Social network? How do you figure?

I just read a comment someone wrote about Facebook. It wasn't long, it just contained a short quip about the user's mom and what she said about it. What she said was that ever since Facebook became popular and everyone started using it she, being one of the few who doesn't use it, has lost track of what is going on with the people she knows. She used to get the occasional e-mail or phone call, but now, nothing. This brought to mind the fact that, though they call it a social network, Facebook is more like a social cop-out. I know some of you will argue this, that it is a great way to be more involved in the life of others, but I am going to post my thoughts on it.

Now, to make sure it is clear, I hardly log in to Facebook, let alone actually use it. Every time I log in to it I see random comments that to understand I would have to read millions of posts from many people to get a somewhat hazy picture of what the poster might actually be talking about, I just don't have the patience to figure out someone else's drama, so I avoid Facebook and if anyone messages me on it I usually don't see it until much later. Anyway, that being said here is why I feel that using a social network to connect with others is really just a way to not do it.

Our communication skills have been getting worse as our technology improves. It used to be you had to travel somewhere to talk to someone and that made it a very special occasion to get to catch up with them. Then at some point we started sending messages, like mail, with someone to be delivered. This made it possible for us to keep up on the more recent events but it was still special to see people, this was actually an improvement. The next thing that happened is we could call someone and talk to them, hearing someone's voice can be very comforting and also gives us a more instant connection to people, talking on the phone can still be quite personal, though a letter is more heartfelt and visiting in person is still the best way to connect with someone. The next things that happened were technology, we started sending e-mails, still something we could personalize, like a letter, except that it arrived nearly instantly. We eventually moved on to paging people or sending text messages, which limited the things we could say which changed our language and degraded our skills in actually writing. Then we continued down this path and eventually arrived with social networks. Now, instead of sending a person a letter, calling someone specifically or using any other of the past points of contact we can just post our thoughts to everyone in general and if we want to connect with someone specifically we "like" their post or say something short and truly pathetic in terms of comfort to what we previously had. So, instead of making single, personal connections that take time out of our lives and let people know we care, we instead can put this little "social" blurbs about what's going on and let people know we saw they wrote something. Don't you feel so much closer now to the person who said, "Yeah, that sucks" to you when you shared your absolutely worst experience ever with them? Yeah, I don't either.

So, to keep with the theme of this blog, your life will be quite a bit greener if you take some time to really connect with others. Give someone a call or write them a letter, it will make them feel better and in turn you'll feel better as well, especially if they take the time to write a letter back.

As a side note, I must add this as well. Social networks aren't all evil, they do have some benefits for people that really don't have much time in the day and need to connect somehow. My wife for example pointed out that it helps her feel less lonely in the day and she doesn't really have the ability to call someone or write a letter when she's watching two young children. So yes, they have their place, but my argument is that they aren't always as social as they are made to be.

Netflix

After ditching the cable oh so many years ago (has it really been 4 years already?) and going with over the air television for quite a while, I decided, after hearing about their streaming service, to try out Netflix. I have to say, it was great. It was affordable and so long as we watched at least 2 movies a week it paid for itself when compared to Redbox (which is another good option for the occasional movie watcher). However, with recent changes I have rid myself of Netflix's services. The prices have gone up and they separated their DVD and streaming service. I would have kept the streaming except for one thing I heard. They were losing their deal with Starz, which wouldn't have affected most people, but for us it is a real deal killer. You see, the streaming was great for my daughter who loves to have the TV on, not to watch, usually, but to have the noise. With the coming loss of that content our selection would be pitiful and so I had to say fair-well to them. This however gave me a hole in my budget, I already had allocated money for Netflix and so now I could take this money and move it towards buying more DVDs, which I have done. So, with this change and going back to using our local library and Redbox some more, I am probably saving more money than I was spending, just without the convenience. I will still recommend the service as an alternative to cable, but not as a way to get what you weren't getting anyway.

Now for my next task in making life convenient for my family, figuring out how to create a digital media center for all those DVDs so I don't have to get up and put them in the tray and then wait for them to load.

Computers

Most computers are given a life of about 3 to 6 years, at least that's what most companies want you to believe. 4 years is probably the longest warranty I see most companies offer, but 3 is a bit more common. Now, if you get a warranty or not is up to you and you can decide what it is worth to ensure the computer keeps running, for me it is more of a question of how much I just spent and would I be very upset to have it break in that time and not have it under warranty. That being said, I am not advising for or against warranties. What I do want to note is that a warranty shows you roughly how long they expect your computer to last before you replace it. You see, after the warranty period is when they would expect it to start failing, though from what I've seen, if its made it that far without problem it might make it quite a bit farther. The real issue comes though in people's perceived notion that when it is out of warranty it is no longer any good. Granted it is old as far as technology goes, but chances are that the computer can still give you quite a few more years without having to put much money into it. I myself have bought 3 new computers in my life, all laptops. Each one I bought was because I didn't know better than to buy them. Now, after learning a few things, I would probably not buy any new computers unless I had a very specific reason for needing them (such as, I can't build/find/refurbish one that has the specs I need).

So what do I do? I get used computers, this is a double green for me, it is good for my budget and it is good for the environment, reuse is always better than any other choice when it comes to going green for the planet. Where do these computers come from? Well, there are plenty of businesses who get rid of old equipment and lots of home users who just recycle them through the company they just bought the new one from. I am willing to bet you might be able to talk them out of one of the computers or at least get one for pretty cheap if you're on good terms with them. Then you can rebuild it to suit your needs. Here are the most common things that need to be done to computers to bring them up to a good, working condition.

