device vice

Lately I have been relying almost exclusively on my iPad 2.  I am mostly reading on this device, books, newspaper, and magazines.

I still use my Windows desktop.

A curious shift.

which personal computer

Had a chat face to face with someone looking to buy a computer.  It is a confusing time.  She is considering an Apple laptop, iPad tablet or even a Microsoft Surface.  For her daughter a student she has bought a refurbished Apple laptop.

I said the specifications should not get in her way.  She does not edit video or does any other extraordinarily demanding work.

She wants a dvd drive.  I don’t envy her trying to figure out what way to go. how to avoid disaster.

I did recommend if she gets an iPad to get the largest capacity storage version.

Apple orchard at my house

I grew tired of difficulties with my Windows laptop(s), troubles of various kinds.  Never fell in love with Windows 8.

First move was to get a Mac Mini and found it exceptional.  Next a MacBook Pro. Also exceptional.  Last addition to the orchard is due for delivery on December 17th.  It is an iPad Air with 128 gb of storage.  It gets engraving with my name on it and “Gnawledgewurker” as well.  Why other computer makers don’t offer engraving is beyond me.

I used a Macintosh Lisa a couple of times per month back in the 80s.  I used a Mac II and SE at Canada Wire and Cable.  My last Apple product before the past year was an ibook (2001). It was great, still works, but it has had the technology surf race past it.  The hard drive, an upgrade when I bought it was a tiny 40 gb.

I am very happy with the Apple orchard in my home.

the technology lie

The past week has seen me struggle to keep my not terribly technology inclined sister emailed up.

She used to work in public health and had managed her email with MS Outlook, and of course, its calendar was heavily used for arranging meetings.  On the home front she has managed with the products that Microsoft deigned to give out for free, Outlook Express, then Windows Live Mail.  Microsoft kept taking away free email clients and then bringing in short lived replacements.  Now with Windows 8.1, the tool is simply called Mail.  It has a fresh, clean, uncluttered look and it has had my sister quite baffled.  I have had a few vocabulary enriched moments with it myself.

Being a neat freak, she has the relatively bad habit of deleting a lot of her emails.  We are not talking about a lot of messages.  But one feature that seems dense and dumb is the failure of the Mail tool to automatically turn email receipt contacts into contacts.  It rather asks you to select an email sender, choose add to contacts and then confirm the add a second time.  We stumbled with that at first.   It is such a clean tool, it has my sister confused, which is not her fault.   We have reviewed things one more time and she seems more at ease with the product.

I am considering doing nothing new and seeing how we manage or buying MS Office 365 (which includes MS Outlook) or junking the entire Windows experience and buying her a MAC.

This technology stuff is supposed to be getting easier, that is the lie we all fall for.