Tech Tuesday- Etiquette and Keyboard Tips

A request was received last week about some email etiquette for forwarding emails and replies.

Sometimes you receive an email that you want to share with your friends. That is all well and good, but there are some guidelines to follow. Rather than just clicking on the Forward icon, you need to take a moment and clean that email up. (and if you are not willing to clean the email up before you send it-don’t forward it)

Subject- make sure it doesn’t just say Re: In fact, it is best in all emails that you send to put detailed information in the subject line. This will save your readers time. What if they have received that funny cat video five times already? This way they will know and won’t have to spend time opening the email.

Remove old addresses and any text you don’t need.- After you click on forward all the addresses are in the body of your email. Sometimes pages of addresses from all the forwards are in your email. Delete all that information. It does become a privacy issue when these addresses are forwarded on and on. 

Files- Be careful what you forward and the size. Again, you don’t want to send on any viruses. The size of your attachments can be a problem. On videos, it might be better to just send the URL rather than the video for size sake. Also, note that the IPhone and IPad do not open Flash Player. Flash Player has issues with the operating systems on these devices and will not work properly. Apple will not use it on the IPhone and Ipad until Flash Player addresses those issues.

Reply All Button- Before you use this button, ask yourself, “Does everyone need to read this?” Probably not. So either don’t reply or email the one person that needs your input. 

If someone does a favor for the group, email that person personally. Everyone does not need to see your thank you. This is the same in texting. If you receive a group text either answer back to the group the info they need to know or just the person asking the questions. Do not start a new conversation with a person in the group text and have the group wondering what the heck you are saying. It is best to use Reply All and Group Text very, very sparingly. I have learned this the hard way.

Now that you are ready to type your etiquette ready emails with your IPhone or Ipad, here is a video with some good keyboard tips to make that task easier. 

Media Monday- It's a Little Bit of a Rant

(It is important to preface this post with the reminder that I love animals. I do not want to see any animal harmed. For goodness sake, I am married to a veterinarian, and an animal's well being is our life. So this post is in no way in disregard about the animals in this article.) 

The news media drives me insane with their sensationalism. I have written about that before, and the fact that I don't like reading or listening to their bad reporting makes a varied Media Monday hard.

However, last week, I saw this article on the front page of the Tarrant section of the Star-Telegram and I had to comment. Just for your information, the byline is not even in the online version.  So, if you were just reading the headlines online, you would not even know a child was involved.

I was appalled that the by-line was not the headline in this article. This tells me that the mistreatment of dogs has become a bigger sale of papers than the fact that a one year old child was found "amid squalid conditions". 

Seriously, people? Have we honestly become a nation that doesn't care about the children? This brought me back to the Penn State scandal, which is also in the news. I still have not wrapped my head around the idea that a grown man, McQueary, could observe a child being hurt and not say "Stop it", and get that child out of harms way. That should have been step one in that whole horrible situation.

 Isn't it our duty to protect the ones that can't protect themselves? Personally, I feel our media needs to stand up for what is right also, not just what sells papers or gets them top ratings. 

Rant over. 

Thanks for listening.

Moving and Dancing

Although, Joanie and family were not in Mansfield for Barry's birthday, I was with them in Houston on Friday. Joanie and Jacob were moving into the house that they recently purchased. They have been renting in the neighborhood where they wished to live for two years, waiting patiently to find the perfect house. It was worth the wait.

My job was to keep Ava and Lucy out of their way over the weekend so they could get the move accomplished. I have to say that I did an excellent job, because they were all moved in, had the rent house cleaned up, and were unpacking boxes by 3:30pm. Actually, they had everything organized for the move and good movers, so I couldn't take all the credit even though I tried.

Sometime before 8:00am, Lucy, Ava, and I went to breakfast. Then, we headed to the Splash Park. Since it was 9:00am on a Friday morning, we were the only ones there for a while. I think Lucy liked the Splash Park best.

At 11:00am we went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. One of Ava's preschool classmates came in with his two sisters (triplets) and their nanny. We managed to kill two more hours at Chick-Fil-A. Woo-Hoo!

Then, I put the girls back in the car and drove around for an hour while they took a nap. I know that was not very "green" of me, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Lastly, we went to the toy store and played for a while. We bought two toy brooms which in hind site was a mistake, because Lucy and Ava pretty much just hit stuff with them while they are trying to sweep. 

