February 27, 12:00 PM Technology
I spent the entire morning updating this website to include descriptions of our trip to Hawaii. I think the problem yesterday was caused by some experimenting that I was doing coding some tables using HTML. I was very careful today to stick to what I knew worked, and everything went smoothly.
February 26, 10:00 PM Technology
Aaargh. I have lost most of my work on this website for today. I have no idea what the problem was. When I tried to save the updates I received a message saying there were errors in the files and it was unable to publish the files. But it also wouldn't let me save the files. When I finally quit the program and restarted it, the updates were missing.
February 14, 9:00 am Technology
Now that I am on a roll, I searched amazon.com for an ebook on the iCloud. Done.
[Addendum 12:40 PM]
I continue to make progress with iCloud. I was able to determine that although it was installed on the iPad2, it was not actually installed on my laptop. I then learned that it would only install on a computer that had the Lion operating system. I finally learned that one could only upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion if one had an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. A check showed that I had the earlier version called an Intel Core Duo. Thus there is no way to upgrade my laptop so it will run iCloud. At least I now know where I stand.
Having said all that I did find a sequence of steps for sharing Pages files between the iPad2 and my laptop.
create document on iPad2 using Pages
tap on Documents to save latest version
on laptop, open Safari
go to icloud.com/iwork and follow prompts
once it is in Pages on the laptop, continue to edit document
then click on Share icon at top of window
select upload for private use
This will eventually send an email to me from iWork.com
Access this email on the iPad2
Tap on shared documents icon
Login to iwork
click on Download link to obtain the file
tap on page then tap on open in Pages link
This is actually easier than it sounds.
February 13, 6:00 PM Technology
I have finished viewing "The Taming of the Shrew". I have a cable that connects my laptop to our HD screen. This worked without any difficulty. Simply attach the cable and whatever is on the laptop is also displayed on the HD screen. Controlling the showing of the movie was also straight forward. Great.
I have also been playing with moving Pages files between my iPad2 and my laptop. I had some problems at first but think I now have it under control. I learned that one cannot move a Pages file from the laptop to the iPad2 if the file was originally created with a template. This makes sense as there is no provision for templates in the Pages version for the iPad2. I accomplished this using email with the Pages file added as an attachment. I was not able to share the files using either iCloud or the iTunes store. I'm not sure what the proper procedure is for this.
February 12, 10:00 PM Technology
Another learning experience. I have just downloaded the movie "The Taming of the Shrew" starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor from the iTunes Store. This is the HD version, which cost $4.99 for a rental. This means that I have a month to view it but that when I first begin to view it I have only 48 hours within which to continue seeing it. At the end of the 48 hours the file is deleted from my computer. However during that 48 hour period I can view it as often as I want.
By the way, it took almost exactly 6 hours to download. I am not sure what factors affect this time. Certainly the DVD version should take less time, but I am not sure how much less. It is certainly a surprise when one can get the complete issue of a magazine within seconds. And pay-per-view using just television is also instantaneous.
February 5, 2:00 PM Technology
I ran into a new problem this afternoon. A report that I had created with Microsoft Word would no longer print. After trying a few things I was able to verify that Microsoft Excel would no longer access a printer either. It appears that the Microsoft Office file is corrupt. Unfortunately I do not have a disc backup since this was installed at the time I purchased the computer.
There is some good news behind this. I am not using Excel for anything at the moment. For word processing I was able to read the file using the Pages app that I downloaded a few weeks ago and so I am still operational.
I may be able to replace Word with a file from my Time Machine back up but I am not sure if this is possible at the moment.
February 1, 7:00 am Technology
I have tried switching my index for January from one that I created myself (where one clicked on the date to branch to that page) to one generated by the software which produces a drop-down menu. Unfortunately this fails to work if the drop-down list is longer than the window. I have contacted the Sandvox technical support to see if this is a bug or if it is normal feature of long drop-down lists.