I’m pretty sure I come from a long line of geeks. While I haven’t done a thorough genealogical search, I’ve been given more than enough clues. From ancestors who built the first windmill in their small German town, a great-grandfather who attempted to promote Esperanto as a universal language, a mother who speaks five languages (one of which she learned as an adult in order to get better deals from that community), a father who built home computers way before the general public had regular access to them, and the list goes on.

Growing up geek was my inevitable fate.

Photo credit: Ethan Hein from Flickr

It meant that by the age of six, I was staring at a black monitor with green text trying to hunt the wumpus. Does anyone remember floppy disks? I don’t mean the compact 3 1/2 inch disks. I mean the 8 inch numbers that you had to put in sideways. I’m amazed to think back about how little information could be stored on those gigantic disks.

In grade three, when the Scholastic flyers came out (this was a time when the flyer was more about books than stickers and toys), I bought my first coding book and promptly used BASIC to create a text adventure game. Pretty soon I was writing my own games.

Every time a new technology came out, I wanted in on the ground floor. I was the nerdy little bookworm with the retainer who had a secret language that none of her classmates knew about, let alone understood. And I loved it. While other little girls were imagining wearing ruby slippers and clicking their heels three times to get out of an imaginary situation, I’d be saying “XYZZY!” In fact, one of the first iPhone apps I downloaded recently was Frotz which has all those old text adventure games that I used to adore.

Most of my jobs have involved some form of web design or content production. I’ve come to realize over the years that keeping up in all areas is impossible. At one point, there wasn’t even an ability to produce graphics that weren’t just composed of keystrokes. Now there are whole jobs dedicated to graphic design. There’s simply no such thing as a jack of all trades in the online world.

For me, tools like Dreamweaver have helped to keep up. I can still get around in HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. And I can make changes to pre-existing PHP. But what I’ve really been enjoying lately is the way that social media has kind of exploded onto the scene in the past few years. Keeping up with trends, engaging in meaningful dialogue, and making real connections has brought a new level of online geekery to me. Maybe I’m making up for the lost time in my childhood where I lived more in my head and on the computer screen than I did with real friends.

This is all to say that while I’m standing at this particular crossroads in my life right now, I sort of feel like I’m staring at a screen with the question being posed:

“What will you do?”

And the answer is an infinite combination of possibilities. Insert response here:

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Photo credit: Fr3d

Remember that episode of The Simpsons when Bart calls in to the local radio station and is the winner of his choice between cash and an elephant? Then when he chooses the latter (which is actually a gag prize) and is denied, he calls the station repeatedly with the demand, “I want my elephant”?

Well, when the iPhone finally came to Canada this summer but Rogers announced it was charging your first born child for its data plan, that’s kind of how I felt.

So, I waited. And you know what they say about good things coming to those who wait.

Now those of you who know me in real life know that while I’m technologically inclined, I’ve never had a mobile phone or similar device mostly because I just didn’t see the need for one. Yes, I work in media and have a background in public relations. And yes, every other social media maven out there is connected 24/7. But my day job has me glued to the internet and even though off hours you can probably find me typing away on my macbook I just didn’t see the point.

In fact, the iPhone caught my attention mostly for everything BUT the phone part. When the iPod Touch was released, I considered putting that on my holiday wish list instead. Cokebaby, on the other hand, has owned a mobile phone for years now. While he’s actually anti-mobile phone, we felt it was a wise investment in case of emergencies because he has to travel by car to the outskirts of the city in order to get to work.

In December, his plan was about to expire and when we went in to check out the iPhones the rates had gone down so significantly that we both walked out with one. The guy behind the counter didn’t even have to try.

I’m still not using the phone part as much as all the other cool features but I am finding this gadget to be a marvel. Everywhere I go now I have my own soundtrack. I can post to my blog, take pictures, play games, and even manage my to-do lists much more efficiently. So, in the next little while I’ll be posting reviews of apps and games that I’ve found useful as a way of giving back.

But first, and most importantly, I’m still in search of the perfect ringtone. Currently, mine is set to “old phone” but I don’t think that really says anything about me. I need to find something that will define me at meetings and in hallways across the country.

Are you an iPhone user? If so, what are the must-have apps that you recommend?