me vs the ipad: round eight

Henry and I went to class yesterday.  Him to enjoy a direct link to an electrical outlet and me to learn tricks and tips (which are more than just angry birds...which I admit to actually having heard of!).  I now know that if I hit Henry up along the top of his noggin where he alerts me to the time, he will shoot up from the bottom of a long web page to the very top.  My poor flicking fingers thank you, which ever clever geek thought that up.  I also discovered that I have been a bad mother, if I am such, to Henry.  He is languishing behind all his ipad friends at a mere 4.3.something aruther, while they are all zipping along at 5.1.1 and gaining rapidly on 6.  I feel adventures in updating coming my way...

...but after my vacation.

me vs the ipad: round seven

I loose. You loose.  We loose.  This one is in no way Henry's fault.  He didn't make himself.  I have touched at different times on the reality of the toxic nature of our digital toys and their long term effects to our environmental health.  Today on CBC's Q I was reminded of what, really, I knew must also be so.  'Oh shiney', and 'look how fast it is', and 'I have the newest one' which, of course, makes me better than you.  I have a computer at home.  I have an ipod. I loved the ease with which I can take photos with Henry for this blog. I use a computer at work.  Some young woman or man in China, worked 10-16 mind numbing hours a day, six days a week in less than glorious conditions so that I might enjoy these toys.

When I first read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula le Guin I was younger than I am now, by a good bit.  I couldn't understand why anyone would leave that poor child in the basement.  I was outraged.  Get the child out of there, feed it, it's crying.  How cruel.  I didn't get.  I have got it for sometime now.  I taken small walks. I know of the horrors of the children who harvest chocolate.  I buy fair trade organic chocolate about 90% of the time.  But, I have never actually left town.  I am not sure how.  I think I will continue my small walk of using my digital and electronic equipment into the ground.  And I think I will start sending emails to Apple, my general company of choice in the matter, and encourage them to be the leader they claim to be, in more ways than the current one.

me vs the ipad: round six

Okay, Henry could have won this one.  But he has a small disadvantage.  He's too big.  We have a basement in this library.  And I mean a basement, don't stop on the landing, go allllll the way down.  It is a maze.  Look for the wall of red books (American Supreme Court something-a-ruthers for those who are interested) and you will find the exit.  Otherwise it is a "bodies of students lost in this library will be retrieved Mondays and Thursdays only, no exceptions" kind of basement. (One poor young foreign student thought I was serious! eek).  I go down into the basement, in which I could find my way out blindfolded, one a week to seek out books which are labeled "missing".  Ie, we have no idea where they have ended up.  It is true, humans work here, no digital breakdown required, we don't have to be rebooted, we do this naturally: we make mistakes. 

So, there I am, in the basement, and low a student appears.  "Can I help you?"  Yup.  So I charge about the back roads of the basement and pull out the books he needs.  But there is a problem, he's new in life and missed that part of education which demanded handwriting was something you could actually read.  Especially if it was your own.  And here is where Henry would have had his moment.  I could have looked up the book and got the call number* by using Henry, who, bright little bug that he is, has access to the internet.  But I was searching for missing books and had that list in my hands, as I have to make a note of each time I look for them.  Carrying the list and Henry around with me was not a happening thing. So, I had to send the poor student all the way up the long staircase, step by step, on foot, to the main level where the computers are.  Sigh.

Now you will say I could use Henry to hold the book search list and mark off the dates on which I had checked for the books.  And I don't doubt you are right. But given that we are not allow aps due to the need for credit card back up and due to the fact that I have already stated the difficulties of Henry's note taking abilities....I will leave you with this little story.  Belonged to a group that send out a few hard copy newsletters to the luddites among us.  A friend in the group said she could print out the mailing list for me on stickies so I would not have to slave away by hand with the envelopes.  After four hours she had not sorted out how to get her computer, printer, and paper to work in concert.  I wrote the envelopes out by hand each month for five years, and still hadn't used up four hours of my time doing it.

