Tag: iOS

The Technology Interview

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I realized that I know a lot about information technology, and I have a lot of my own preferences when it comes to using computers. So, I asked Carol to give me some writing prompts that had to do with the way I view technology. There are a lot of them, but not all of them are good. So, in this entry, I’ll just be answering the questions I thought were worth answering.

What role does technology play in your daily life, and do you find it distracting or helpful?

I haven’t had the choice over whether or not to use technology since I was a kid. My dad got me a beeper, then a cell phone so that we could keep up with each other. The cell phone was nice. The beeper was not. Before I had a cell phone, it was like the Mission: Impossible theme would play in my head, getting louder and more ominous the longer it took me to find a land line. I lived that way for a couple of years, until cell phones became affordable. There was no argument over whether I was old enough for one- I must have been 17 or 18. Lindsay got it much easier because she’s not old enough to have worn a beeper. She could always text back. It is so damn interesting to me how much technology changed in the six years between when I got a beeper and Lindsay got a cell phone. Not only is her reference for technology newer than mine, she did not have any early adoption issues with things like typing on the screen. For instance, my favorite phone before they stopped selling them was the Blackberry Pearl. I was much more competent on the thumb board than I am on anything else. I try to text using voice dictation, but it doesn’t work that well. So, I carry a Bluetooth full-sized keyboard wherever I go. It has three Bluetooth slots that you access through keystrokes. Therefore, I can text on my phone, Android, or iPad and it’s the same feel as a desktop. I wouldn’t say that I was bad at texting on my phone after all these years of doing it. It’s more that I type 90 wpm and I get frustrated that I can’t move that fast on a screen…….. like my sister can. Overall, I would say that technology is a help unless you are overextending yourself trying to keep up on top of every message and notification. “Do Not Disturb” is a great feature, and in iMessage, it will actually tell someone that your phone is on DND so they won’t expect a response right away. Life only moves as fast as you let it, and social media notifications are ruining us all….. like, to the point that there are hundreds of Gen Z kids explaining to other Gen Z kids how to get a Kindle, an MP3 player, and a dumb phone. They’re tired, and they’re funding the backlash.

How do you balance personal interactions with technology? Do you think it affects the quality of relationships?

I am really, really careful about that. If I’m out with someone and it’s not my dad, sister, Zac, Supergrover, or Bryn, you have my undivided attention. I will not interrupt you for anything unless those five people call. This is not because you are less important than they are. It’s that they are my commitments, the ones I’ve made the executive decision to always answer. On the flip side, they would not call unless shit had seriously hit the fan. Not one of them would want to interrupt me when I’m with someone else, so I know that if they call, it’s a 911 at worst and a 411 at best. In short, I don’t pick up my phone to call or text over stupid shit. I am all about being present.

For all my overseas fans, 911 is who you call for an ambulance/policeman/etc. 411 is who you call for information, like a telephone operator (yes, they still have those- VoIP is just as terrible as land lines in terms of maintaining absolutely stable connections. I think we all learned this with Zoom when everyone had different network speeds at their houses.

Has technology made you more productive in your personal life? If so, how?

Technology has made me productive since high school, and I wish I still had my computer from back then. My stepmom is a doctor, so she paid for the very best computer available in 1990. It was a Macintosh SE, and it was more fun than the law allowed. Imagine it, people…. a computer where there’s no chance in hell you could connect it to the Internet (I’m sure you could now with mods, but why? It’s not like the operating system needs updating… There aren’t any servers to connect for those updates.

But even before that, my grandfather got a Texas Instruments computer (a 99/4A or something like it) that plugged into your TV. I wish I had learned BASIC then, because I’d have a much easier time learning new syntax (all computer logic is the same. It’s just that sometimes it looks like French, sometimes it looks Italian, etc. It’s coders finding new languages in which to be fluent, because trends pass. For instance, Adobe Flash is no longer a thing. The joke at Apple was that the tablets for the Ten Commandments would run Flash before the iPad. However, I had plenty of fun with the games that were included, and you could buy more with cartridges that looked kind of like Nintendo games. The cartridge wasn’t the same shape, but it was the same idea. I think I even blew on one once. 😉

The problem is that I do not understand logic or object-oriented programming. It could be java or javascript or Python or Ruby on Rails. Doesn’t matter. I know HTML/CSS (Hyper Text Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheets). It doesn’t have anything to do with logic except figuring how to layer text and images I know a lot about using the x, y, and zed dimensions to make everything float correctly no matter what size window your browser is in, or what you use as a resolution on your computer. It’s a shame that WordPress has gotten away from all of these things when layout and design was so much more complicated- not in terms of coding it, in terms of having the web site look just the way you want it.

