Friday July 07, 2006 6:10 am Lethbridge Alberta

A. Morning Musings

6:10 am The sky is overcast this morning. The temperature is +17 C with a forecast high of +27 C and a 30% chance of showers in the afternoon. The wind is fairly strong with gusts up to 50 km/h. Not that pleasant for outdoor activities.

B. Plan

Immediate
Health	Walk & exercise	1 hr
Technology	Read and make notes for chaps. 1 - 2 of "Switching to the Mac"	2 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	1 hr
	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 6	Next
Technology Chronology
7:10 am I have finished reading and yellow highlighting Chapter 1 How the Mac is Different of "Switching to the Mac". The book is easy to follow and I am learning a few new tricks and features. Chap. 1 How the Mac is Different [p. 13 - 34] "... if you have a laptop, you should get into the habit of just closing the lid when you're done working, and opening it to resume; the power button rarely plays a role in your life." [p. 14] This is a new procedure for me, but one that I am already beginning to use. I like it. "... two-button mice work just fine on the Mac..." [p. 15] I have hooked up my wireless mouse from my PC laptop and it works just fine. Great. "To add a new icon to the Dock, just drag it there (put programs to the left of the divider line; everything else goes on the right). To remove an icon from the Dock, just drag the icon away from the Dock." [p. 18] I had figured out how to add an icon to the Dock, but had not made the obvious extension to deleting it. Also, I had not noticed the divider line. "...these menu-bar icons ... provide direct access to certain settings in System Preferences." [p. 19] I was not aware that I could use these icons to open the settings. I have just gone through the list and updated my virus settings. Already I am beginning to feel that I understand this machine and am in control.I did not have this feeling a couple of days ago. While reading about the Eject icon for the menu-bar [p. 20] I realized that this symbol was on the upper-right corner of the keyboard. I put in a CD and then pressed this key and, sure enough, the disc ejected. The book strongly recommends that all files and folders be kept inside the Documents folder. This apparently helps keep Mac OS X stable as well as making it easy to maintain backups. This makes sense to me. I will move everything into this folder right now. Done. I have just turned on my external hard drive and will now drag my files to a folder within the Documents folder called Dale files. I have a separate folder that holds all of my photos and I don't want to have to save these each time that I do a backup. Now to drag my 'Dale files' folder to the partition on my external hard drive. Now to read chapter 2 Windows and Icons. 8:35 am

 

D. Reflection