First, I verify the computer has enough RAM, I would say about a Gig at least for what I'm using, for those of you married to Microsoft you will need at least 2 Gigs. And, if you are needing Microsoft products, I need to ask, why? The OS is what slows down your computer so much, it isn't written well and has bugs and costs you more money in the long run. Anyway, short rant over. The next thing I ask myself is, do I trust this hard drive (HDD for short). If I can trust the HDD or know I won't be putting data on it that I would cry over losing I'll make sure it is big enough for my needs, if so, I keep the drive and work with it. I'll run diagnostics, most computers have this, check that it has all the screws/parts it needs to stay together and that it is in a generally good, working condition (scratches do not affect performance) and make sure the screen works. You're going to laugh at this one, but I also check the smell of the laptop too, I do not want a laptop that a former smoker used or someone spilt something on for two reasons, first, it smells horrible and second, it is more likely to break. If I decided I need more RAM or a new HDD I'll order it and wait a week for it to arrive, I have patience and don't need the computer up and running tomorrow, I'll also buy online so I can save some money.

Once I have my parts I will put them in the computer and begin my build process. The biggest decision you'll need to make is what you install on it, I highly recomming Linux as you will get more life out of your used computer with it than if you went with a commercial alternative (Microsoft Windows, see reason above). I also like that it's free and the software on it is free too, also it is well supported by a community of people (I fixed the computer, I have to support it and I am not paying someone to do it, I learned to Google my problems and figure them out) and the version I use has an easy way to upgrade (which is free). A short while later, probably about a half hour to two hours depending on what I'm doing with it, the computer is done and I'm doing what I want to do with it. That's all, some time, a little effort and I have a perfectly good computer. Now, if you have access to multiple computers that are the same model, you can take these computers and swap parts between them to get a working one, I've done that a few times. Because of what I do I end up with a new, used computer about once a year. I will always upgrade my own first and then fix up the one I was using for someone else, it's just always nice to have something nice for you when you do all this work anyway.

For those of you who don't have access to some cheap/free computers, I recommend you think twice when you are about to retire yours, you may actually be able to get more life out of it by spending some time fixing it up. If you really must have the new computer, consider how much computer you actually need, a lot of computers out there that people get the best parts in are only used for e-mail and web surfing, from what I can tell most electronics can do that now and aren't near as powerful as the computer you just bought, so why do you need to get all those fancy upgrades into a computer that you will be using less than I use my free ones? Oh, and if you can't fix one up yourself, you might be able to find someone who will help you, just remember though, if they're helping you it is because they are being nice, don't get picky or demanding with them because then they won't want to help you again or anyone else for that matter. In other words, be nice to your friendly geek, we like to keep them friendly so they keep helping others.

Phones

I spent a lot of time working on my budget, I made sure I knew where the money was going and if it was a good thing that it went towards. One of the biggest drains I found on my budget was my cell phone service. The first thing I did with it was get rid of the data plan, I didn't really need it anyway, I had internet access almost anywhere I stopped anyway and because my e-mail service was accessible via a web browser there really was no purpose, that one change saved us probably about $60 a month, for others it will probably save more. However, this wasn't enough for me, I wanted to make my money go farther.

The next step in this phone process was looking at my home phone service, I knew this had a lot of potential to save me money because a home service can provide cheaper unlimited calling compared to what cell phones offered (and at this time there wasn't even unlimited available). I had service currently through my cable provider, it was expensive. Someone at my church introduced me to a VOIP provider who offered unlimited service for $200 for the year, it didn't take much number crunching to realize this was a fairly good deal compared to what I had (a savings of about $23 a month). So I went with this and was happy enough for a year, then it came time to renew and I did and another year passed. During the following year the company was closing its doors and I had to find someone else, there were others who offered something similar and I checked them out, however their service was crappy and support was unhelpful and slow, so I tried another company. Their service wasn't very good either and eventually I went with a more familiar, but more expensive service. At first I went with their 500 minute plan, but I didn't like having to keep track of the minutes and worry about it, I already worried about my cell phones, it was just too much stress, so I went with their unlimited plan.

Time passed and I looked at my budget again, I had been trimming a lot of fat in a lot of different areas, but the phone situation still bothered me. I kept looking for better deals on cell phone service, but couldn't find any that I liked. Eventually I decided to look at the pay-as-you-go plans, I crunched the numbers, figured out how much my minutes were costing me and realized that if I made the right changes I could save quite a bit of money. So when we could we switched to a pay-as-you-go service and cut back a lot of our monthly bill, but this wasn't enough, my home phone service was costing me a lot too and we didn't use a ton of minutes. As I continued researching I found many options out there, compared to a cell phone plan it was still a good deal but we weren't using it enough to make it worth the money. I finally found some tricks I could do and informed my wife that we would try them out, if they didn't work it didn't matter because we would just use our cell phones instead. So, after a bit of investing the money I have a small balance due to my savings from my phone budget, but I got my phone budget down to $30 a month right now and it could probably go lower once the balance is paid off. To put it in perspective, when I started off making a budget I was spending somewhere around $160-180 a month and now, after some years of research and making small changes, I'm down to likely less than $30 a month! That's a very major change for us, we can do a lot with $130 more per month!

So what do I want to impart in my story? Well, I want you to think about how much you spend on your phones, they're expensive and you should probably be asking yourself, do I really need all that I'm paying for? Do you really have to have the data plan? Do you absolutely need the home phone service? Is it saving you money? Crunch some numbers, find out how much you're paying per minute. Are there more savings to be had? It's possible that you can go with fewer minutes on your cell phone by using a home phone service and realize some savings. Take a look at it, see what's available, you could be surprised how much of your budget you can free up by asking some of these questions to the things you spend your money on.