Now, I have moved on to AI for all the practical stuff, because it really is good at being a secretary. It does all my research and writing prompts for me right in my browser. I disabled Copilot in Windows 11, but that’s because I don’t use it in the operating system. I only use it when I am using Microsoft Edge to write blog entries. It has a very specific use case that does not involve AI doing my writing for me.

Although I might ask it for a satirical blog entry written in my style, just to publish it as fiction if it’s as funny as I want it to be. The best part of Copilot is that it will scan my web site in seconds and give me something personalized…. that really is in my tone and style.

What excites you about using the latest technology?

I like creating media boxes that constantly have updated software to create things for my blog. I used Audacity when I was recording my entries. The linux distribution “Ubuntu Studio” has every creative piece of software you can possibly use. Blender is great at making 3D models, as well as Google Sketchup. I am all about using technology for me, like a CNC machine. I do not want to be an early adopter of everything. I need to wait and see what the privacy issues are, and make sure there have been enough security patches released that I can count on the operating system to get out of my way. Windows makes it impossible, because most of your notifications come from them.

  • How likely are you to recommend Windows to a friend?
  • There are news articles full of crap if you leave widgets enabled on the left side of the toolbar. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was the weather that just sat in my taskbar, but it’s not. That little icon opens everything you need to get lost in a news hole….. and it’s not even good news. It’s random crap you’d get on a Google or Microsoft home page.
  • Don’t you want to upgrade to the full version of Microsoft Office?
    • As it turns out, I did. A subscription gives you a TB of space. That’s twice as big as I can use because my hard drive is only 512 MB. I could get NVME drives that would up my space considerably, but I can upload it to the cloud and not keep it on my computer all the time. I should upload all my Skyrim mods, because I don’t think I could upload the game itself- mods are open source. However, they increase my game folder by at least 60 GB. It took me years to collect them all because unless you have a premium account at Nexus Mods, they throttle your bandwith at 3GB/s. I do not want to redownload all of them, because mods like “Legacy of the Dragonborn” and Beyond Skyrim: Bruma are each several gigs apiece, especially if you’re like me and want to download the larger textures. I run them through a program to make them smaller, but I won’t if I get a better computer. My computer right now is just not fast enough to support an external GPU, and anything I’d really want would be $500-$1,000. That’s because my current computer can play Triple A titles, even turning up the settings to ultra. But that’s in the base game. Once I start overhauling everything, the textures are much larger. My current video card only has 512 MB of dedicated memory and shares 8GB with my DDR5 that controls the system. What I would want is 8GB of dedicated graphics memory, because it works so much better than sharing RAM with the operating system, and most new cards have enough speed to not only play games, but to rip moves at the highest quality very, very fast. Editing pictures and video is the same way. You do not want a cheap media box to render video, and I have to have a desktop and not an iPad/Android because the web site opens up much more features. For instance, my iPad won’t let me upload audio files to my space on WordPress, which is why I used SoundCloud. If I really liked recording my entries, I would have bought a premium membership by now. I just looked at my web stats on it and it freaked me out to no end, because not only did it show which countries were listening, it was so granular that I could pick out individual neighborhoods. I don’t need to know who is listening to that degree, because it only makes me anxious.
  • You have security issues like not using our browser.
  • Tell us what you think…. about everything. Microsoft Office, Edge, Visual Studio Code, you name it.

I also now have the solution. Windows 11 Debloat. It’s a script you run in power shell that gets rid of all the crap. Enjoy it to the best of your ability, because I sure have. It gets the operating system out of the way.

