How not to look like a dork when using technology. Or: Viva la cell phone!

There is a right way and a wrong way to use personal technology. Well, for some of us anyway. See, people who only have a cell phone because their company gave it to them, people who only need a computer for work, and people who got a PDA for Christmas don't count. I'm talking about the type of person who has technology for technology's sake. The cell phone is used for brief calls and text messages, the PDA is used for playing games, and the laptop is for watching movies. These people live by a code. An unspoken series of rules that govern how to use this technology. Here, for any interested parties, is my interpretation of that code as it applies to cell phones.

The cell phone has been around for about twenty years, but only in the last few has it become small and cheap enough to be widely used. Well, that's the general belief anyway. The truth is they bottomed out on price several years ago, and since then most people who get them do it for business reasons or because their friends have them. Not like I'm one to talk, I just got one because it was a cool gadget. But with so many people having cell phones, how can a savvy geek hope to stand out with one (and in the true tradition of gadgets) make it seem special? Like this.

First of all, there's the phone itself. No ordinary phone will do. That means none of those horrendous early-90's-style Motorola flip phones. Nokia 6100 and 5100s are out too. The 8200s are ok, but are more utilitarian, and Star-TACs are on the edge of ok. Generally they're out-of-date though. What you really need is the newest, best thing out there that cost you a paycheck and a half, that no one has seen before, and that was preferably shipped in from another country and modified to work in the US, or that's so new it's practically a prototype. I've got a Nokia 8260. It's small enough to impress most people, and back when I got it no one else has them. Now though I see them around more than I'd like. Small, shiny, and feature-packed. That's what you want.

Now that you've got your impossibly small, spiffy little unit, let's talk about how to use it. First, here is what not to do. Suppose you're in the midst of some people you'd like to impress, and your phone is clipped into a little holster on your belt. The big moment comes, it rings, perfect timing for you to whip it out and impress every one! So you try to get it off your belt, but since you don't know how to use the holster (that you bought as a kind of impulse buy when you got the phone) you kind of fumble with it for a minute and finally get it off, nearly dropping it. Then you hold it up in front of you, unfold it carefully, hunt for the button to answer it, and then with a big happy idiotic smile you say "Hello!" You are officially now a lamer.

If you were a real gadget freak, you'd have thought this out beforehand. Let's try that again.

You're back in that group of impressible people again. The phone rings. Instead of grabbing for it as though it were a small animal that had suddenly attached itself to your hip, you casually continue to do whatever it is you're doing. Frag one more person, TP back to town, take one more bite, whatever. Then without looking, you reach down and in one smooth motion unclip it from your belt (because you were smart and got a quick-release holster), and hold it up, out of your line of sight, and flip it open with one hand. Then, still without looking, you punch the Talk button with the same hand and answer it with a short, casual greeting. "Yo." works pretty well.

This all combines to give the impression that you really know this piece of technology well. You're saying to the people around you "Hey, I've got this phone that's so new you've never even see one, but it's old news to me." And you're not incredibly enthusiastic about it either, like "Oh my god I got a phone call!" Instead you're saying "Jeez…another call on my cell phone, I can't believe I stand for this."

And that, my friends, is how in this day and age when everyone and their dog has a cell phone, you can stand out.