As if moving wasn't enough for the weekend, Ava had her first dance recital on Saturday morning. 

She had missed her dress rehearsal because they were here for Cora's birth. Things did not go well backstage. Joanie kept texting us that Ava was freaking out. The other mothers kept asking, "Wasn't she at the dress rehearsal?" But, when Ava's class went onstage, she was just smiling and doing her dance. When she got off stage, and Joanie met back up with her to change her costume, Ava said she "loved it." A star was born.

Her grandparents showered her with flowers and kisses. One took photographs.

Her parents were pretty proud too. I think Lucy thought the Splash Park was more fun.

Oh, to be three and adorable.

A Belated Birthday Post

Last Friday was Barry's birthday. We celebrated early, because I was going to Houston and would not be in town on the actual day. Here is the abridged version of the earlier lost post.

Shannon was kind enough to fix Barry's birthday dinner and have us over to their house.

Michelle was there because she is free to move around now!

Miles and Baby Cora were there too. Doesn't Miles look like a "natural" holding his little girl?

Ben and Scarlett gave Poppy some golf equipment. I think he likes his shirt!

Shannon made Barry banana pudding, one of his favorite desserts. I think he likes that too.

Ben and Scarlett spent some quality cousin time with Cora. Michelle is trying to figure out how she can get Scarlett to skip kindergarten and keep Cora for her when she goes back to work. Scarlett just doesn't realize how hard it would be to "craft" while holding the baby all day. 

Barry ponders Cora's little feet as Scarlett watches like the good baby whisperer that she is. 

Shannon, Brett, and I were there also. We did not make it in any of the photographs. Something must be done about that. I will speak with the photographer. 

Except for the fact that Joanie and her family were not there, I think it was a pretty perfect birthday. 

Smacks of Old Fart

I hate to "break bad" on my sweet, loving, and beautiful wife of almost 43 years, but here of late she has been a virtual fount of old fart fodder. 

For example, our morning routine (except for the days that I go to the office...aka the golf course for 18 holes with my buddies) consists of Jennifer (wife) reading the paper and doing the paper's daily puzzles, and me playing a mindless game on the computer and watching Fox News in my "Man Cave." At some point, normally after my second cup of coffee, I'll say, "Hey, I'm going to make some toast...want any?" 

Usually Jennifer says she doesn't because I like my toast fixed in a toaster (go figure) and she likes hers prepared in the oven. You know...oven turned to high broil, bread lightly buttered on one side, then placed on a cookie sheet, and the cookie sheet slid onto the middle rack of the oven. Half way through the cooking portion of the preparation process, the cookie sheet is removed from the oven, the bread turned over, the cookie sheet placed back on the middle rack of the oven, and cooking continued until the toast just starts to turn brown. Next the oven is turned off and the toast allowed to dry out from the oven's residual heat. She claims this method renders perfect toast. (Feel free to add this to your recipe files.)

Well, just the other day, Jennifer decided she wanted toast made her way. She went to the kitchen, turned on the oven, opened the storage drawer directly below the oven, retrieved a cookie sheet, got bread from the pantry and began the preparation process. 

A few minutes later she returned to the kitchen to check on the progress of her toast. She turned on the oven light and opened the oven door. You can imagine her surprise when all she saw was an empty hot oven. After a few minutes of intense freaking out, she opened the storage drawer below the oven and....yep, there it was, one cookie sheet with two slices of bread, lightly buttered on one side.

I laughingly told this story to our daughter Erin, who immediately asked, "Dad, do you need to be concerned about Mom misplacing things?" I told her no, that I wasn't concerned. I'm just attributing it to the company she's been keeping. 

You see, our neighbor and good friend, Sue, spent hours one day looking for her purse. She finally decided to give up the search, convincing herself the purse would eventually turn up. After all, it couldn't have just walked off. A little while later, Sue went to the kitchen to start supper. She opened the refrigerator to get out some meat that had been marinating, and there it was, sitting right next to a half gallon of milk--one, no longer missing, purse. 

I don't know if Jennifer and Sue would agree, but I'm pretty sure that both of these stories "Smack of Old Fart." Its either that or our subdivision was built on an old Indian Burial Ground and angry evil spirits are out for revenge. Naw...they just "Smack of Old Fart." 