Lastly, my favorite app of all time is Mozilla Thunderbird. Microsoft Outlook only thinks it’s an e-mail client. There are too many open source plugins that make Thunderbird 10 times more useful. Web mail is fine, but I have like four e-mail addresses I have to keep track of at once. But because my Google account is something like 20 years old, it’s not the files I’ve stored that make my Google Drive fill up. It’s mail. It’s enough to drive you from online shopping ever again.

Because they’ll send you e-mail surveys all the time, just like Micro$oft.

Technology

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

What do you complain about the most?

To start, I’m complaining about Bluetooth because for some reason, my 10-in Fire has started randomly dropping my keyboard. Like, not just the connection. The entire device disappears and I have to re-add it. Complaining is relative. I have other devices if I can use if this one gets too annoying, it’s just my favorite. The reason I haven’t already wiped it is that this tablet has everything on it. My whole life. Every account, every everything. I haven’t spent that much time with my other devices. For instance, I don’t have all my e-mail accounts added to my iPad, or cloud drives.

The only thing I would do differently if I bought another Android tablet was to make sure the specs on the hardware were the same, but not an Amazon Fire. I hacked it to run all the Google Play apps that I want, but they don’t work exactly right in terms of notifications because both systems aren’t integrated. So, even though I have Gmail installed on my Fire tablet, that doesn’t mean I’ll get notified I got an e-mail from you, etc.

I need to beef up my iPad, because realistically I know that it’s better hardware than I can afford with an Android (it was a gift, a 10.5-in iPad Pro first gen). However, needing an Android tablet is not because I prefer it, even though I do. It’s that I’ve bought apps in every shopping center. Without a Fire tablet, I lose Amazon. With a stock Android, I lose the Apple App Store. With the iPad, I lose Amazon and Google Play.

The other thing is that there are apps made for one operating system that aren’t made for the others.

Android is particular about that because a lot of it is linux desktop software that has been ported over; it’s a different user interface, but the same code underneath. Google Services Framework is also huge in Android development, which is why you have to hack a Fire tablet to run it. The Amazon app store has less than half the apps that Google Play store does because most Android apps have Google Services Framework as a requirement to install. I can get by on Microsoft products, because Amazon has Edge and Outlook and a few other things. But very quickly I realize I’m going to have to install Google Play, anyway, because Amazon doesn’t have my password manager.

You can do all that relatively quickly and easily with “XDA Fire Toolbox,” but again, it’s not going to work exactly the same as a stock Android tablet. I wish they’d burn FireOS to the ground and just put stock Android and their own apps on a Fire, not reinvent the wheel. The apps that Amazon writes for Google Play and iOS are objectively better than the ones they write for FireOS…… because they don’t have Google Services Framework…….

I complain a lot about computers because they’re inanimate objects. They can take it. For instance, my Fire tablet doesn’t know I’m writing about her, but I don’t know if she’d be pissed or not. I have a feeling that because she’s a computer, she would agree with me, that Amazon is not using her hardware to the best of its ability. Although I will say that for such a cheap tablet in, I think, 2019, I’m amazed at how well it still handles split screen with only 3GB of RAM.

I do split screen a lot on 10-in tablets because I have a coding notepad (same as Notepad on Windows, just puts a different color font on HTML, special characters, etc.) and a browser open at the same time. That way, if I can’t remember something, I can look it up quickly.

I’m starting to complain that I have to Google myself, because the way I mean it is so funny. I do not give a rat’s ass what people think of me on the world stage, so I do not mean searching to see what other people think. I mean I literally go to Google and type:

https://theantileslie.com “Methodist Hospital”

That means it will only search my domain for my search terms. People, I am Googling myself like other people wish they could Google their brains.

I complain about laying mine on the table, but it’s been invaluable. For instance, that last “Googling myself” was in the doctor’s office when I needed the date of my last hospitalization. I don’t remember, but I know how to find out.

I complain a lot about technology, but the one thing I can’t complain is that it’s helping me lose my mind. In fact, it’s bringing it all together.

The Lottery (Without the Horror)

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

What would you do if you won the lottery?