*Yup its true, with hundred and eighty thousand, give or take, titles we do not sort them by colour but by library of congress call number.

me vs the ipad: round five

We had a meeting today.  I was asked to take notes.  I was asked to take notes with Henry.  I like Henry, you know that.  His cute smudgy little face and all.  But notes...I wanted to strangle him, or perhaps the note taking feature, or more likely the person who created the note taking feature.  Okay, not strangle, twap upside the back of the head though. Like Gibbs in NCIS.  All the way through it was 'did you mean this?', did you mean that?', and if I didn't say no each time it would put in the incorrect word. Grrrrr.  I mean, sure if I poke and prod Henry enough, somewhere there will be an off switch for this stupidity, right?  But where?  Really, where? I am all for the exploring like a two year old, but sometimes, at my age, I just don't have the time. I  switched pen and paper.

me vs the ipad: round four

Okay, this really was a physical fight.  The cases arrived for Georgina and Henry and I had to get them into them.  First I had to wrastle the cases free of their cases, known as packaging.  I find within, after a large knife and some tricky yanking are employed, a case which will allow each ipad to stand up like a little tv screen, a protective screen for that little screen and other odds and ends, such plug ins for all the holes that the ipads collectively have, instructions which make little sense, cardboard and plastic bags to protect the covers inside the plastic packaging. 

Soooo, first I am supposed to, and I do, separate the protective screen cover from its film and there will be static cling that will enable it to attach to Georgina's and Henry's faces.  Problem, the static for Georgina's film comes off on the film, so instead of a nice clear sturdy cover through which she can see out, and we can see in, she now has a thin cover that makes her look like a teenager's facial nightmare.  Henry's cover got its static right.  Then came the final knock down drag out.  Again, Georgina got the worst of it.  I had to push them into the little clips that hold them into their cases, and ... her cover won't shut.  Nope, no way, unun, forget it baby.  Henry's is little better, but with effort he can be contained into the tiny protective space.

But they do sit up nicely in the cases and now I have to wipe the finger prints off their mask and not off their faces.  Progress.

me vs the ipad: round three

My epiphany.  To interact properly with an ipad one must think like a toddler.  Plunked into a world without language or point of reference just poke and prod ( I actually advise against putting the ipad in your mouth as a method of exploration, or biting it, though I have yet to discount the pleasure of smacking it, it really isn't its fault it is so frustrating to work with) until it does something that pleases you.  Then make it do that again.  If you can, or more to the point, until you can. Repeat. While this learning method is frustrating for an adult (and as the parents of toddlers will attest, the toddler too), it is an excellent exercise for the brain, the determination, and the patience.  Henry is as yet unsmacked, and he came with me today on a refreshing walk through the crabapple grove.  Fall is here in earnest.  The air is sharp, the yellows are bright.  The apples are turning to wine.

me vs the ipad: round two

So, I can now take pictures and email pictures with Henry.  And he so kindly lets me know that the emails are from himself the ipad.  What a great advertising gimmick.  No flies on that Steve Jobs, no there wasn't.  But it turns out Henry has something of a small mail bag, (oops, didn't mean that), he can only carry five photos at a time and after that he will only let me delete or print.  Okay, I can batch, I am a clever child.  But Henry is not.  He will label the photos one through five.  Every batch.  And when the batch arrives my computer, not surprisingly, offers to overwrite the last set of one through five or cancel the transaction. I have to go into my pictures file on my computer and change the names before I can send more pictures.  So in terms of Henry being useful for my requirements on this, my round.  Henry can't do the job without a lot of extra work from me.  But he's still so cute with all those smudgy finger prints on his face.

me vs the ipad: round one

I'd like to say I won that one, but perhaps I could describe it as a draw?  Our work group has been provided two ipads so that we might come to better understand the minds of the new humans.  At least if you follow all the hype you might think of them as new humans, almost a different species.  I meet them daily at the desk and they seem just like the old humans to me; that is, perfectly human and generally very nice.  Still, it is best, as the world turns, to keep up with the changes.  So today I introduced myself to the the ipad we call Henry (not that you can tell the difference between him and Georgina if it weren't for the labels I put on them) and said 'hello'.  We did not get on well from there because Henry kept his mouth shut and would not not assist me in any way.  I have been told the Henrys and Georginas of this world are suppose to be intuitive.  If they are, they are faking being obnoxious and obtuse to an excellent degree.  Of course you might say I am the one with the intuition.  True enough, I do, and a good deal of stick-to-ativeness, which is why I have managed, without breaking Henry over the edge of my desk in frustration, and a couple of calls to people with their own ipads, to take photos, front and back, and to send them to Henry's email (which I can open) and voila....my latest book repair underway.