Technology Challenged

Enjoy this cute synopsis of how a lot of seniors must feel today about technology.

"When my family insisted I buy a Blackberry I thought back about the 30-years in the industry with the numerous direct reports and 1800 employees, all without a cell phone that plays music, takes videos, pictures and communicates with Facebook and Twitter. We managed fine. I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my daughters, and grandkids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twitterific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Bluetooth (it's red) phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once. I looked like a Starwars groupie with that thing in my ear.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dashboard, but the lady inside that gadget was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating." You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then if I made a right turn instead...well, it was not a good relationship.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets, and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GPS lady, at least she loves me.

To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop. I bought some of those cloth reusable bags to avoid looking confused, but I never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, "Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look. I was recently asked if I tweet. I answered, "No, but I do toot a lot."

Tom O'Brien "

Older Adults and Social Media -- Trends

"Among adults ages 65 and older, 13% log on to social networking sites on a typical day, compared with just 4% who did so in 2009." According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, older adults have been increasingly enthusiastic about using social media. For the overview and full report, see

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Older-Adults-and-Social-Media.aspx

Apple to Demonstrate iPADs on November 1

San Mateo Senior Computer Club President Jeanne Martin met with representatives from Apple Computer today and invited them to our November Computer Club meeting on Monday, November 1 @ 2-4pm.    

Interested seniors can make reservations by sending an e-mail RSVP to opyc1st@yahoo.com or calling (650)345-7029 for further information.  Reservations are needed in order to determine how many chairs to set up,  Apple will bring as many iPADs as they can so we will be able to feel and use them.

Publishers Weekly - News & Trends on 60+ Readers

Book publishers are making changes to large print books and e-Readers in response to the huge number of age 60+ Baby Boomers entering the market. According to a Publishers' Weekly article on "Seeing the Big Picture", Baby Boomers account for 78 million or a fourth of America's population. Here are some changes that are happening:

• Type size will increase from the traditional 11 font size to 14 font size (not the 16 font size of Large Print books).
• More publishers will release the larger print books versions at the same time as the standard books, thanks to technology that makes this easier.
• E-Books and other new digital readers have not yet impacted the bottom line of large-print publishers, but it is just a matter of time.
  

SkillfulSenior - A Typing Tutorial for Seniors

A Los Angeles Unified School District teacher librarian recommended a free, online touch typing tutorial by Sense-Lang. There are tutorials and games. It is available in 17 languages. This should be useful for San Mateo's diverse community.

Sense-Lang also includes a typing tutorial especially for older adults called Skillful Seniors.

There is a practice session on using a MOUSE.
There is another practice for using ARROWS.
Start with ERGONOMICS lesson to meet the instructor... enjoy!

ElderGadget - a website on Products with Elder-Friendly Features

The San Francisco Chronicle carried an article about how the Apple iPad was popular with seniors. Chronicle staff reporter Ryan Kim wrote "IPAD Appears to be Clicking With Seniors".

The article also referenced ElderGadget, a useful website that carries news and reviews of products that have "elder-friendly" features. See http://www.eldergadget.com/ Product categories reviewed by ElderGadget include about a hundred products beyond computer and other technology products. Check it out.

[Note: Remember to refer to the online tutorial "Discovering Assistive Technology" because the tutorial's links are updated as new user-friendly products become available.]

All My Faves: A Visual Display of Favorite Sites

Do you have a list of favorite websites that you visit regularly or keep track of in your "favorites", "bookmarks", or "delicious"? Well, here is a fun and useful site that visually displays best sites for everything under the sun. Click on All My Faves (subtitled: Why Search?) is a list of lists, displayed by logos.

Along the LEFT side is a list of topics such as:

• Topics of the Day (Mother's Day)
• e-mail
• video
• maps
• search
• news
• weather

(plus about 50 more categories)
Explore the topic on "Seniors" -- http://www.allmyfaves.com/Seniors

ACROSS the page next to each topic are no words, just the logo or icon for top sites. For example, after "e-mail" is the logo for Yahoo! mail -- Gmail -- MSN Hotmail -- AOL -- and many more

Computer Club Learns to BLOG!

On Monday, April 5th, the SMSCC discussed and started its blog in earnest! That means we all decided to "FOLLOW" our club's blog. Or... most of us committed to the fun challenge.

We added a photo of this cute cat because it is looking at us and will remind us to "FOLLOW" this blog.

