by jphilo | Jan 22, 2009 | Daily Life
I’m not sure when it happened but sometime in the last five years, technology invaded my office. I am now the owner of a MacBook, a snazzy digital camera, a telephoto lens, a fancy flash attachment, a tripod, a digital camcorder, a new fliptop cell phone, an external hard drive, an iPod Classic, a tape recorder and a gizmo that allows me to use it to record phone interviews, several carrying cases, multiple charger cords and more cables than you can shake a stick at.
If I knew how to “utilize new technology to the fullest,” these devices would make my life easier. But I know just enough to be dangerous, never efficient. My external hard drive, which I use to back up documents and pictures says it is full, and I have no idea how to get rid of its technoclutter. The manual to the fancy flash attachment says that to determine the correct flash bounce angle, I should check the camera’s ISO setting. What does that mean? My iPod is always syncronizing, the tripod sometimes collapses without notice, the new cell phone’s ring is unfamiliar, and my technology drawer is a mass of cables and chords that look an awful lot like the Canadian garter snake balls I saw in National Geographic once. Sometimes I hear things moving around in the drawer. I think they’re mating.
The situation will never get better, only worse. More technology will invade my house and breed behind closed drawers. So consider this your warning. I’m armed and dangerous. It’s time to lock the doors.
by jphilo | Nov 24, 2008 | Daily Life
I have a confession to make. I’m really, really good about taking photos and downloading them into iPhoto. And, I’m really, really good at telling myself I’ll label and organize them later. My strategy worked for two years until I used up most of my computer memory. So this weekend, when we had no commitments other than church, I yanked open the door to my electronic closet. The iPhoto iSkeleton I’ve been shoving to the very back for the past few years fell on my head. Ouch!
For two days I sorted photos into files and burned the files to disks. I reorganized, labeled and tagged he pictures I left on the computer. It was torture, even though I watched the third season of the first Bob Newhart show while on the rack. Though I’m not quite done organizing and backing up, I’m much closer to my goal. The computer is working faster now that it’s not overloaded, and I hope to finish labeling and tagging while we travel for Thanksgiving.
New Year’s Day is a month and a half away, but I already have my resolution for 2009. From now on, when I download, I will label and tag photos. I’ll burn them to CDs, which will also be labeled, when the files get full. I promise, I promise, I promise.
No way do I want another weekend like this past one. As a matter of fact, I need some iTylenol for the iHeadache I developed. So I’ll leave you with one word of warning – stand back when you open your electronic closet. Those iSkeletons hurt when they fall on your head.
by jphilo | Sep 3, 2008 | Daily Life
Right now my technological skills are as fuzzy as the cute little caterpillar I photographed a few days ago while possessed by a “seize the day” fury. I’m not moving any faster than the caterpillar as I crawl along, trying to figure out why some of you can post comments and view them on the internet while others (including me) can’t. I can see your comments when I get into my web folder, and I can delete nasty ones (something I’ve never had to do) but I can’t add my own comments.
Today, spurred on by my eighty-year-old aunt who has the mistaken impression that I know something about computers, I checked iWeb’s help pages. Then, I followed the instructions they said would fix the problem. This required a lot of calming, cleansing breaths as I tried to remember where I had stored the needed passwords and customer numbers. But I got it done, which is a miracle because I usually forget or lose the passwords and this time I didn’t.
So far, the problem is not fixed on this end, but the instructions said it could take 24 – 48 hours. I’m trying to be patient while I wait. For now, here is my reply to Janet and Mary: I will pass on your birthday greetings to Mom. She’ll be thrilled that you remember her. And Harriet, here’s a reply to the comment you tried to make: My knowledge of computers and Alaskan politics is pretty fuzzy. Don’t look for me to morph into a butterfly any time soon.
by jphilo | Jul 8, 2008 | Daily Life
If my name was Alexander, I’d be writing a children’s book about the last few no good, very bad days. But since my name’s Jolene and you’re adults, I’ll skip the illustrations and tell you what’s been going on.
I haven’t posted to my blog the past few days because I’ve been working on a big media project, and I hate media projects. Every time I opened anything, even my email, I got a nasty message saying I was dangerously low on disk space. So it was no iPhoto or iWeb until the project was done and burned on a DVD.
The project was hard to burn onto a DVD, and I hate burning DVDs. My daughter helped me and after a while we both hated burning DVDs.
I’ve had two writing projects to edit. They popped up all of the sudden and had very short deadlines. I hate short deadlines. They fluster me so much I sometimes forget to save my editing. Yesterday, I forgot to save some editing and had to redo the whole thing. I hate redoing the whole thing.
The weather’s been really hot and humid for the last few days. I hate humidity. It’s been so miserable, I’ve been running the air conditioners a lot, and I hate air condiditioning.
But last night, my daughter got the DVD burning to work, and I was able to trash the project and free up space on my computer. I finished both editing projects, saved and sent them. And the weather broke in the night so this morning’s walk was glorious. As I walked I thought of a sunrise picture I took a few days back, before the no good, very bad stuff started. I knew I should share it with you since you listened to me whine about the no good, very bad stuff.
I love sunrises. I hope you do, too.
by jphilo | Sep 16, 2007 | Current Events
I can’t believe this blog is up and running. I worked on it day after day, spent most of a weekend on hold with various tech support people and finally this afternoon all systems were pronounced go. So I tried to publish the site. No go.
After another hour on hold, a patient support person worked with me until we discovered something was wrong with the blog. Once it was deleted, I was able to publish. Except of course the blog. I had to start it completely over. So here I am, up later than I like to be, typing my first entry. After days of waiting and waiting, things are moving way too fast.
And that made me think of a camping trip my husband and I went on a month ago. It was a hot August weekend, so hot the only place we wanted to be was out on the boat. And after watching the teenagers cool off while being pulled on the tube, I decided to take the plunge. I plopped down in the tube and floated slowly as the boat idled while the skipper moved the ropes into a safe position, I told the pilot, “Tim, this is fast enough. I’d like the whole ride to be this speed.” Tim grinned and took off, full throttle. I held on for a wild ride that was way more fun than my leisurely float.
I’m thinking that’s what this blog will be like. I want a slow float but could be in for a wild ride. The only way to find out is to plop down and get started.