I’m 46, so I’m not sure I could do much with my lottery money if I won it right this moment. I’d probably put it away for my elder years. However, it truly depends on how much I won. So, just for this entry (because saving it is boring), let’s say that I’m already independently wealthy and it doesn’t matter whether I win this money or not. Therefore, whatever I do with it is up to me. I don’t know how much I’d win, I’ll just tell you what I’d do and you can decide how much it was in retrospect. Because that’s what I’m going to do.

The first $15 million goes to Supergrover, because we’ve had this plan since 2013. That day, she was joking about what would happen if she won the lottery. I said, “will you do me a favor?” She said, “sure. What is it?” I said, “find the most conservative school you can find. Oral Roberts, whatever. Donate the money for a whole ass building, so that every kid in that school has to walk through ‘Lanagan Hall.’ Then, 10 years later, tell them I’m gay.” Actually, this is an open-ended source of money, because if Lanagan Hall is going to cost $20 million? STILL WORTH IT.

I got the idea from James Beard. He was “uninvited” from Reed College for being gay, so when he died he left them a lot of “fuck you” money. It stuck with me. I think you can watch the doc if you have PBS Passport, because it’s one of the old “American Masters” episodes.

If Zac, Supergrover, and Bryn still have mortgages, those are gone, as well as my parents’ and sisters.’ If any of them have student loans, those are gone as well (but I don’t think they do). I would go back to school full-time and I have no idea when I would leave. If I got the hang of it, I might want to stay for a Master’s and a Doctorate.

Most of the reason I was bad at school is that I didn’t have enough time to work, study, and go to class. The lottery would really help out with that, because all my living expenses would be covered without getting me in debt during retirement.

My thing about getting a Master’s and a PhD is that it has to be something I really enjoy. Obviously, the current job market does not care if you have a Master’s or a PhD given the salaries I’ve seen listed for both. What I have learned over time is that managers really don’t care if you have a degree in your field. They care that you made it through something. For instance, even if my Master’s was theology, I could still apply in IT because of my work experience plus education. I could still apply for lower-level jobs, and honestly, I think I would like that more.

I have never wanted to be the manager of anything, the reason I don’t want to be a chef (people think all line cooks are chefs. Incorrect. Chef is “boss,” like “el jefe” in Spanish.). I would like to invest in food, though. I’m really interested in Athletic beer (non-alcoholic), and David Chang is one of their investors as well, so I know I’m not the only one with a palate for it that I trust.

I’d make a donation to the culinary CIA in honor of Anthony Bourdain. Not much, just enough to say I did it. Something that wouldn’t mean anything to Anthony because he’s already gone, but would mean the world to me.

I would buy back HSPVA. #iykyk

I would like to buy property in this area, but I am confused as to where I want to live. This is because I could buy land and build a house, or I could buy a condo/apartment and both of those sound glorious on different days.

(Just not in the Watergate…. it’s literally falling apart.)

Honestly, I think I would get more bang for my buck if I moved to Baltimore for a downtown condo, but I doubt many of my friends would come visit me…. oh, wait…. yes they would. Every time they needed a place to crash in Baltimore…. and I really wish I was there today because I’m a Ravens fan (who doesn’t want Edgar Allen Poe to win the Superbowl?). I can’t remember where the game is being played, but it would be fun to be at Camden Yards, anyway. So many bars and restaurants where Ravens fans would be obnoxious…. like me.

I don’t really get caught up in sports, only the excitement of the other fans. For instance, I do not like very many sports, but if it’s someone’s special interest, I’ll learn all about it just through listening to them and retaining what they say. It pays off. I still owe someone a beer because I got one at trivia off her. Her special interest was golf, and because of her, I knew Jordan Spieth won the Master’s tournament in 2015. My ex-wife’s special interest was The Commanders, so I know more about WAS than I do about any other team, despite being a Maryland fan now.

The other thing is that if you retain what other people say about sports, you can look really impressive with your analysis while also not knowing shit from Shinola.â„¢ Although, today I did recognize the name “Jim Harbaugh,” so I’m making progress. 😉

So, it might be fun to live over a Ravens bar, because then I could have noise around me without taking it in, plus be within walking distance of everything I’d actually want to see in Baltimore…. plus, their public transit is as good as ours. The MARC train even connects to Silver Spring station, so BWI is probably 30 minutes and West Baltimore another 30 after that. It’s handy to take the MARC to BWI when you’re flying Southwest, but it doesn’t run as often as The Metro runs to DCA and IAD (Dulles is now on the Silver Line, DCA has always been Yellow/Blue for visitors).