The first portion of our meeting today was the "Help Desk" time for asking all sorts of questions about our technology troubles. Today, we discussed the tool bar and how to keep it from moving to the side of the screen. The answer is: Tool bars can be easily moved from the bottom of the screeen to the side or top by left clicking the mouse and "dragging" the tool bar. If you don't wish for the tool bar to move, we learned how to "LOCK" the tool bar by right-clicking and selecting "LOCK TOOL BAR".

New Apple iPAD

Apple released its long-awaited wireless iPAD device on Saturday, April 3, 2010. Some eager fans camped out overnight by stores in order to be the first in line to buy one. There were long lines in the morning. As they waited in line, many "Twittered" about standing in line. :) Here is a CNN article about the iPAD roll-out. Lots of features and fun, especially for Apple fans who like the latest and greatest.

Competitors will soon catch up and prices will drop, so this is the time to watch who is buying it and how it will be used.

READABILITY -- Tool to Cut Clutter

Readability is a powerful new cool tool by arc90 that eliminates website clutter when you want to just focus on the content and not the surrounding "stuff". It is meant for newspaper articles, not home pages. According to its website, it is a 2-step process select your settings; add your bookmarklet. It works like a charm! Try it on an article from the SF Chronicle on SFGate.
See the video:

Readability - Installation Video for Firefox, Safari & Chrome from Arc90 on Vimeo.

New Tool for Searching Google: Deeper Web

"Deeper Web"is a beta test of a new service to help search Google. It's also available as a Firefox add-on. Very nice. It puts search results in tag or phrase clouds. High school librarians think it is useful for helping students identify other helpful search terms. See: http://www.deeperweb.com/

Discovery Learning - Tutorial

We often hear how people "get lost in time when online". Do you like the rhyme?

It is true that we often "stumble upon" interesting items and follow links to more details or additional websites. Discovery Learning is another name for that. In these, the reader learns about a topic such as new technology tools for persons with disabilities or communicating in the 21st century, but they use their own interests and passions to learn MORE about the technology tools that are relevant to them.

Here are a few discovery learning tutorials that you can explore:

• Discovering Assistive Technology: This tutorial is brought to you by the California School Library Association and TransAccess, a community-based organization that provides persons with disabilities access to computer adaptive technology and career transition services so that they can achieve their desired education and employment, and improve their quality of life.

• Learning Web 2.0: Librarians at the College of San Mateo offer this introductory tutorial on blogs, wikis, image creation, news feeds, and more -- at no cost -- enjoy!
  

Apple's iPad

Apple CEO and showman extraordinaire Steve Jobs introduced Apple's new iPad tablet on January 27, 2010 in San Francisco. It was an invitation-only event, but it was captured on video and posted it to the Apple Special Event site. The first half hour is pure Steve Jobs. The next hour is a series of more detailed demos on applications that already exist for the iMac, iPhone, and other Apple products that are also available on the larger device, the iPad.

PC World's review of the iPad lists five "best surprises":

• Price - lower than expected. Priced to compete with netbooks and/or eBook Readers
• Pre-paid, nocontract, unlocked G3
• External keyboard support
• iWork for iPad
• ePub support of International Digital Publishing Forum Standard for open-standards-based-format for digital books.

Another review, "Tablet Makers Rethinking Things in Wake of iPad's $499 Price" points out, among other things, that the iPad has no USB interface ports, so it is more like a larger version of the iPhone. Tricks to keep iPad price low:

• "... iPad left out some key hardware features and will instead charge users a nice markup on accessories designed to give those features back. Specifically, the lack of built-in USB ports and SD card support saved a few dollars per unit, and for a unit that will eventually sell in the tens of millions, that's real money."
• "...the classic up-sell. The company is charging considerably more for the 3G and/or more storage, with the result that buyers of the higher-end models are pitching in extra money to pay for the low-end model's discount."
• "...making up lost hardware revenues with content sales. ... Apple can afford to give away the hardware because it's taking a cut of iTunes, App Store, and iBook sales."

Our First Post

The Computer Club now has a blog! Stay tuned for interesting and timely items. Visit us online or at the San Mateo Senior Center.

We've added our logo of the computer holding a letter. How? It is an old logo and we only have it on an old brochure, so we made a digital image of it, saved it as a .jpeg image, and then added it to the sidebar.

We also added an avatar (representation of a person) in a computer classroom. That's fitting, right? Several of us will be experimenting and "playing" with the words and design, so please don't be surprised if the original orange template is a different color next time you look.

Homework for the computer club: Look over this blog and then learn how to create your own by taking the free & fun online course called "CSM Learning 2.0". There are 23 "Things" to learn -- learn one thing a week or one thing a month. Enjoy!