-Pat

Here it is Tech Tuesday, and I have to begin with a confession. I have failed computer 101. I believe that my post Friday did not appear due to writer error. I am afraid I may not have saved the post before trying to post it. There is a little loop hole, though, in that I was using my iPad with an app, not my computer with the regular program. I would like to think that I possibly surpassed the maximum usage of the app with photos and my snappy post. We will never know, so let me begin this Tech Tuesday with a very important reminder:

Always SAVE your work. Whether that is backing up to an external hard drive, the cloud, or whatever, always save anything that you wish to keep. 

Now you should be aware of the extent of my knowledge. Tech Tuesday, may not last long.

I am going to start fairly basic and will focus on Apple products (because that's all I know). But, if you are one of my friends that has asked me a question, this is for you.

Today I am going to review adding new bookmarks on your iPad and iPhone. To let you know what my desktops look like, I have an original iPad and an iPhone 4.

Let's say you have a website that you would like to bookmark. While you are on the web page, touch the icon that is a rectangle with a right pointing arrow in it. On the iPad it is on the top of the page to the left of the web page address. On the iPhone it is at the bottom center of the screen.

On the iPad you will see this pop up window. You can choose Add Bookmark.

 Then you can choose where this bookmark goes. On this example, I have Bookmark Bar chosen. This will place the bookmark below the address box. You can touch that box and it will give you other folders or places in bookmarks to save the webpage.

Another alternative is to save the webpage directly to your Home Screen. (on a regular computer, we would just call this our desktop). 

This is what my Home Screen looks like with some websites saved to it. 

You can organize these also, but we will save that for another day. 

 The iPhone works basically the same way. The icons to do so are just in a different place. Notice the rectangle with the arrow is in at the center, bottom of the screen.

When you touch that icon the same screen pops up as on the iPad. 

When you select the Add Bookmark or Add to Home Screen, you will get the same screen as above.
Go ahead and save your favorite website, so you don't have to search for them. Share your favorites with the rest of us!

Now for an app review. Your iPhone and iPad should have the app Reminders on it. Not only can you write yourself reminders, you can set the app to remind you of your task as you leave your house or arrive at your destination. Of course, if you are using the 4S, you have Siri to do this for you.

Is this too basic? Let me know!

Media Monday

First, I do realize that Friday's post contained no content. More on that tomorrow (Tech Tuesday).

Now for Media Monday. I actually thought this would be easy to write since I spend a lot of time with magazines, television, movies, podcast, etc. Plus, I have Joe to pitch in whenever he can. However, for the past several days I have spent very little time with "media".

So, I will review the only movie besides Hunger Games, that I have seen. If you haven't read, seen or heard all about Hunger Games, then you probably don't care about this sort of post anyway.

I recently went to see Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. I heard about it through some of my close friends, the Satellite Sisters. (Trust me, I really wanted to write about their podcast, but I think I've mentioned it enough.)

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a British romantic comedy. Yes, there are salmon and some fly fishing, but it is more of a love story. The director is Lasse Halstrom and these are some of his films.

Chocolat (2000)

What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

The Cider House Rules (1999)

Dear John (2010)

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is more fluffy than the above movies from this director, but it is a nice, entertaining film.

Harriet played by Emily Blunt works for a Sheik, who is an avid fly fisherman, and wishes to bring the sport to his home place of Yemen. The Sheik is played by Amr Waked.  Ewan McGregor, plays Dr. Jones, who is enlisted to bring the salmon to the Sheik's reservoir, even though he feels it is an impossible task.

Both Emily Blunt and Ewan McGregor are very good in this film. Ewan McGregor fits the role of a Fisheries Department expert very well. I actually liked him in this understated role better than his other movie roles. In my opinion, he should take more parts like this. I am an Emily Blunt fan and, she did not let me down. I will say, though, that when she turns sideways, she is about two inches wide. Eat a cheese square, Emily. (From which film is that line?) Waked plays the part of a handsome, rich, wise sheik well.

Kristin Scott Thomas is the Secretary to the Prime Minister.  From other reviews I have read, her part is more true to the sarcasm and biting tone of the book. But, I have not read the book, so I can't really validate that fact. However, she plays the part of a tough woman in the political world to a tee.

The movie is entertaining and sweet. The humor is what one reviewer called "gentle" and I couldn't come up with a better description for the humor. If you don't see this movie during its limited showings in the theater, (Angelika Film Center and Cafe in Dallas or Cinemark West in Plano), catch it on pay for view when it appears. It is not a blockbuster, just a nice film and definitely worth the price of home entertainment.