Tom’s Tuesday Tech Tip: What I Really Want for Festivus and for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (the Rest of Us)

This year is almost over and there have been a lot of advances in the tech world. Computers are faster, bigger and smaller and Windows^® 7 works better than anyone expected. Pocket cameras are better than ever. Smart phones do everything but shop and cook for us. But there’s still a lot of technology advances to be made that I think will improve our lives. I want to end the year with my personal tech wish list for 2011 and hope that some of you Certified Legal Nurse Consultants share a few of these wanton desires with me:

1. An actual reason to own an iPad^® (and I want it to be able to print too). It’s just not enough for a gadget to be the coolest thing on Earth, it also needs to be useful.
2. The “Cloud” to go away for now. I do believe one day our computers will all be small, solid-state devices that pull their software from the “Cloud” a la Google’s Chrome operating system (OS). But the Internet really isn’t everywhere yet. A wireless card from any of the major carriers or the Clear Network helps, but just like you drop calls, do you want to drop important documents? Even in New York City, I find spotty, slow Internet coverage, so why do we want to go back to slow computers? It’s hard enough checking email in Poughkeepsie; what about when I’m in Thimpu? Then there’s the whole security issue – who’s really responsible for protecting your data?
3. Internet access on airplanes, but not cell phone access. It would be nice to be able to check my email so that when I hit the ground and turn on my iPhone^® I don’t have 87+ emails from the office waiting for my immediate attention. Likewise I don’t want to spend 3-½ hours trapped on an airplane (without an ejection seat) listening to someone talk about their bunions or hemorrhoids on their cell phone. Give me the Internet or give me nothing!
4. Cell phones that won’t operate in a moving vehicle when they’re held in someone’s hand. Put down the phone and keep both hands on the wheel – you’re a bad enough driver even when you’re not distracted.
5. Cell phones with automatic volume control for the owner’s voice that keeps the person talking on the phone from shouting. You can hear me now so we can all stop using our cell-phone voices. Maybe an automatic limiting device that cuts the phone off after 20 minutes of inane conversation or when the signal to noise ratio gets too low.
6. An end to Facebook viruses (and computer viruses too while we’re at it). With all the talent, time and money behind Facebook, why can’t they come up with some way to screen out the evildoers on a real-time basis?
7. This is Vick’s pick for #7: GPS systems that will actually drive your car for you just like in The Jetsons. Need I say more or just “Rambler, take me to the Galleria”?
8. Microsoft^® to make some intuitive upgrades to its various programs. Get rid of that awful automatic formatting in Word^® and let me make my documents look the way I want them.
9. A software company to actually break Wirth’s Law (which states “Software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster”). I don’t think I need to expand on this, do you?
10. Finally, this is Vick’s pick too: computers and other electronic devices that work as fast as she does!

I’m sure there are a lot of other things about the tech world that would make my life and your legal nurse consulting business easier. If there’s something you want, comment and let me know. Otherwise I’m going to hope that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and whoever really runs Google read this and will have a tiger team on it first thing Monday morning.

Keep on techin’,

Tom