And now we’ve arrived at what I’d do if I won the lottery in terms of securing my own future. I really believe in my app, but I don’t do development. If I won the lottery, I could be my own venture capitalist. With the right government contracts, it would be a hit in Washington and possibly as famous as Uber if it works in more cities than just DC. I would want to start small, basically a “Pied Piper” sort of office, because I don’t want to spend all the money at once…. besides, with an app, less is more. I don’t want too many chefs, not enough line cooks. It’s my vision.

If nothing else, I am good at planting ideas in people’s heads. Money would just help me do that on a grander scale. So, I’d change everything……

and nothing at all.

Haven’t We Covered This a Billion Times?

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

In what ways do you communicate online?

First, let’s get practical. I got used to everything being delivered during the pandemic, and I liked it because it was the same price as taking Uber to the store. So, pretty much all my groceries come from Uber Eats because they’ll go to several grocery stores and 7-Eleven in my neighborhood. They don’t charge an arm and a leg, particularly if you have an Uber membership (which I do- I take it too much for it not to pay off handsomely. I think I saved $900 in fees last year.).

I have only had one bad driver in the history of my taking Uber, and it wasn’t that bad. It just made me uncomfortable. It was an African man looking for a traditional wife and I made the mistake of being polite to him….. so it was a never-ending barrage of “what’s your phone number?” And, of course, that he could be better to me than anyone else. I highly doubt that since he was from Uganda and I think he would not approve of the people who are better for me, for the most part. I also have no intention of becoming a “traditional wife,” because in my friends’ lives, that means “what I say goes and I could give fuck all what you think.” I would not last long in a relationship like that, and neither should anyone else…… but we all do it a little bit. Charm goes a long way in “new relationship energy,” and those rose-colored glasses blind us to what is truly there.

Oh, wait. I have one more story about an Uber driver, but it wasn’t sexual harassment. I gave the first dude zero stars and had a promise this guy wouldn’t pick me up again, because I definitely didn’t want a conversation in which he said, “you gave me a fake number.”

With the second guy, I left my phone in the back of his car. I have reminders for all that now, but it didn’t help me because he’d already driven away. Uber and I both tried to contact him for over a week, and he didn’t answer their messages, either. Then, he had the audacity to tell me that I could call him. On what phone, jackass? So, we resorted to e-mail and he offered to drop it off at my house because he lived in my neighborhood.

So, he drives up and tells me that I need to give him $20 in cash before he’ll give me my phone back. I knew it was a shakedown because Uber officially charges you $20 on your account if you forget your phone (or other items) to ensure the drivers get paid for their time. I was so angry I literally told him to fuck off and he told me I was getting too excited about this. I could see he was about to drive off, so I grabbed my phone out of his hand faster than I’ve ever reached for anything in my life.

I have a thing about my phone.

So, anyway, I reported this guy to Uber after not having paid him and Uber wiped the floor with him. I’m not sure that he’s still employed, but I do know that Uber credited me $40 in Uber cash, refunding their fee, plus the $20 the guy tried to fleece.

I feel that Skyrim gave me some power in this situation. 😉 Sometimes, shouting is your only option, and I didn’t feel like my normal self because my phone was in danger. I have gone to hell and back with that thing because once I left my phone in the bathroom at DCA. They got it back to me, but they mailed it to my dad. I wiped it and got a smaller phone that would fit in my pocket and stay on my person, rather than in my bag.

It’s handy because I can connect to the Internet on the train using my phone as a hotspot for my tablet. If my watch could handle being a hotspot without losing battery, my phone would be redundant.

That’s because I use my Apple Watch to pay for everything in person, which is still connected to the Internet whether by phone, wi-fi, or both. Not only does it hold my debit card, it also holds my Metro card, so all I have to do is hold my watch up to the turnstile and I go through immediately. Plus, now all the buses have the same system. It’s also cool that if you’re on the go and realize you need more Metro dollars, you can add it right from your watch.

