My phone, along with the technology that supports it, is the most incredible device ever conceived by the human brain. At first, it was merely an oversized example of cellular technology, which afforded me constant access to my teacher, my mother, my secret lover: my source of information about everything. Since then, using this phone has been a journey of endless surprise and delight. My first breakthrough came on the day when I learned, thanks to the forums at EverythingQ, how to set MP3 files as ringtones. To a music freak / tech geek such as myself, this was huge. No more sifting through Verizon's selections of... Brittany Amber Simpson and Jessica Lohan, looking for a inevitably crappy-sounding tone that I felt defined me as a person - which I was then required to pay for. I'm now on the road to having a different strain of music from my own collection, edited down with Audacity, play for each person who calls me. Since the day of my discovery, JP has become accustomed to my answering his calls with gleeful giggling, having just been treated to a portion of MF Doom's Vomitspit. Beyond that, I have customized sounds for other events - text messages, emails, and the like. When my phone reminds me of an upcoming appointment, it is in the voice of Shuv-Oohl the Mole Man asking: "Have you found Frog Rock yet?" [By the way, the first episode of the next Sam & Max game will be released on November first.]

The next logical step was to find a method for accessing files on my computer, from my phone, remotely. I briefly looked at some conventional fileserver/VPN solutions, such as Hamachi. With the help of the EverythingQ forums once again, I discovered Orb. Download the program, tell it where to find your media, and it will stream all of your music, pictures and video to any web-enabled computer or device - including smartphones - for free. On my phone's browser, I simply go to my Orb website, browse by directory through the media on my computer at home, and it plays. As long as I have my phone and a decent connection, I also have my 50 gigs of music. What is an iPod, again? This technology offers a glimpse into the future; the next step, however, won't be using your phone to access remote files and listen to music - it will be doing the same, doing more, through your network-enabled toothbrush, kitchen appliance, or household pet. And take it from me - it's good. It's very, very good.