February 19, 2007
Coping With New Technology
New technology has always posed learning challenges. Once technology becomes familiar, it seems obvious and we can't imagine how anyone could not immediately know how to use it. Remember the trouble people had when the book was first introduced?
Posted by Brad at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2005
What to file?
I was once advised against getting a day planner. I'd mentioned that I was getting so busy, I needed one.
"If you get a day planner, it will just fill up. Don't do it."
"Yah - that's kind of the point. I can't keep track of the things I need to do."
"It will fill up and then you'll have even less time."
"Is this like - if you are bored you will live longer?"
"Yes."
If you feel too busy and can't keep track of all the things you have to do, then a day planner isn't going to help. The day planner is really a machine for making sure you are busy all the time. A day planner is a dangerous technology which changes how you think, restructuring time to resemble the grid on it's pages. The day planner's little boxes want to be filled in. At some point the user may begin to wonder whether the day planner is working for her, or if she is working for the day planner.
So in response to your comment, Mom - maybe not having any documents to file is a good thing. Travel light.
What might you have and where might you file it?
You want to store all your documents in your Home folder, which has a house icon. Your Home folder will have folders inside it for sorting files. If you did have files, you'd want to store them in one of the subfolders in your Home folder, like Mom's Docs, Movies, Music, or Pictures.
Note: Most Macs don't have the equivalent to "Mom's Docs." That's a special folder I created because some applications use "Documents" to store settings and data that no one ever really wants to know exist. There's no reason to have to mix that stuff up with documents that might have some relevence.
I'll follow up with separate posts.
Posted by Brad at 03:37 PM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2005
Mom's got a Mac
Mom got a Mac today. It's a 14" iBook with a combo drive. She was going to get Bluetooth, but it was going to take too long: 3 weeks instead of immediately.
Here's what she got:
Mom's iBook Specs- 1.33GHz PowerPC G4
- 512K L2 cache @ 1.33GHz
- 14-inch TFT Display
- 1024x768 resolution
- 768MB DDR266 SDRAM
- 60GB Ultra ATA drive
- Combo Drive
- ATI Mobility Radeon 9200
- 32MB DDR video memory
- AirPort Extreme built-in
And an Airport Extreme base station and an iSight.
Posted by Brad at 04:24 PM | Comments (1)
