krankshaft format solution found

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

gfdddddddd
On 07 Apr 2011, at 19:15 , Jonathan Smith wrote:
> I am interested that people really do use iPads. How do you use them?
> Everyone I know who bought one says its just a toy.


Well, for my 15-month old daughter, it _is_ a toy. And a very good one.  She watches videos of children's songs downloaded from YouTube (and occasionally, of Daddy's stuff -- she occasionally gets considerable entertainment from ICU's "Paint Your Windows White", and last week went through a phase of playing and replaying Romanian prog-folk-metal legends Phoenix's "Nunta" ... though mostly she goes for Winnie-the-Pooh, the Muppets, Pippi Långstrump, etc.).  There are lots of iPad apps aimed at kids, even very small ones -- some have not been a hit, some have, it's hard to tell.  Anyway, she digs it, and it would not surprising me if tablet-y type things remain in her life for a while.

My wife uses it to check email and read news web sites, occasionally surf FaceBook -- that sort of thing.  It is cheaper and more maneueverable than a laptop, and so an improvement since she would only be doing the same stuff on a laptop anyway.  (Now she, however, could actually use a smartphone for her work. It would be practical.  I am not sure the iPad would be as practical for her, in that context.)

For me -- currently I work as a university professor.  I need to read a lot of documents -- articles, books, reports, student submissions, my own drafts, you name it.  The iPad allows me to do all that (besides the advantages of being able to haul around a huge digital reference library in a small package) more efficiently than a smartphone would (thanks to the bigger screen), as well as check calendars, email, the web as needed in meetings and stuff.  It's onscreen keyboard is convenient for notes in a meeting, or a brief email -- though of course I have my desktop computers (at work and home) for serious writing.  I have a wi-fi only iPad, but then anywhere I need connectivity is going to be home or work, and those have wi-fi.  An smartphone lacks the e-reader capabilities I need, but a laptop is overkill for my mobile computing needs. The iPad is working out well.  Doubtless other tablets would do more or less the same stuff, but the iPad plays nicely with my Mac Mini, and I like my Mac Mini, so it's a no-brainer.

So although I could use perhaps any e-reader with some Internet capability, the rest of the family also uses the iPad for different stuff.  It's jack-of-all-trades (if perhaps master-of-none) suits the group well in that respect.


> As I have a Android
> smart phone and a Apple laptop, it seems excess to needs.


Yeah, as noted, I have no smartphone and no laptop.


> I am interested in
> a Kindle, or a good eBook reader, but they are not supported where I live,
> so that can wait.


Well, I can buy Kindle stuff, I think, but I tend not to.  Most of my reading is, actually, at least vaguely work related and tends to be PDFs.


> I much prefer Apple computers too, but have to use Windows as well. Unix is
> much too geeky for me as well-- too many variants.


I hear that.


> The choice of either
> making Steve Jobs or Bill Gates richer is not appealing, but that's the way
> its become.


Well, I tend not to think about who is or is not making money, and tend to think about what suits me. I can control my work environment on my Mac in a way that I like better than Windows, and I can use GarageBand to entertain myself (if, probably, not others! ;)


> I'd forgotten who Brittany Spears was!

;)  The last band I was in did a sort of sludgy rock cover of "Oops! I Did It Again" as our "irony piece"  (using Richard Thompson's acoustic cover version as a starting point), so I fear I accidentally burned her into my memory!

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
http://www.carlaz.com/