It is a bit slow and clunky, just like me.
“What did you expect, you’re old,” my wife would say.
This week I took the laptop to work so I could write this blog at lunchtime at the nearby Barnes and Noble and struggled with a few of its annoying quirks. I battled several of the quirks while I edited the blog at home later that night.
Notwithstanding the computer’s shortcomings it gets the job done. But beneath the surface I have a nagging feeling that the time is coming soon for the laptop to go to computer heaven or the recycling center.
Lately it seems I have been suffering from a typical masculine disease, the need for gadgets. Less than two years ago I bought an early model of the Nook Touch Reader, and then within six months I upgraded to the Nook Tablet. To my delight my nephew now has my old Touch Reader; I even gave him a starter gift card with the reader. The tablet is a much superior product whose main purpose is still to only read books (which could be purchased at the half price book store for much less money). While it can perform other functions, it is just an expensive book reader. But calling it a reader is a misnomer; I am the reader, the tablet is just a book repository. You could buy a bookcase for less money.
Twelve months ago my ancient desktop PC computer gave up the ghost after a few major and minor repairs and years of diminishing performance (blame Microsoft). I took a giant leap of gadget acquisition – I bought an IMac. It is a fantastic machine which I use to write, surf the Internet, create my website and organize my photos. In 1990 I received a used Mac computer from my brother-in-law as a result of one of his upgrade episodes (he also suffered from the need for gadgets). My brother-in-law also gave me an old 60” projection TV and a Canon 20D digital camera. The TV lasted several years before it quit working; happily the Canon is still completely functional and used frequently.
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| App I really need! |
Gadgets “one”, free “zero.”
I searched the Top 10, Top 50 and the Top 100 apps on-line and downloaded several interesting apps. There are 1000’s of apps available, way too many to use or even evaluate. Despite the dearth of confusing choices I am sure I’ll find other apps to download and use soon.
They are free! Free gets a half a point.
I downloaded MapMyRun, which tracks my weekend walks. It displays the route I’ve taken, produces various statistics on time, pace, distance, calories and elevation. I can share this information with my walking buddies (if I had any that use this app). MapMyRun duplicates, to some degree, my last father’s day gift (aka – gadget) of a Garmin GPS Training watch from Iris. The watch is actually more useful and easy to use. The watch is safely strapped to my wrist whereas the IPhone needs to be firmly gripped in your hand while accessing data. Using the IPhone is somewhat harder and risky to do while walking fast. Twice I broke LCD displays on other gadgets (a Palm PDA and my first digital camera) while trying walk and chew gum at the same time.
Several other apps now on my IPhone can connect me with public radio news and another is a GPS map program give verbal directions.
Just what I need: another person telling me where to go.
I’ve downloaded a flashlight with a compass and an app that converts the camera to a magnifying glass. I really have no idea when I might use these two. My favorite free app is Pandora Radio. Pandora Radio is already on my IMac and I previously created several radio stations that feature music from artists and genres of my choosing. Pandora even connects to my car radio and allows me to listen to my own radio stations rather than the local ones. This will be come in handy when we travel to Galveston in November; the Galveston trip always finds us searching for a good radio station and we don’t need to carry a stack of CD’s (how 20th Century) with us.
My favorite station is 50’s Radio; nothing like enjoying music from the past when these fantastic gadgets didn’t exist.
Perhaps we old geezers are into gadgets. But I hate it when I have to ask for help, which is worse than asking for directions.
By the way how do I use my talking GPS map program?
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Aren't gadgets and electronics fun?
ReplyDeleteOn Thursday night, I was getting text messages on my flip phone and the tab!!!
On Friday night, I was using my laptop and the tab at the football game.