Posts Tagged ‘Computers’

Apple, what have you done?

July 6, 2012

Burgess Falls, Burgess Falls State Park, Tennessee. May 26, 2001.

(Note:  All pictures may be enlarged by clicking on them once or twice.)

As most of you know, I’m a big fan of Apple products.  My first personal computer was an AppleII.  I’ve worked with Macintosh computers from just about the time they were introduced, and am now on my fourth iMac computer.

I also have a couple of iPods and an iPad.  I really do like Apple products.

Cumberland Falls, Cumberland Falls State Park, Kentucky. June 23, 2005.

There is one area, however, in which I’m fed up with Apple, and that is their online hosting services.  Apple first offered online hosting of photos and files with Home Page, and I uploaded many pictures to Home Page to share them with family and friends.

Elk River Falls, Elk Park, North Carolina. February 15, 2008.

After a couple of years Home Page went away with its place taken by Mobile Me.  Fortunately Apple provided an easy way to move to Mobile Me, and that’s what I did.  Over the past five years I’ve uploaded many more photos to Mobile Me.  I really liked that service.

Looking Glass Falls, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina. May 23, 2002

Mobile Me went away on June 30, and there is nothing from Apple to replace it.  Fortunately Apple did provide plenty of advance notice, but that was about all.  So I decided to create my own site completely independent of anything Apple does.  For the past few months I’ve been working to set up the site and move pictures and files to it.

Lower Whitewater Falls, Sapphire, North Carolina. November 9, 2006.

I’ve finished moving our waterfall collection.  It currently contains the 452 waterfalls that I’ve cataloged to date.  I’ll add more waterfalls as I get my pictures organized.  If you would like to visit our waterfall collection, you can do so HERE.

North River Falls, Tellico Plains, Tennessee. June 18, 2010.

I’m in the process of moving other pictures and files to my site, and I’ll let you know as they are posted.

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My New Toy

July 22, 2010

Betsy got a laptop (MacBook) for her birthday last year, and really likes it.    We got a Mi-Fi (Verizon wireless station) at the same time, so Betsy can use her laptop just about any place we can get a wireless signal.  She especially likes using her laptop while I’m driving — she’s been able to do a good job of keeping up with emails and blogs while we’ve traveled.

I’ve had an iPod Touch which has wireless capabilities for a little over a year, but since it’s about the size of a cellphone, my fat fingers have had trouble using the keyboard and navigating the web.  I couldn’t keep up with Betsy and her laptop no matter how hard I tried.

About a month ago I got a new toy — an iPad.  It’s got a good size — about 9.5 inches x 7.5 inches.  It is very light-weight and easy to carry around it is also wireless, so I can use it anyplace Betsy can use her laptop.  I’ll admit it’s nice to be able to take it out on the deck and go through my emails and surf the web.

The interface is a touch screen and is very easy to use.  I can have multiple windows open in the browser and can easily switch between them.  The keyboard in the landscape mode is fairly large and is a standard QWERTY layout.  I haven’t had any problems with it.  About the only problem I’ve had is getting Betsy to drive so I can use it while we’re on the road.

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One thing the iPad can’t do is add more hours to the day.  I’m going to Hendersonville this morning to see my parents and won’t be back until early evening.  So I’ll be behind on my visiting and commenting for a couple of days.  Don’t give up on me — I’ll catch up as soon as I can.

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Betsy Has a New Toy

August 11, 2009
Betsy using her new MacBook. August 9, 2009.

Betsy using her new MacBook. August 9, 2009.

Betsy has a new toy!  It is somewhat of a belated birthday present — we picked it up after we got back home.  That was a couple of days after her birthday, but I don’t think she minds too much.

Our computer room is in the front of our house, but most of Betsy’s bird feeders are on the deck in the back.  So Betsy was always jumping up from her computer to see her birds (or to make sure squirrels weren’t eating everything in the feeders) or else she was reluctantly leaving her ‘throne’ — her side of our reclining sofa — to come into the computer room.  I won’t say Betsy did this a lot, but there is a well-worn path between her iMac and her throne (I’m kidding!!).

This past weekend was a tax-free weekend in Tennessee, so we got Betsy a new MacBook.  We saved almost enough on the tax to pay for the wireless router.  Since our iMacs have wireless capability we got rid of our old router and discovered that the wireless connection is faster than the old wired connection.  And more importantly Betsy can sit on her throne and watch her birds (and the TV) and work on her new computer at the same time.  And she says she can’t multi-task!

