So here I am, doing my day job, and I need to get a meeting set up with MegaSurance and my coworker. Well, into outlook goes my meeting. And then GoogleSync steps in and synchronizes Google, and then my two laptops, one for writing, one for Citrix, reporting and email, my iPod Touch, and my Treo all synchronize with Google.

Promptly at 13:45, I get two popups on each laptop, 1 in Google Mail, one in Google Calendar, a popup from Outlook on the main laptop, a bleep from my Treo, and a bleep from my iPod touch.

Okay, here’s my rant. If they’re all so damn smart to be able to know that I’m having a 14:00 meeting, why can’t they be smart enough to know WHICH one is actually capturing my eyeballs right now?

Both laptops and the Treo have keyboards, and the iPod Touch has accelerometers.

There’s probably two more alerts on my home computer in Firefox (1 in the Gmail tab, one in the Google Calendar tab).

Technology comes so close to being everything we need from it, WANT from it, yet doesn’t go the final step, actually being LESS intrusive in our lives. Granted I’m not exactly the average end-user, but more people are getting more and more connected devices that ARE going to do things in this fashion, especially as we start sharing calendars with one another. Little things like this - this finish work - this is what is missing from our computing endeavours. We put so much extra effort on appearance and looks that little things like this don’t even factor in.