I just finished trying to "clean up" my mess of a MacBook Pro desktop, which was just as cluttered as my physical world oak desk in my home office. I moved a bunch of folders and files into my "documents" only to find duplicates and various drafts of poems and essays and a ton of old, obsolete junk already in there to drag to the trash. It took forever. And I haven't even started on emails. Question: Should I delete emails or just leave thousands of them just sitting there? Are they taking up valuable space or are they a benign mass of electronic data?
I also haven't started cleaning things up on my iMac Desktop computer, upon which desktop and documents storage I will find yet more duplicates of those items on the laptop. The Cloud is supposed to fix all of this, but my Cloud now has it's own set of duplicate crap at this point. Plus, my annoyance about the Cloud is that if I am without WiFi, I can't access the document! So I keep moving things out to the desktop or making duplicates and there you have it…. The genesis of an ongoing mess! What gives???
Also, is OS X Mavericks as awful as the "just folks" reviews make it sound? I'm a hold out. Get it right.
Signed,
Not as easy and time-saving as promised.
P.S. I just downloaded the iOS 7.1 to my iPhone and have to AGAIN adjust to a few new "upgrades" in user-interfacing. Thank you for keeping my brain active. Who needs Lumosity when we have you Apple Nerds devilishly thinking up ways to challenge us?
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Dear Little Blue Bird,
I just signed up for a Twitter account. I love to say the word "Tweet" and I think you are cute. I just have no idea what to do with you. I heeded some of your suggestions for who to "follow", but now I am inundated with 'tweets' that seem to come every 20 seconds about not much at all, and even if I cared, my life would become nothing more than reading these 140 character messages and clicking on #relatedstories that would keep me from living any semblance of a life in the real world. I have discovered a few friends are on Twitter and we have vowed to "follow" each other, but most of our Tweets consist of exchanging puzzled queries as to why we are doing this and what is the point? Please enlighten.
Signed,
#youjustpoopedonmyshoulderthanksalot
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Dear Comcast,Son-One is thrilled with his new job with your little start-up company (thanks for hiring him!) and is all aglow about your new X1 interactive TV platform. To hear him describe it, one will never need to leave their home for any reason whatsoever, ever again. Well, unless one wants to step away from a TV screen. But if that's your thing, Comcast X1 is your God. I actually love TV and I am ready to ditch DISH, which took me about a year to learn to use and I still don't quite get it, over 3 years later. (Not user friendly, DISH!) But X-1 is supposed to be dummy proof, so I'm your gal. Plus, I will be able to search with ease and record up to 5 programs while watching a 6th! Perfection! However exciting this sounds at first blush, I do expect it to be rather more confusing than anticipated. Things like this always are. (Like love affairs, or new babies, I suppose.) Still, since you are now an almost official monopoly, I feel I should just submit and learn your ways. Right?
Signed,
Looking forward to your introductory offer, then doing a re-fi on my home once hooked.
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Dear Mark Zuckerberg,
Maybe it was the movie, and my affection for that cutie-nerd Jesse Eisnenberg who played you, but I want to believe you are good guy. I know you are regularly accused of all manner of evil, but I do love your Facebook invention. Yes, all of us seniors are now taking over and it's no longer cool at all to be on it, but wow, quite the cultural revolution, huh? One question: WHY do you keep changing the look of my news feed? Now it seems all the posts sort of run together and my eyesight is not so far gone that the photos have to be that big. Just sayin'. Other than that, keep up the good work.
Signed,
Loves Kittens
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I went to a lecture yesterday on "How Technology Changed Our Culture". The average age was about 70. (It was a class for "over 50's"). The instructor's first slide was of a test pattern. Everyone chuckled in recognition. We know a frozen screen when we see one.
At least, that's the view from here…. ©
When I was published in Newsweek (a very, very long time ago) I had to rush up to the High school and have the computer tech guy tell me how to send an article via "floppy disc". Now, the sad thing about me quitting work (finally retiring) is that I am not mandated to keep up with various Tablets, passwords, billing functions, etc., etc. I do worry about that...the "falling waaaaaaay behind. I just got a Samsung Galaxy 4 and my youngest daughter laughs that I've got a better phone than she has...but I expect that she will use her "older model" for a lot more activities than I will use this new cutie. And, I am deeply suspicious of Microsoft's "The Cloud". Not to mention all the stuff that was published years ago and can no longer be easily accessed/transferred. But, I would still rather live in this world than the crazy world I grew up in.
ReplyDeleteFROM AN EMAIL: Thanks for the good reading!
ReplyDeleteEven PCs get full of stuff, and now I am trying to figure out how to put all my pictures on little thumb drives. However, no one but me would want the pictures, even though some of them are really good! Artsy, even.
Tweets just add to the frenetic pace. Can't imagine they are necessary.
Wave Cable will soon be swallowed I imagine. I can only record 2 shows. Have to go downstairs to watch the third, with its hateful commercials. Have to hope the 4th and 5th play again at a later time. Talk about privilege!
Love reading your blog!