Thursday July 06, 2006 6:40 am Lethbridge Alberta

A. Morning Musings

6:40 am The sky is overcast this morning. The temperature is +17 C with a forecast high of +29 C and a 70% chance of showers in the afternoon.

My back is still a bit touchy so I will postpone any activities involving bending over (parging) or lifting weights (removing cement blocks). Thus I have no chores on my list for today. I have coffee scheduled for 8:30 this morning. The day promises to be cooler and it should be ideal for simply relaxing, reading and playing with the new MacBook.

B. Plan

Immediate
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Technology	Read and make notes for chaps. 1 - 2 of "Switching to the Mac"	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "A Map of Glass" by Jane Urquhart	1 hr
Later
Chores	Take cement blocks to landfill	2 hr
	Take 5th wheel in for maintenance	2 hr
	Investigate water softeners for home	2 hr
	Parge area around rear step to garage	1 hr
	Build 4 more book boxes
Technology	Read manual for cell phone	1 hr
	Transfer music to iPod
	digital photography
	try using extender lens and monopod	2 hr
Mathematics	Larson "Calculus"
	Read "The Computational Beauty of Nature" Chap 2	1 hr
	Gardner "The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles"
History	Continue reading "Citizens"
	Watson "Ideas"
Model Trains	Add blue backdrop to layout	2 hr
	Review layout for under the table turnouts
	Wire lower mainline track for a power block
	Fasten lower mainline track to layout
	Draw schematic diagram of track layout	2 hr

C. Actual/Notes

Previous	Technology Session 5	Next
Technology Chronology
7:00 am I am delighted with the two Missing Manual books I bought yesterday: Switching to the Mac and iPhoto5. I am confident they will both help bring me up to speed with the new MacBook. I think it is neat that one of the two authors of Switching to the Mac is a high school student. Here are a few notes from Switching to the Mac: Introduction [p. 1 - 10] The book begins by identifying 3 challenges for one switching to a Mac from a PC. wanting to copy files from the PC to the Mac forming a collection of Mac programs that do what I want becoming familiar with OS X. [p. 2] All three apply to me. I definitely have bought the right book. "In Mac OS X, the X is meant to be a Roman numeral, pronounced 'ten'." [p. 2] I cannot believe that I didn't know this. My only excuse (lame) is that I thought it was like the xp for Windows. I still have a smile on my face. "iChat ... is an instant messaging program that also involves videoconferencing." [p. 3] This is a feature that Allan wants to try with me soon. "... spring-loaded folders let you drag an icon into a folder within a folder within a folder with a single drag." [p. 4] This is a new idea for me. It sounds great. "And there's a useful column view which lets you view the contents of many nested folders at a glance." [p. 4] I have just played with this for a few minutes. Using the "Get info" command and then double-clicking on the preview icon accomplishes this. I wonder if there is more than one way to achieve the same result. In a sense it is easier to simply double-click on the icon to open it up and see what is inside it. I just reread the quote. I still haven't got it. I do not see the contents of many nested folders. "... the ability to turn any document on the screen into an Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file." [p. 4] This is another new idea for me. "If you are not so much a switcher as an adder (you're getting a Mac but keeping the PC around), you'll be happy to hear that Macs and Windows PCs can 'see' each other on a network automatically, too. As a result, you can open, copy, and work on files on each other's machines." [p. 5] I want to pursue this. This sounds like something I want to set up in our house where we still have a couple of PCs. 7:50 am

 

D. Reflection