“Many of Todd McCann’s students suffer from a chronic disease.

Call it CRS: Can’t Remember Squat.

Now they have no excuse.

Mr. McCann, an English instructor at Bay College, in Michigan, is deploying students’ own favorite technology to burn away the memory fog. He blasts his classes text-message reminders using Broadtexter, a free software program used by bands to create mobile fan clubs. Rather than texting tour dates, he keeps the phones in students’ pockets buzzing with regular reminders like ‘Paper 4 is due tomorrow.’”

Read more at The Chronicle

I, too, was on the fence with this but it is another tool that some students will find beneficial, especially, if they are prone to forgetting things. In today’s hectic life of multitasking, having this option could save you from a lot of stress.

…except that now you’ll know the deadline is tomorrow.

When it first came out, I remember my friend telling me,

“It’s so fast… I had to stop using it so much because I’m afraid of running out of ‘the fast’.”

He was right. Google Chrome is fast, compared to Firefox’s memory-hogging standards. With that, I made the jump and was pleasantly please by “the fast” that I had gained in web browsing. However, when I first opened it, I noticed something-

“Hey! That’s Opera’s Speed-Dial!”

Even though it doesn’t exactly mimic Speed-Dial to the letter, it does look very similar. I guess it’s a new browser “standard”, just like Mozilla’s tabbed browsing. In honesty, it took some getting use to. The part that took time to get use to- as my sister also echoed- is the stalker-ish feeling that it emits. Yes, we had History, but this is technology in your face. Next thing you know, it’ll start making recommendations. You know it’s coming.

With all the simplicity and “fast” that was evident in Google’s Chrome browser, you knew that something was bound to pop up and bite at your ankles like an angry chinchilla. Here it is, folks; the bane of my existence.

It’s not as cute as when Ed Boon does it in Mortal Kombat.

When Ed Boon comes out in Mortal Kombat, it’s funny. When Google Chrome does it sporadically- and frequently- when you type in a valid web address, it’s irritating. The simple solution is to hit Refresh in the browser, and your website shows up.

As a result, I’ve gone back to Opera. But then I used docs.google.com to edit a spreadsheet and Google Docs was just not as friendly in that enviornment.

Now… I switch between Chrome and Opera.

There’s just no winning this.

For me, the “perfect storm” of common knowledge has hit the globe and it is reflected in near simultaneous discussions of a very important topic- the future, the past, the present… how the heck did we make it work, and how the heck do we keep it going?

First, Forbe’s “The World’s Next Great Cities”. Distribution and controlling the supply chain is still very much important.

http://www.forbes.com/realestate/2008/10/23/cities-world-ten-forbeslife-cx_mw_1023cities.html?feed=rss_popstories

Second, The Motley Fool’s “Tech Bailout is Oxymoronic”. In this exercise, I want you to select the word that does not fit: venture capital, start-up, bailout, high-risk, high-reward.

http://www.fool.com/investing/high-growth/2008/12/09/theres-something-oxymoronic-about-a-tech-bailout.aspx

Third, BusinessWeek’s “The U.S. Economy’s Best Bet: The Intangible Sector”. Dear Lord! Somebody gets it! Education and health care- two industries that live and die on innovation, or a lack thereof.

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/dec2008/db2008129_060427.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

And finally, countless U.S. Americans sing in chorus, “I got it for cheap!” as depicted in BusinessWeek’s “2008: The Year of Living Cheaply”.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2008/tc20081210_696392.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

What does all of this mean? To me, it’s a reminder to the world that we got sidetracked- ‘caught up in the hype. And, even in a time of deep crisis, we should stop and think before taking action. I’m preaching nothing new here, but can we at least stop throwing money at fires? Last time I checked, money was made of trees and trees still burn. It’s not magic. It just happens.