Right now our iMacs are still wired to printers and external hard drives, but we’ll probably go wireless with them in the future.  It will be nice to get rid of some of the cables under our desks.

Come to think of it, Betsy got the new toy, but I’ve enjoyed the benefits of going wireless.  Now if I could only get Betsy to let me play with her new toy!

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Posted in Betsy | 20 Comments »

We’re Helping the Economy

February 21, 2009
Our new computers. February 20, 2009.

Our new computers. February 20, 2009.

Betsy and I have been doing our part to help the economy.  So if things don’t improve soon, it won’t be because we haven’t been trying.

Yesterday we had to take our Prius into the dealership for her 120,000 mile service.  Let me just say that the service required was fairly major and I’m sure we helped contribute to the paychecks of at least a couple of mechanics.

We then headed over to the Apple store and made a MAJOR contribution to the economy.  We’ve been discussing new computers for over a year now, and we finally decided to take the plunge.  We like our Macintoshes and so we stayed with them.

Now all we have to do is transfer our files from the old computers to the new computers.  Hopefully much of that will be done overnight.  But if you don’t hear from us for a day or two, you know we’ve encountered a problem.

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Posted in Technology | 25 Comments »

You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down (or Off-line!)

November 23, 2008

extensioncords

Yesterday I got a demonstration of how creative my bride can be.

Friday night, about the time we were thinking about going to bed, we suddenly lost all power in our computer room.  At first we thought we had lost all power, but we then realized that electrical appliances in other rooms were working, so we knew that something else was wrong.  I went out to the garage and checked the electrical panel and discovered that the circuit breaker for the computer room was off.  I turned it back on and it promptly went off again.  Definitely not good!

We then unplugged everything and I tried the circuit breaker again — no luck, it kept tripping off.  We finally gave up and went to bed, although I wondered how we would get by with no computers in the morning.  (We haven’t yet joined the laptop – wireless crowd, but this may cause us to do so!)

Yesterday (Saturday) morning Betsy got up at her usual early hour to put out her bird feed.  Since I’m such a nice guy I asked her if she wanted some help, but she said ‘No’.  I dozed off and on for a while, wondering why Betsy didn’t come back to bed.  My curiosity finally got the better of me and I got up to be greeted by a surprise — my bride had gathered up just about every extension cord we owned and strung them across the house.  The living room looked a little strange, but the computers worked.

The electrician will be here Monday and hopefully find and fix the problem.  But in the meantime we’re online, thanks to my creative bride.

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Bumping The Limits of Technology

September 21, 2008
My Apple iMac.

My Apple iMac.

I really do love my iMac and most Apple software.  I’ve been a Mac user for almost 20 years and I have to be dragged kicking and screaming to use a PC.

I’ve had this Mac for about six years now.  Most of the time I have no problems, but lately I’ve been having a problem with Apple’s iWeb application.

When I started writing this blog in January, 2007, I was using iWeb for the blog itself and also for my photo pages.  Things went very well until April of this year when iWeb suddenly stopped publishing my blog.  After several days of experimentation I discovered that by deleting entries from my blog archive I could resume writing and publishing.

Things went well until mid-July, when once again iWeb quit publishing my blog.  That time I moved my blog to this site, removed the blog archives from the old site, and continued to use iWeb to publish photo pages to my old site.

Earlier this week iWeb stopped publishing again.  Further investigation showed that I’ve bumped up against the limits of memory (RAM) in my computer.  Betsy and I were going to get new computers this spring, but we changed our mind.  Perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea.

I’ve ordered some more RAM memory for my computer to get me through until Tennessee’s next tax-free weekend.  When the memory arrives I’ll have to perform surgery on my computer.  I’ll keep you posted!

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Computers and GM

July 29, 2008

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of computers from Apple.  I’ve owned Apple computers (first AppleII and then Macintosh) for more than 25 years.  I’ve had to use Windows-based computers in my work, but my co-workers (and for a while even my own son) couldn’t understand my choice in personal computers.

Betsy’s friend Betty Callis sent us the following e-mail which does a pretty good job of expressing my feelings toward those other computers.

For all  of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers  have enhanced our lives, read on.

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

“If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash…….. Twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car  that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as  easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation” warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask “Are you sure?” before deploying.

8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10. You’d have to press the “Start” button to turn the engine off.

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