Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a techie. I used to hand code html web pages. I had my laptop when I was 18, and I used softwares like Chem 3D Draw, and was well versed in UNIX and GNUPLOT. And I used to pooh pooh people who used hotmail because you had no control over the formatting of the email.Fast forward ten years later. I've become a technophobe, and xenophobe. I hate laptops because I can't work without full keyboard and a mouse. I told my brother I can't help him with his new laptop because I can't bother to learn Windows Vista right now. I keep all my contacts written in a big-ass notebook because I don't trust online addressbooks, or even my outlook software which keeps spewing viruses. Not to mention that four of my phones have been pickpocketed, losing all numbers. I used to maintain a basic phone, which I kept turned off most of the time, because I'm so tired of communicating with people all the time, particularly drunken people in the middle of the night. And when I use text message, my only choice of communication, I turn off predictive text (T9) feature, since I need to have total control over what I write. And I have six hotmail accounts.
Last weekend, I finally gave in, and bought a new Nokia 6300 phone, because I wanted to check my email on the road (i.e. when I'm stuck in traffic, which is like 2 hours every day). It's nice, shiny, and delicate. But my cousin Wahid's brother-in-law Faiyaz noticed that the camera lens still has the protective cover, the music folders are empty, bluetooth hasn't been configured, and I have been manually typing in the numbers using six keystrokes to add to my addressbook, instead of using the synchronization feature that lets you synch with your computer. And I'm carrying my camera, ipod and two pen drives separately. Worse yet, he wanted me to have some cool ring tones, and I refused, since my phone is always on vibrate mode. I hate loud ring tones.
And here's the motherload: I enabled GPRS, i.e. the web feature, but I'm not using it, because the hotmail email page isn't mobile friendly, and the default browser can't show me the emails. Faiyaz offered to install some browser called Opera, but I'm paranoid about viruses, so I refused the help.
That was the last straw for him. His final stunned response was that I should sell the phone and get a cheaper one, since I'm not using any feature of a smartphone.
But it's so nice and shiny!
