I recently came to possess a sleek, shiny new ipad mini!
Now I've been here before. I got an ipod a couple of years ago. It took a long time before I conquered that little ipod. I thought I might have to get a kid to help me, but no way I figured things out by myself.
Now the ipad mini does an amazing number of things. It does more than my old tower computer and a lot faster. I'm looking forward to doing all (well some of them) the cool things an ipad can do.
Now this time I'm not going to play the hero and set up everything on my own. No sir! I've got a very good self help book form the library. You know the ones that have dummies in the title.
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| Side by side! |
I'm also going to do something quite brilliant.. Well, brilliant may not be the best word. Our library has a special staff member to help people with computer issues. Yes, I'm going to make an appointment and have this ipad set up so that it will do everything except wash the dishes.
I think I'm going to do a post on the ipad!
With all due apologies to the teens across the street, I have an excellent go to tech guy. When ever I'm really stuck I can check with my son on how to do something. Now in some of my previous posts I have described my limitations in the tech world. Thanks to my son the header on my blog was changed recently.
My son's introduction to tech stuff started a long time ago. In the early eighties Apple decided to give schools computers. What we received were Apple II e's. Now these computers were very primitive. They were on a disk operating system so you had to have a disk with a little program and that's about it. You could write something , print it and store it on a disk.
My son was about thirteen when we got the computers at school. There were many games and the games were easily copied so all the little beaners wanted in the computer room after school to play games. We had a sign in system for the kids to use a computer after school. It was great fun trying to get these kids to leave after an hour.
A friend of my was teaching a small community computer class in the evenings. He could not make one session so asked if I would sub for him. He had his lesson very well planned out for me. I took my son along to help me. So on one side the computers did what I asked and the other side nothing happened . I gave the instructions again. My son watched and tried it himself. Finally my son discovered that the one side had put the disks in upside down. From that time on he became my respected adviser.
My son has stayed with high tech throughout his working life. He was in the Communications Branch of Canadian Armed Forces (Reserve) and became familiar with electronics. He taught four different computer courses at a small college in the 90s & continued teaching to adults in various school districts throughout the Vancouver area for many years following. He has worked for high-tech companies that produced air traffic control systems, DC power supplies and wireless telemetry equipment. Now he is an Accounts Manager for a company that produces Ethernet security systems for control networks.
So I have somebody with great knowledge and experience to help me with computer challenges. By the way , he still loves computer games which are a million times better than in the eighties.
I have to write this post right away while the sting of reality is still fresh on my mind.
I have written about having a couple of super teenagers for neighbors and how they are so adept at technology. I have worked hard to learn some things but I always knew that if I was really stuck I could get bailed out by either one of them.
So I was a little surprised a few days ago when I was asked if I could help Courtney set up a blog. I somehow or other didn't think this fit. However, I did arrange a time to work on the blog. Courtney is going to the Mayo clinic for some testing so she wanted to set up a blog to keep friends and relatives informed. When I got to her computer the blog was there so I did a double take. I wasn't surprised to see the blog with a post but I had been lead to think the blog wasn't set up. My mouth was too far open to say, "Nice blog, Courtney!" My mouth kept going and I tried to tell how a blog worked when reality set in and ,I said,"Well, what is it you need help in setting up?" The first two questions that were asked I didn't have a clue. I was able to assist with some simple things that Courtney hadn't had time to discover on her own so I saved her some time in searching.
I went home with some homework. The rest of the afternoon was fun as we emailed back and forth on what we discovered.
For me the afternoon was stimulating as I got to work with a young person. I am always amazed at how rapidly young people catch on to new things. I thought back to how lucky I was to be a teacher for thirty seven years and work with young people.
So it's quite a jolt to go back to learning so much in a short time. Courtney learned a few things about her blog but she taught me a whole lot more .
There's a first for everything even if you're a senior rookie to the internet!
Since we are taking a trip this summer we are making some arrangements now. My wife likes to plan ahead....away ahead. I'm the opposite. I make plans at the last minute. It causes some tension around here at times.
We found a good deal for parking while away. The catch was that we had to make a reservation on the web. I have not been a user for very many years. I understand how things work. I understand that most banking is electronic. However, my wife is not at all comfortable giving out a credit card number on the net. I don't push the issue so we don't do business on the net. Well, today to take advantage of a good deal we had to break down and do business. This deal did not include a credit card number. So we filled in the necessary information and clicked on reserve and it was done.
Now for my wife to be sure of the deal we had to print all forms. It was like magic when I went to my email account and found that the reservation was already there.
So with much trepidation a first took place for us. A business transaction was done by us on the internet. I'm sure that many more deals will have to be done. We will be less wary and the system is quickly moving to more and more business being done on the net.
If you've followed my blog for a few months you will have noticed that I have challenges when it comes to high tech stuff. I wrote about my struggle to conquer an ipod. I wrote recently about putting a new battery in my bicycle speedometer and then resetting it. I still have digital watch that I have to have a go at, but since I don't wear it that can wait.
In the last few days I took some time to play with my digital camera. You guessed it . It finally twigged that it is set up like all the other gadgets. There are modes and parts to each mode. Once you get the hang of modes and their parts you're away to the races. Now I look at it and say, "Why did it take me so long to catch on?" I had been looking at how poor some of my pictures were. I thought that if I had the camera on automatic it would do the work for me.
As a photographer I'm a point and shoot type. My first camera was a 35 mm automatic. They were a very good camera as you could point and shoot and get a good picture. I don't think ahead as to what things will look like or how I want things to look. The camera and the environment have been in control of me at all times. From now on I know more what my camera can do and I will think about that before taking a picture. Then I will have to consider the environment and make that work so that I get a better image.
So a few days ago there was a great leap in learning for me as I transferred learning from another area to the camera. I can also look back to incredibly long plateaus. I've had that digital watch for more than twenty years. I remember the battery going dead as I had 200 kids on a field trip. I didn't know what the noise was. One of the kids finally discovered that my watch battery had died. He then was able to turn off the annoying alarm for a dead battery. The next time that battery goes dead I'm it, as there are no more kids in my life.