My Apple Watch is the handiest thing I never knew I needed.

I didn’t get it for the technology, it was a Christmas present a couple years running. That’s because I had the first iteration that was only a Bluetooth connection to your phone. You could use it to control your media and such, but it wasn’t very powerful on its own.

Now, my watch has a cell connection and I know these smart watches coming in Android as well- I’m not trying to sell you an Apple Watch, just highlight how advanced smart watches have become. Both Android and iOS have different and cool features, but the basics are the same.

Here’s what I use the most:

  • I’ve never had a watch with a Bluetooth card on it before, so I’ve never been able to connect my headphones directly and make calls. Carrying BT headphones is a must because the speaker phone is not very good; it’s just handy in a pinch.
  • Location–based reminders, where your calendar integrates into your tasks lists and GPS.. For instance, if I have Zac’s address saved in my phone (and I do), I could already say “make an appointment with Zac,” but what has been relatively recent is being able to say, “when I get to Zac’s, remind me to do THIS.”
  • I tend to use Amazon Music over Apple, because for some strange reason Amazon has the ability to run completely off your watch and Apple Music still depends on your phone. Although you can set albums to download to your watch, I feel like it’s easier just to stream them, and right now, Amazon is doing it better.
  • Reminders….. like if I get into an Uber and my iPad is still upstairs, it will flash on my watch that “Leslie’s iPad has been left behind.” The only thing that tripped me up was that I got that message when it was in my backpack. With me. In the car. But by and large it’s a help- so much that I’m thinking of getting Bluetooth tags for things like my umbrella. Maybe I should just have the nurses put my name on it………… inside joke, talk to your parents.
  • Fall detection is the reason I got a second Apple Watch for Christmas, because the newer models will keep track of if you fall and how long you stay down. It will alert the authorities and if your phone is with you, start taking pictures immediately. I fell in my room once when I’d just gotten out of the shower, and I have never been so glad my phone was pointing at the ceiling.
  • Carrot Weather is the only app I’ve ever paid for in the Apple Watch App Store, and it is the best fucking $5 I’ve ever spent. You can adjust her personality from nice to homicidal, and it is so damn funny. I’ve gotten things akin to “tonight is clear. Can you say the same thing about your conscience?” “Joe Biden did this.” Today, since it’s 35F outside, it says, “I’m recommending you travel with a tauntaun sleeping bag in case you get stuck outside.” I also love that it roasts both political parties because they both deserve it…… but one of them is funny to laugh at, and one of them is straight up terrifying. Carrot recognizes the difference, trust me. Her takedowns of Trump were fucking epic, I just don’t think I have screenshots. Oh, and in the app on your phone, you can ask for the weather in world cities, too. I always like to know the temperature in Beirut (if this doesn’t make sense to you, the family I live with is Lebanese and now Beirut is on my bucket list because we have pictures of it all over our house).
  • Recording my walks is also very nice because I don’t have to remember to do it. I’ll just be walking along and it will say “you seem to be having an outdoor walk. Would you like to record it?” Yes. Yes, I would. I don’t keep track of my health stats except occasionally. I just want to know how I’m doing overall, I don’t want to obsess over it. Before I went to Zac’s I made it a point to walk about three miles, because I really do love the cold weather when I’m moving enough to create body heat for my many layers to entrap. But because the weather has been generally crappy, I haven’t been walking as much as I normally do. It was the first time I’d walked long enough for it to remind me in, well, too long. That needs to change. I’m too mentally ill not to give myself some much-needed endorphins.
  • CityMapper is an app that’s available in lots of cities, and I’m lucky it’s also here. It picks up from your GPS where you are, and gives you the most direct route by train and bus to get where you’re going. The fact that I can do all that FROM MY WATCH is just incredible.
  • Uber gets an honorable mention, but they would have gotten first prize if they hadn’t reworked the app so you couldn’t use your Apple Watch independently. I cannot go anywhere without my phone in a literal, survivalist sense when I need an Uber because I can order it from my iPad and it will keep track of everything, but what you cannot do is order another one. This did not used to be the case, and I’m still bitter about it….. a little.
  • Facebook Messenger saved my ass on several occasions when I’ve been without my phone, but they announced they were discontinuing that feature and I felt like I lost a relative.

