It would feel pretty strange to spend work time playing with my phone - an iPhone 4S - so I did most of this on my own time. I found a bunch of things that I didn't know about my phone, most of which I won't use because that's not how I use this device at this time.
One thing that I'm really happy to have learned is that I haven't been closing apps. I've been trying to figure out why our data consumption has been going up and up, and now I think I know! In trying to explain to my husband what it meant, I put it this way: by pressing the home button we were minimizing the app, but it was still running in the background, just waiting for us to come back to it, refreshing itself, and eating up data time. It'll take a billing cycle to figure out whether that's the cause of our data use or not, but I expect that it is.
Another feature I discovered is one that my farmer husband will probably like. A spirit level built into the phone. Heck, I might even use it in the house occasionally!
I think the most useful part of this exercise is that it should help me remember to mention the same option to people asking about their devices - whether from a manufacturer's website, youtube, or about.com - there's a lot of help out there. We already use Internet searches to find answers to eReader questions - odds are someone else has had the same question & posted an answer.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Mobile Thing 1
I've been debating with myself whether I was going to begin this project or not. But here I am, writing the first blog entry, so I guess I've decided to begin. Remains to be seen whether I finish or not.
I am an older librarian and feel that I have kept up with technology reasonably, though not exceptionally, well. I was an early adopter of personal computers and Internet, excited about the possibilities for research that the Internet could provide. [You'll notice that I still default to Internet with a capital I - it's an automatic reflex and I'm a touch typist from the old school.] I have not been an early adopter of newer technologies, such as eReaders, tablets, etc. For example, I got my first 'smart' phone less than a year ago. But I do have the smart phone now, and my branch library has 5 tablets on display for patrons to explore. So it seems reasonable that I should try the 23 Mobile Things; learn new things, explore new technologies, keep my brain active, etc.
The biggest reason against doing this project is that I know much of it will end up being done on my own time. Even though my library system is supportive of staff working on the 23 Things, my particular branch is pretty short on librarians given its size and busyness, and I just don't have an extra hour or two (more if I end up struggling with an app) each week to spend on something that doesn't directly benefit the library. Today I am able to write this first post during my off-desk time because, for some bizarre reason, all of my major projects are temporarily caught up.
The biggest reason for attempting the 23 Things is as stated above: I have quite a few years yet until retirement and I want to keep reasonably current with technology. I don't want to rely on younger colleagues to have to regularly pull my fat out of the fire when dealing with new things. That said, Thing 1 was fairly simple, since I have a personal blog already. I chose, for 23 Things, to create a new blog, keeping my work and my personal life separate. This blog will exist only for the 23 Mobile Things project. And I will probably never post to this blog using my mobile device (an iPhone) because I find typing on mobile devices tedious at best and painful at worst. Having grown up in the era when most girls were encouraged to learn to type, I am a touch typist. I am getting better at typing with my thumbs to send text messages, but will never be as fast as I am with a keyboard, where I can type pretty much as fast as I can think the words.
Thing 1: done.
I am an older librarian and feel that I have kept up with technology reasonably, though not exceptionally, well. I was an early adopter of personal computers and Internet, excited about the possibilities for research that the Internet could provide. [You'll notice that I still default to Internet with a capital I - it's an automatic reflex and I'm a touch typist from the old school.] I have not been an early adopter of newer technologies, such as eReaders, tablets, etc. For example, I got my first 'smart' phone less than a year ago. But I do have the smart phone now, and my branch library has 5 tablets on display for patrons to explore. So it seems reasonable that I should try the 23 Mobile Things; learn new things, explore new technologies, keep my brain active, etc.
The biggest reason against doing this project is that I know much of it will end up being done on my own time. Even though my library system is supportive of staff working on the 23 Things, my particular branch is pretty short on librarians given its size and busyness, and I just don't have an extra hour or two (more if I end up struggling with an app) each week to spend on something that doesn't directly benefit the library. Today I am able to write this first post during my off-desk time because, for some bizarre reason, all of my major projects are temporarily caught up.
The biggest reason for attempting the 23 Things is as stated above: I have quite a few years yet until retirement and I want to keep reasonably current with technology. I don't want to rely on younger colleagues to have to regularly pull my fat out of the fire when dealing with new things. That said, Thing 1 was fairly simple, since I have a personal blog already. I chose, for 23 Things, to create a new blog, keeping my work and my personal life separate. This blog will exist only for the 23 Mobile Things project. And I will probably never post to this blog using my mobile device (an iPhone) because I find typing on mobile devices tedious at best and painful at worst. Having grown up in the era when most girls were encouraged to learn to type, I am a touch typist. I am getting better at typing with my thumbs to send text messages, but will never be as fast as I am with a keyboard, where I can type pretty much as fast as I can think the words.
Thing 1: done.
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