Monday, January 9
5:50 am
It is +6 °C, with a high forecast of +10 °C
From the Environment Canada website:
Today Clear. Becoming a mix of sun and cloud this morning. Wind west 30 km/h gusting to 50 increasing to 50 gusting to 70 this afternoon. High 10.
Tonight Partly cloudy. Becoming cloudy before morning then snow. Wind west 30 km/h gusting to 50 becoming light after midnight. Low minus 3.
Normals: Max. -2 °C Min. -14 °C
We remain grateful for the warm temperatures, but the wind is becoming a bit tedious.
6:00 am Technology
I was using my iPad2 to access the Web (using Safari) last night and called up this website. When I went to the Blog page I noticed that the feature for adding images no longer appeared. A quick check on my laptop showed that it worked with both Firefox and Safari.
I am trying to get my head around what gear to take with me when we go on trips. I would like to travel with just my iPad2 - light and few cables. The hotel has wi-fi internet access so that solves the roaming charge problem.
Lets start with the camera. In the past I have usually had my laptop with me and it was a simple matter to download the images to the computer. But suppose I don't have the laptop? A few years ago I had a storage device that could hold photos, but the device only worked with a small capacity SD card. But I realized that the solution is simple: buy another SD card. My Canon camera holds an 8 GB SD card which holds about 950 images at high resolution.
I think I need 2 more apps on the iPad2 - Pages (this will give me word-processing capability so I can keep a daily log, which I can transfer to this website when we return home) and Bento (this will give me data base capability for keeping track of the birds we see), which can be synchronized with Bento 4 on my laptop.
It has taken a little over 2 hours to upgrade my iPad2 from iOS 4.3.3 to 5.0.1. I am now up-to-date. I have also registered with iCloud. This should enable my 3 devices (computer, iPad2 and iPhone) to be synched to one another. I am curious to see how this works.
11:00 am Technology
This has been a fast-paced morning. I am always flirting with the unknown as I try things for the first time.
I have purchased and downloaded both Pages and Bento for the iPad2. That was easy. I played with Pages for about 10 minutes and was very impressed with the screen displays. I have yet to figure out how the syncing works so I can transfer files from the iPad2 to the laptop.
Bento was equally impressive. I tried syncing my birding file of 1300 records on my laptop with the iPad2 and almost immediately all of the records were on the iPad2. Now the hard part begins as I learn to work with the new displays and develop a strategy for keeping track of new records.
2:30 PM Geocaching
A new cache was released in Lethbridge today. I went out this afternoon and made a quick find.
- GC3425Y - L
The cache is only available for "Premium" members of geocaching.com, and thus I am not including a link to the website. It is find # 1210. It also represents the 6th day in January with a find.
4:00 PM Technology
This was a very good day for me. I was visiting a local camera store to see about getting a new foot for my monopod stand. They had a spare part and I now had the stand back in fine shape. The fellow also adjusted a couple of the levers that change the length of the stand so they worked more easily.
I then asked if he had any suggestions for me when I am on a trip where I will be taking lots of pictures, and where I do not have a computer to download the photos. I was thinking of buying a second SD card (my current card holds about 900 pictures) and then doing all of the downloading when I return home. I happened to mention while we were chatting that I owned an iPad2 which I was planning to take with me. He said he also had an iPad2 and that there was a small camera attachment kit that contained two devices that could attach to the iPad2 that would permit one to download photos directly from a digital camera to the iPad2. One of these devices holds an SD card, the other contains a USB port. Even better, he said they were available at the new iWorld outlet in our local mall.
While I was buying one of these kits, I happened to mention that I had read about a Zagg keyboard for the iPad2. The clerk smiled and said they had a number of them, and that they were a best-seller. I immediately bought one. I am now set for taking a trip with only my iPad2 and camera.
The keyboard works perfectly with the iPad2 and the Pages app.