A Naturalist in Cyberspace

NEW MacBook Air

thenaturalist — Sun, 22 May 2011 19:56:05 +0000

I bought my new little MacBook Air on Friday and left it with the Geek Squad to do whatever needed to be done to make it functional. It’s Sunday now, and I’ve just had a session with a Geek named Eric who got me up to speed. Then I talked to Colin about other things I might want to get someday. Then Drew stopped by to say hello while I was taking my first solo voyage. Now if Bobby Martin showed up I would have talked to all four of my favorite Geeks/Salespeople on the day I began this new adventure. Three out of four isn’t bad. The omens are good, and the Air is enough like my iBook G4 that I’m not running into any frustrations so far. I guess this is another FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE….

BACK TO DRAWING BOARD

thenaturalist — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:27:51 +0000

It turns out that I can’t buy an iPad without buying a new, more up-to-date computer that would have an operating system that could interface with the state-of-the-art iPad. So now I’m looking at the little MacBook Air again, which is Apple’s answer to the NetBook and which I’ve actually been waiting for Apple to develop ever since I briefly played with a little NetBook several years ago. But if I get the little MacBook Air I won’t need the iPad because I really only wanted the iPad as a light weight, carry-around “computer.” So maybe I should have just gotten the little Air at the outset and avoided the whole iPad business? My continuing education….

iPAD AGAIN

thenaturalist — Wed, 18 May 2011 18:24:40 +0000

Now I’m at Small Dog playing with another iPad here. Where might the iPad take me?

NOW IT’S AN iPAD

thenaturalist — Fri, 13 May 2011 15:08:55 +0000

here I amWhy can’t I post

This is how far I got trying to post to my blog on an iPad. My first experience wasn’t good, and I went away exasperated.

Mac Book Air

thenaturalist — Tue, 03 May 2011 19:44:54 +0000

I am typing this on a brand new Mac Book Air just to see how it works. So far so good.

MobileMe

thenaturalist — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:55:23 +0000

My MobileMe account is about to expire, and I somehow managed to figure out how to renew it despite the fact that I had forgotten absolutely everything about how MobileMe works. One of my most brilliant ideas in the past was to write myself e-mails every time I set up a new account to remind myself of all the important information I would need to access that account. So I looked up my old MobileMe e-mail, got my User ID and Password, beamed up my account information, entered my special WWW credit card information — another of my most brilliant ideas, which actually came from one of my senior citizen friends whose kids had told her to have a separate credit card limited to $500 specifically for shopping on the Web — and renewed my MobileMe for another year. I’m always incredibly proud of myself when I figure out how to do something complicated by myself, so I’m going to create a new category and declare this renewal a major CyberVictory.

BACK TO DSL

thenaturalist — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:16:26 +0000

Here I am in Cedar Key, Florida. It’s Christmas Day 2009, and I’m crawling around on the floor of the expensive condo I’m staying in trying to figure out how to arrange the wires that keep me tethered to the tight corner of the living room where the DSL modem (is that the right name for the little gizmo with all the lights?) is plugged into the phone jack. With my Airport at home and WiFi when I’m out and about, I’ve gotten spoiled. I’m sure I’ll figure things out, but right now I’m a bit exasperated by having to go back to old technologies. But maybe I should look at my exasperation as a sign of the progess I’ve made in my evolving relationship to cyberspace?

GOOGLE AND BLOGS

thenaturalist — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:47:35 +0000

Today I discovered that Google doesn’t search for blogs unless the blog is attached to a Web site. That was a setback because I was developing a special blog to serve as a portal to to all my other blogs and Web projects. Because this NATURALIST IN CYBERSPACE blog is linked to my personal Web site, Google does detect it, so I’ve concluded that I need to make it my portal. I guess I can do what I want to do with PAGES and LINKS in my sidebar. And, of course, I can always use blog posts to explain what I’m doing and assign them to a special category called “My CyberProjects.”

I LAUNCH A CYBERSTORE

thenaturalist — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:25:05 +0000

I’ve always wanted to own a bookstore, but I’ve never had the time, money, or determination to establish a real one with a real address, real inventory, real hours, and real employees. So when I discovered that Amazon lets people like me create online stores they call a-Stores to promote the books we think are good, interesting, useful, etc. — in short, the books I would carry in my real bookstore — I decided to try it. Being a techno-klutz, it’s taken me several days to figure things out and set up the beginnings of my cyberstore, which I’m calling A NATURALIST’S BOOKSTORE. So far I’ve added my own books and a few of my favorite field guides to my inventory, but since it won’t cost me a cent to add as many as I want, I plan to add LOTS MORE. To visit my new bookstore, click on its name above, the link in the sidebar, or HERE.

WHAT DID I DO IN CYBERSPACE TODAY?

thenaturalist — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:38:03 +0000

Today I finished adding all the old materials from another version of this blog to this new and improved one. Now I’ve got to catch up with where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing since January. That will take a while….