Tag: technology

Why Are iPads So Useful?

Technology I Prefer

I originally wrote about this on my Medium site last year BUT it is still relevant today. I thought it would be interesting to share my opinion about iPads here on my main blog and encourage you to comment your own experiences with them. I hope that by the end of this you will know why iPads are so useful, or at least will have been persuaded that they have many positive attributes.

I cannot live without my iPad.

Well, maybe that was a slight exaggeration. Perhaps it should be more a case of:

I’d rather not live without an iPad.

Why not a laptop?

Laptops are so cumbersome and, in my experience, much more unreliable. I have to use a laptop for my job and it is forever freezing or losing work as I am half way through editing it. My friends find similar problems, with laptops that are relatively new as well as older ones.

With a laptop I am forever trying to find a plug socket as one minute it is saying 50% charged and then the next it’s flashing to warn me to charge it immediately. Maybe it is just me but I don’t think so.

Also laptops are fairly big and you need a good case to carry them around in. You can’t really use them wherever you want. Ideally they need a surface to sit on and you cannot just lay down with them on the sofa (not comfortably anyway).

IPads are better because…

– They are compact (mine is 12.9 inches long – big enough to watch a movie) which means they are light and easy to pick up with one hand.

– Waterproof. I am no expert but I have spilled drink on mine and got it wet in the rain before and a quick wipe down has returned it to normal again.

– You can slip them into a folding keyboard. The iPad case easily converts into a holder which means that you can use them like a keyboard, resting the iPad on any surface, or even on your knees.

– They rarely freeze and allow you to open multiple apps at a time. I can flick between a website, the Medium app and Unsplash very quickly and easily as I write.

– The video quality is very good. You can watch any streaming service on it in bed as well as enjoying Youtube and Tiktok videos readily. The camera is also very reliable and provides clear images for both photos and videos.

– There is a fair amount of storage within the device and you can always save your content to the cloud.

– The kindle app and Apple books app are great ways to consume fiction and always remember where you got up to in a book.

In A Nutshell

As a writer and reader, I spend a lot of time reading blogs, watching videos and editing texts. For me, the iPad Pro is my number one choice for most activities and I take it on holidays with me so I can keep up with the online world when I am away. I absolutely love it and most of my books and blogs are written on it. Please let me know what you think about iPads in the comments.

If you use Medium, check out my site and the original article about iPads. You may even want some ideas for what to watch on your device. Here are Two TV Shows Worth Watching.

I Remember When…

At work today we were being a little bit nostalgic. I was at primary school in the 1980s and have fond memories of the 1990s as a teenager. There are so many things that have changed since then so I thought it would be fun to remember how life used to be.

Do you remember when…?

– Telephones had dials on them and were plugged into actual sockets. When you picked them up you had to check that there was a dialling tone before you started to ring a number.

– Cars had chokes on them. They were little buttons that you pulled out to encourage the engine to start. I recall my mum struggling to start her car and having to tug on the choke several times before the engine would eventually stir.

– Duffel coats were all the rage. Back when the weather was properly cold, we used to all be snuggled inside these cosy but rather awkward coats which were padded and bulky.

– Trying to get the fire started in the morning. My nan used to get up early and stuff newspaper and kindling into the fireplace, then use fire starters and matches to try and get the coal fire burning.

– If you said you were going to be somewhere at a certain time, you had to keep to it. After all there was no way of letting someone know that you were going to be late. You just had to be on time.

– Record players were all the rage. I remember being so delicate with vinyl because I was really worried that I might scratch one. Often the record player would bounce and the needle would jump and scratch the record, meaning part of the song would always be spoilt at that same place. Many of my favourite songs were ruined this way.

– The chimney needed sweeping. Although there were chimney sweeps in my village, my grandad used to do it himself. He would cover the fireplace in a special sheet and shove a sweeper up the chimney, adding pole after pole, until the brush reached the top.

– Computer games just didn’t exist. When I was very young we had to entertain ourselves by making toys such as bows and arrows out of branches and string.

These are just a few of the things I recall about the eighties and nineties. They were wonderful decades and I often think that life was much simpler then and we were more creative as children than we might have been if surrounded by technology.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post. I look forward to seeing your comments about this below. Also, if you enjoyed the article, perhaps consider following my blog for similar future content.