Ed thought often of suicide, of checking into a Las Vegas hotel room and finishing himself off in some spectacular way, slitting his throat in a tub or spattering his brains with a pistol shot.
Sophisticated mobile applications, with the power to do anything from checking the weather to checking you into a hotel, were downloaded more than 10 billion times in 2010 alone.
Last May, in a fit of bleary-eyed jet-lag, I made the mistake of checking into a hotel without running through the standard list of questions I normally ask at the front desk to ensure I get a good room.