Thursday, August 21, 2014

A Tablet Place -- Old Eyes

One of my devices is a Dell Venue 8 tablet. Here is the setup. The tablet, of course is the Dell. The mouse is a hype bluetooth mouse. The keyboard is a Brookstone folding keyboard. And the glasses are Beyond Reading glasses. It's has proven to be a pretty good set up for consuming and even creating content.

The tablet runs Windows 8.1 and is in essence, a miniature laptop. Because it runs Windows, I find that the mouse is essential to my experience. Although the touch features do work on the tablet, I run enough "desktop" applications in my use that I find the mouse makes things better. It's battery operated and goes a long way on the batteries. It gives me the precision I need on the small device, especially with my touch-challenged fingers.

The keyboard is another necessity for creating content like this blog. It folds in half and is rechargeable. It does a good deal of time between charges and can easily last several days with my usage. Although I can use the on-screen keyboard, I find it less than adequate on this and other devices. This keyboard can also pair with my cell phone in case I want to go extra tiny. The feel is not as adequate as a regular keyboard and I can't type as quickly as I can on a laptop or netbook, but it works adequately for the use.

The last component are the glasses. I have just purchased these and they give me three ranges of magnification for my tired old eyes. Although I like the tablet, I find that the type is often just too small -- like trying to read the instructions on the pill bottle. These glasses give me the magnification I need to make things better. I actually see pretty well up close for consuming content, but, I don't see all that well when I use the keyboard or put the computer on the table.

And, speaking of the table, you need one to use the complete set up. The tablet case stands up the device, but it can't hold the keyboard. This makes a flat surface an essential component of content creation.

So what do I think? All=in=all, a pretty good set up. I sometimes think I should have gone with a larger tablet with a keyboard,but, for the cost, I am reasonably satisfied. Since I consume more content than I create, this set of tools is quite sufficient for my use.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Technology? Barbie? Say What!?

Of all the places on the web that I visit, Pinterest is probably the most confusing for me. Can anyone tell me what Barbie has to do with "Technology"? That's the section I was looking at and here it was. I csn maybe understand a robotic Barbie or a machine to clone Barbies, but Barbie without makeup!? What does this have, even remotely, to do with "technology"?

Oh well I don't visit this site often and, now, maybe less.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Why do I care?

I went to Bing news (yeah, I know...bing) and saw what was there. The question about the highlighted items is, "why do I care?"

Just because someone is famous, do I really care what they think? This lady comments crassly on fashion, after all. What possible news worthiness is her opinion on international politics?

And why does the number of people viewing something affect it's news worthiness? Looking at the reality television that is popular, I don't have a great deal of faith in the judgement of most people.

OK, I'll turn the rant off now...