The only reason I’m a little bit bitter about apps not being able to run independently on my watch is that I have found my phone is redundant. I feel that it would be much easier for me to just control my watch from my iPad and skip the middle man, but iOS for iPad doesn’t do that. You must have a phone. So, I have everything I need in a phone right on my wrist, and a tablet that doesn’t make my eyes bleed because there’s so much more desktop real estate………. and, credit where credit is due, the fonts are better. It’s an Apple product. What do you expect?

In fact, I was just talking about Apple fonts with my new friend Eric- I met him at the beer tasting. I don’t remember how we got on the subject of “Helvetica,” but I’m a font nerd so the conversation’s always going to lead there, anyway……… I was telling him that it was professionally designed (you really need to see the documentary to see just how much it words our world), and very, very expensive.

Apple bought the license for Helvetica when it first came out, so if you get a Mac, you get a copy of the professional, original font. I told him that I once bought an old Mac at a thrift store just for a real copy of that font. He said, “why?” I said, “copy of the entire Helvetica family is probably about $800-1,000. Crappy Mac at Goodwill…. $25.

Priceless.

You might not know the name “Helvetica” if you aren’t a Mac person, but don’t worry. Microsoft made a much uglier version called “Arial.” It’s a knockoff and I know the ascenders and descenders so well that I was quizzed online and got a perfect score.

It’s why I’m so grateful that the fonts on the Apple Watch are clear. You don’t have to have the latest and greatest model of it (or GalaxyWear and Samsung) to really enjoy its functionality.

The best thing is that it goes online. So, you have a device on your wrist that’s not as obvious as a phone and an App Store that will absolutely sell you a Facebook feed crawler. I know what you do on company time.

One of the most touching compliments I’ve ever gotten was a woman who told me I made her cry on the toilet.

It is then that I knew I was invincible……………………. in the ways I communicate online.

When the Weather Report is Wrong

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

The Capital Weather Gang wrote a long article about how they thought snow was over for the season. I have never been happier that they were wrong. Living in a sub-tropical climate for all those years renders snow magical for me…. especially when it is big, fluffy, ski-worthy weather without ice and sleet. Of course, it could turn into that later on, but for now, the goal of the day is to take my laptop downstairs to the picture window in front of the porch and just think. I finally figured out how to start the clock running on my book review, therefore, I have more time than I thought I did to get it done.

I am finished with the basics, but not the editing. So far, it’s turning out to be interesting, even though the book was not something I’d have chosen on my own. I can’t tell you much, only that I chose it because it covers a subject in which I know nothing, and I love Knowing Stuff.â„¢ There’s enough character development so that it’s not all about the sport at hand, but should I want to engage in such sport later on, I’ve found myself a solid foundation. The web site I’m working with has been around for years, which is how I know it’s the real deal, and not just a way to get authors to submit their work for free…. I also found a web site for freelance authors, but I don’t think I’ll sign up for that one. It’s because I think that the ads for work should be paid for by the employers, and this one is $100/month. It says that satisfaction is guaranteed as long as you can prove you’ve actually done the work, but there are better ways to go about freelance writing than having to pay money in the hope you’ll get something. Besides, this is not a job so much as a side hustle.

I’ve applied for jobs in several restaurants because I’ve noticed that I do not have time to write if I am tethered to my phone and laptop with IT. Now, I would not turn down a job in IT should it come along, but there is something to be said regarding being done with a shift and going home to write, rather than having your phone ding at all hours of the night with clients expecting a 30 minute service license agreement. The hard part is finding a job in a restaurant that will cover all my bills in the meantime. It’s a good thing I put in an application at both Starbucks and Costco, because both pay well and offer benefits. With my fanatical devotion to good coffee, it also doesn’t suck that I’m also gifted a bag a week. I also don’t want to go a minute longer without a Starbucks baseball cap. I had a friend in college that worked there for three weeks just to get the hat and the apron and then quit, because he was a Linux server administrator. I will not be doing that, but it was funny at the time.

