Had I written this column in 2000, I may have used a pen and paper or perhaps the Notepad tool on my eight-pound laptop. I then may have printed it out at Kinko’s and mailed it to the editors with a 33-cent stamp.

With one week left in this decade, I formulated my thoughts for this piece through a voice recognition program on my smartphone which then transcribed them to a Word document. The program spell-checked it and a touch of a button immediately sent it across the Internet. Oh how these past ten years have come and gone…

I launched “The High-Tech Texan®” brand back in 2000 and remember explaining to TV viewers how Wi-Fi may one day be ubiquitous and cell phones could possibly be smaller and lighter in our lifetime. Call me Kreskin.

Could we have imagined that phones would be “smart” back then? Every phone on the market today is so sophisticated I now refer to those old bricks as dumb phones. Apple’s iPhone was the game changer in 2007 and no one is looking back. Can you imagine a phone today that doesn’t have a camera, music player, Web browser, map and a makeup remover? Yep, there will be an app for that one day.

Speaking of music…gather ‘round the campfire, kids, while I tell you a story of how I used to buy vinyl records and cassette tapes at Cactus Music. Forget about it—that would take too long. Downloading music from the Internet started out as an illegal way to listen to your fave tunes early in the decade. Apple, once again, figured out a simple way for people to immediately put songs on your computer while satisfying record labels and artists.

If only they could figure out how to reach a deal with the Beatles. (If John and George were still alive I would bet Steve Jobs could get the Fab Four back together.)

Technology grew leaps and bounds these past ten years. Probably no more so than the way we now watch TV. A big screen monitor in the early '00s meant having a TV set the size of a Prius and almost costing as much. Japan figured out how to make screens look like art and—true to form —hang them on the wall as such. It is almost impossible to find a TV monitor nowadays that is not flat.

But the big jump happened just earlier this year. The FCC finally put its foot down and mandated all TV stations switch from their great grandfather-like analog signals to bright, crisp digital pixels. High-definition TV is now standard while standard TV is a dinosaur. Most everyone has been ecstatic at this upgrade; save for Barbara Walters and other aging personalities that show the real person with real wrinkles. All-around winners here: TV make-up artists.

Had someone used the word “blog” back in 2000, my best guess would have been the description of his previous night’s drinking binge (or technically the purge). Blogs, as we now know, are public diaries that every man, woman, child, pet goldfish and alien use to tell the universe what they had for breakfast, how government sucks and who should bat cleanup for the Astros.

My nine-year-old son has a blog. I’m serious. He can hardly type but he must keep everyone updated with his high score on Madden '09.

Technically blogs are so yesterday (but don’t tell my son). As the ’10s approach, social networking sites are now the way to post your thoughts, views, who you are dating and the latest Tiger Woods rumors. The big trend early this decade was MySpace. By the end of the decade MySpace became the pocket protector of social networking sites.

Facebook and Twitter are kings now. If you can’t say it in 140 words or less then it must not be worth saying, right? So many people use these services today that if Facebook were its own country it would be the fourth most populous entity in the world. Now if they would only stop changing its privacy policy I would stop thinking about defecting.

Back in the 1980s, I remember when video killed the radio star. Twenty years later YouTube killed videos—or at least the way we watched them. Rock stars were now not the only people who could become stars by watching them sing. Made-up songs like “Chocolate Rain” made worldwide sensations out of everyday people. Finally, it was America’s Funniest Home Videos gone mad.

And like the dot-com boom in the very early '00s, YouTube proved to be a hit to the tune of $1.65 billion in stock when Google bought it in 2006. Guess who is singing now?

Though these past ten years may seem to have flown by fast, the world of technology has grown faster. Yes, there have been many duds like the Segway, Palm, Microsoft Vista, HD-DVD and the Zune. But developments like hybrid engines outshine a two-wheeled, gyroscopic scooter. And hybrid cars now go pretty fast, too. It is almost impossible to purchase a plane ticket or book a hotel room without advances this decade in e-commerce. Not to mention books on Amazon and everything else, including body lint, on eBay.

And no one now needs to worry about folding a map when GPS is built into cars and a cool website shows you what’s best in a city.

The 2000s may be remembered for not having a nickname, but I will remember these ten years as a time that most all generations took a giant leap forward into the future. Just don’t forget the batteries.

If you haven't seen "Chocolate Rain," see it below:

Listen to Michael Garfield live on 950 KPRC weekdays, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.