy things into one great “you got your techie peanut butter in my green chocolate; you got your green chocolate in my techie peanut butter” you might ask?

That would be Earthtechling. Sounds like a good match for someone who dubbed herself TechnoEarthMama, yes?

EarthTechling, the place where Earthlings come to learn about green consumer technology, is a destination for readers seeking to better their lives and the world around them through the use of green technology

Do they deliver?  For starters, Earthtechling is a WordPress site. As a proud WordPress user and coordinator of the Portland WordPress User Group, I approve wholeheartedly.

On the front page are several feature articles and section links for Buying Guides, Previews, Interviews and How-To. There’s also a section of Recent Reviews and Latest News.  Recently reviewed products include the Vers 2X (a green iPod speaker system) and The Little Green Genie (a software program that is supposed to help offset your computer’s carbon footprint). Latest news stories cover electric bikes and the Water Cube building designed for the 2012 World Expo.

Not all of the gadgets and software programs covered are actually useful to the average person. I’m not likely to buy a Tesla car, and we don’t buy each other stuff for Valentine’s Day, even if it is green stuff. However, there are some really interesting products and companies, such as Green Plug, which is developing smart power adapters. Green Plug is working on adapters that would use less energy, but that would also be universal and could be used by multiple electronic items and appliances. This would eliminate a great deal of electronic waste; I know I’ve got a drawer full of power adapters at work that work fine but don’t go with anything we’re currently using.

Earthtechling looks like a great way to keep up on green technology news, even if you’re not in the market for new gadgets.

I’ve used it a little bit. I hooked my Twitter posts, blog posts, Flickr account and a few other things to Google Buzz, so anyone who’s following me will see those items in their Buzz stream. And I’ve seen other people’s blog posts and photos in there, too. I’ve even occasionally commented on things through Buzz.

And of course, you can post directly on Buzz, too. It’s similar to posting a status update on Twitter or Facebook, but there’s no length limitation as far as I know.

I’ve posted and commented on a few of these updates, but these have mainly been updates about Buzz. I’m still posting my everyday updates on Twitter and Facebook rather than on Buzz.

There is a convenience factor to getting updates about people’s blog posts, photos, shared items on Google Reader, etc., right in my inbox. But I already get these updates elsewhere. I read blogs through Google Reader. I look at photos on Facebook and occasionally on Flickr.  Or people post their photos and links to their blog posts on Twitter.  So Buzz doesn’t provide me with anything I don’t already have.

If Buzz adds functionality for more web services, like Delicious, WordPress.com,  GoodReads, etc., I might be more interested. I already have a Friendfeed account, which aggregates these kinds of updates into one stream, but I only go there if Twitter isn’t working.   If that kind of stream were right in my inbox, though, I’d probably use it.

Buzz in the workplace could also be interesting. I’ve heard that at some point, Google will integrate Buzz into Google Apps, which my workplace already uses for email, websites, calendars, documents, etc.  Having a Buzz system available for workplace conversations could be useful; Twitter isn’t really conducive to communicating within a certain group.

For now, though, I might just ignore the Buzz.

You can still catch the last few hours of the podcast (it ends at 10:00 p.m. Pacific) at http://30hourday.org, and you can still make a donation through Facebook.  Please think about helping out! Thanks.

Here’s how the process went:

• Open outer cardboard box.
• Pull out small box containing keyboard, mouse, installation CD’s, and manuals.
• Remove plastic wrap from keyboard. Remove plastic tape from keyboard cord.
• Remove plastic wrap from mouse. Remove plastic tape from mouse cord.
• Recycle manuals and toss CDs. We have a master image that we install on all computers. I save one copy of the manuals and CDs, just in case.
• Recycle small cardboard box.
• Pull out big chunk of styrofoam.
• Remove iMac itself from box.
• Remove thin foam wrapper from iMac.
• Remove plastic wrap from iMac screen.
• Remove plastic wrap from back of iMac base.
• Remove power cord from styrofoam block in box. Pull plastic tape off.
• Hook up all the cords.
• Recycle the main box, and throw away styrofoam.

As you can imagine, there was a mountain of recyclables and trash by the time all thirty-two were done.  Could this be done differently? Maybe if Apple were willing to do special school packs, they could cut down on the waste a bit — for instance, school packs could include just one set of CDs and manuals for every 30 computers. And maybe the keyboards and mice could all be packed together instead of with each computer.

On a positive note, I also noticed this week that HP has changed the packaging for their ink cartridges. Single cartridges are now in boxes half the size they used to be. They’re also no longer including a return envelope for recycling, which makes sense since cartridge recycling programs are widely available now. Way to go, HP!

Photo by Robert Nelson from Flickr,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertnelson/ / CC BY 2.0

I wrote previously about CubeSpace’s financial problems.  While there was strong support (including financial support) from the community for keeping CubeSpace open, owners Eva Schweber and David Kominsky eventually decided it was best to fold the business, since they weren’t sure it would be sustainable in the long run.

Today, several people pitched in to help CubeSpace pack up and get ready to move out of its office space.  I went down to help, too.

CubeSpace has never just been an office space or a meeting venue to me.  It’s been a community center.  I hate to see it go.  And somehow, I needed a poem to express my feelings about that today, even though I don’t write poetry.

Once the comfortable center of bright ideas,
the velvety sofas and chairs and companion tables
are now grouped silently in an empty forum.

Chaos is now the center, where sweaty humans
surrounded by clutches of pens and papers
are coiling and squeezing unruly cords into boxes.

Lift and carry, reach and pull again,
cyborgs share the network of community
even as they pull its plugs and wires.

All signs of life will soon be silenced;
snacks eaten, beer drunk, the stairway dark and empty.
Yet the center will hold, and the crowds still gather to share their light

I didn’t bike down to Beer and Blog, which is where I am right now. The pub is 7.26 miles from my house one way, and the timing just wasn’t right today.  I am surrounded by geeks, though, so it seems appropriate to tell you about Real Geeks Ride.

I already knew that real geeks ride bikes.  I am a geek. I ride a bike.  And this is Portland; it’s full of geeks who ride bikes!  But the guys behind Real Geeks Ride are not avid cyclists, and they’re not from Portland.  Joe Philipson and Carlos Urreta are from Hawaii and Texas, respectively, and they’re undertaking a cross-country bike ride with a goal of getting 1000 geeks to bike to work.  They started May 20 in Pennsylvania and plan to end August 2 in Seaside, Oregon.

If these two geeks can make it across the USA, it is foolish to think other geeks can not at least bike to work.

Carlos and Joe are blogging about their ride as they go (using WordPress).  Catch up with them at http://realgeeksride.com.