For those who are wondering why I would rather work at SBUX than an independently owned shop, it has to do with health insurance and not much else. I also learned that once you’re in the system, you can take a vacation to anywhere and pick up shifts wherever there are stores. This was a piece of advice given to me while I was waiting in line at Dupont Circle, from a barista that “took off a month” and went to the original store in Pike’s Market (Seattle, of course).

The biggest problem I have is in getting around the city, because it would be a godsend to work in Silver Spring or downtown DC. If I got a job in the tech corridor or Annapolis/Baltimore, it would take me over two hours every morning to get to work with what would be a 20-40 minute drive. Of course it would be more than that with traffic, but with computer jobs, there are generally programs for both working at home and off-hours so that traffic would be a non-issue. Fingers crossed. This is because everything on the server is keyed by changes in file time and tied to user account. I could work anywhere in the world, but I am reticent to leave the 32-inch monitor on my desk…. although I did once see a guy drag a 22-inch iMac to Starbucks.

Believe it or don’t, there are even terminal programs for iPads and Android tablets, which, to me means my laptop just lost six pounds. Full-size Bluetooth keyboards have made my backpack lighter and my muscles hurt less. Plus, the weight of my backpack with my laptop and all the things I need in order to keep from going back to the house bothers my corkscrew scoliosis so that one part of my spine is absolutely scraped to bits. I even had Hayat (landlady) cover the rip in Neosporin and a thick bandage, to no avail.

I talked to my old friend Meag, an RMT in Ottawa about it, and sent her a picture. She told me she couldn’t wait to get her hands on me, but nine hours is an excruciating trip without a car…. and would make the trip prohibitively expensive whether I was flying or taking an Uber. If I was going to go to a clinic that specialized in both massage therapy and chiropractic medicne, she’s the only one I’d want to see. In Canada, the requirements for getting licensed are much steeper than in the United States, and she is one of the people on the legislative board who approves others. I have been told that eventually I will need surgery, but not for another 15-20 years or so. Until then, I just have to nurse my pain. Making my bag as light as possible is as good as it gets- for the moment, anyway.

It was nice being able to stash my bag in my car while it lasted, but here’s the thing about that. Like most people, I do not like to exercise. Walking and taking the bus/train is the only workout I get, because I don’t even notice I’m doing it. If the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, the destination is being mentally healthy. Medication and a great diet help, but there is nothing greater than natural endorphins that adds fuel to the fire. Silver Spring Station is only two miles from my house, and when the weather is nice, I’ll generally walk at least one direction, possibly both. Though I don’t often walk fast enough for true cardio, the landscape is hilly enough to add incline. Plus, the bus schedule for the main road back to my neighborhood runs every ten minutes, in those moments where I just cannot even, I have someone to bail me out (Hiiiiiii, George!) It is absolutely amazing how much walking overclocks my processor, though I wish I could add memory….. and then I think to myself, God will provide the RAM.

But seriously, folks, I do my best writing while mobile. My head space is just so positive, and God help me if I don’t have my phone. I used to carry a notebook, but if I write things down, I have to retype everything when I get home. I now use Google Keep, but my favorite words in the English language used to be, Siri… open Notepad. This seems like a no-brainer, but I have to use my phone rather than my tablet (if you have 3G on yours, that’s fine, too) so that the notes sync immediately. I am a nerd that needs my information on all my devices instead of just the one I have to hunt down- because of course I’ve dropped it somewhere in my house and the battery has died.

Still using my old iPhone while I search for my Android. I am operating system agnostic, so the only reason I really want to find my Android is that I am missing the tons of extra space I have on it due to the fact that expansion slots are par for the course. Apple just makes extra space prohibitively expensive. Yes, Apple devices are designed well, but so are Android. And for less than half the price of a new iPhone, I can get an Android with 128 GB of space. It’s especially useful now that Netflix and Amazon Prime Video will let you download movies and TV directly to your device. But, if you want to pay $1,000 for a phone that you’ll fill up in two weeks, who am I to stop you?

The amount I know about IT is somewhere between organ grinder and monkey.

Well, that’s not true. At least I, most of the time, remember to buy my own bananas.