Category Archives: technology

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Weekly Writing Challenge: Image vs. Text

I drafted this post before I saw this week’s Weekly Writing Challenge: Image vs. Text, and was struggling to pick an image to accompany it. Should I borrow Evernote’s logo, since I’m giving them free advertising anyway? Maybe Rob has a picture of me using my Nook. I was tempted to steal photos of Louis CK, Fred Armisen and Vanessa Bayer, or at least embed the videos I link to below.

Given the challenge at hand, I have taken a post I didn’t know how to illustrate with one picture, and illustrated it with four images.

The Next Generation of Typos

I no longer know how to write things by hand, so I’ve begun making notes to myself on my Nook and my iPod touch. Evernote seems to be designed for such things, because it syncs to become available on multiple devices.

cloud_api_graphic

evernote.com

I turned off the autocorrect feature on my digital devices long ago, because I trust my own ability to spell over the computer’s assumption that when I type pissy,what I really mean is pussy. True story: my stepmother emailed my significant other that her Blackberry tried to autocorrect her message to him thusly.

In a pinch, I’ve used Evernote to jot down what could be described as a journal entry. Let me explain. In a world before blogs, people wrote things down for themselves as private documentation. Today I felt sad, or My best friend really pissed me off. Things you don’t want other people to read, but make you feel better to express.

I expect that these personal musings will be useful for future memoir or fiction projects, but because those pesky little touch screens are so small, my literal notes to self are riddled with typos. I’m terribly afraid that after my death, some historian will come across them and won’t understand that my spelling errors are a result of the technology of the time.

writing

I do all my writing by keyboard, but I still edit with a pen.

I suppose everyone else in the world has an iPad or whatever, and has been word processing remotely for years, but Evernote has been something of a revelation to me. The members of my writing group provide one another with typed critiques. On a few recent occasions, I’ve wanted to work on my critiques in places that weren’t convenient to take my laptop. On an airplane to and from a weekend getaway, as one example. In the car at the Canadian border crossing, for another.

Disney

Celebrating Rob’s birthday. Didn’t feel like taking the laptop with me.

On the way back from Disneyland in January, I wrote three critiques on my Nook, then uploaded and corrected my spelling errors on my laptop before printing. On Sunday, I planned to do the same, but when I got in the car, I realized that my Nook’s battery wasn’t charged. I handwrote (as legibly as I could) two critiques before I remembered that I had Evernote on my iPod. I wrote the third critique on the tiny handheld touchpad keyboard.

Sometimes technology really a-freaking-mazes me. And I don’t even have a smartphone that uploads photos to Instagram.

Louis CK really nailed it with this commentary. (“Give it a second to get back from space!”)

nook

Pretty sure the coolest thing about my Nook is the sticker I put on the M-Edge case.

I will say (lowering voice like Kim Jong Un’s best friends from growing up), the Nook Tablet is not a great tablet. It’s a fine e-reader and the price was right. But it’s seriously deficient in apps (none for Facebook, for example, which would have been a dealbreaker if I’d known ahead of time) and the web browser is pretty shabby. My next electronic device will be a true tablet (unless my iPod dies and needs replacing first). Probably the iPad mini.

UPDATE 3.24.13: I spent $19.99 to turn my Nook SD card into a Nook 2 Android card. This may have resolved all of my tablet complaints, namely the lack of a Facebook app. Now I just have to adjust to the Android interface, which on first use does not seem as pretty as the Nook’s. Fortunately, I can easily switch between the Nook and the Android just by rebooting the device.

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Building a blog tribe

hearthfire

I never used to care how many readers I had.

When I first started blogging in 2002, I was afraid to attach my name to it, afraid to put myself all the way out there. I wanted to write publicly, but didn’t necessarily want people knowing who I was. I was living in Prague and wanted family and friends to know what I was up to. Family members followed my blog, but very few friends did.

I don’t envy those of you who blog as a profession. I can’t imagine being dependent on hits for my income. To me that’s really scary. I want to blog what I want to blog and not worry about my following.

For most of its life, Rhymes with Safari had about six readers, and that was just fine with me.

As I get ready to start querying agents for my memoir, Bark and Lunge, I’m constantly hearing that I need to build a platform. I need to show prospective agents and editors that I can attract a following. They want to know that more than six people will buy my book.

To that end, I’ve joined some social networking groups aimed at expanding one’s blogging reach, and I’ve more than doubled my Twitter following… to a whopping 96 tweeps.

I’ve made a few changes around here. I bought the domain KariNeumeyer.com a few months back, and you’ll notice that’s now the default URL. Right now, both KariNeumeyer and RhymeswithSafari will get you here, but I may not renew RhymeswithSafari.com a year from now.

I’ve also been advised to establish myself as a dog blogger, and not blog about unrelated topics. That way, publishers will recognize that I am the right person to write a memoir about loving an aggressive dog.

Interestingly and probably unfortunately, my dog posts don’t attract the most readers. My travel posts last year seemed wildly popular among total strangers.

In Brooke Warner’s book What’s Your Book? she talks about losing interest in a travel writer whose blog wasn’t entirely about travel. I feel for that blogger. I wouldn’t be able to sustain a travel-only blog year-round, not the way I blogged during my last trip.

I probably could write about nothing but dogs, but I fear that would get boring. Post after post about Leo chewing a piece of furniture, or Mia stealing his toys. I mean I could look at pictures of my dogs forever. Could you?

Besides, there are lots of dog blogs out there. There’s only one KariNeumeyer, and she also likes to talk about movies, and describe her experiences at the walk-in clinic and emergency room.

I am allowed to write about writing and the process of getting published though, so at least this post is acceptable.

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Pet Blogger Challenge

Rather than have an existential crisis about whether Rhymes with Safari counts as a dog blog, I’m gonna just jump in and participate in GoPetFriendly’s Pet Blogger Challenge.

me and doggies

1. When did you begin your blog?

I started blogging in 2002, when I was living in Prague and working for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

2. What was your original purpose for starting a blog?

This was before Twitter and Facebook. I didn’t even know what a blog was until my friend Chelsea told me she started one. At the time, I posted whatever random musings I had during the day, much the way we all use Facebook and Twitter now. I also posted links to funny things on the Internet, and commented on the international news events I covered at my job.

3. Is your current purpose the same?

Not at all. You’ll notice that the above description has nothing to do with pets. My fella and I got our first dog, Isis, in 2006. For a few years, I blogged fairly infrequently, but when I did, it was usually about Isis. I posted lots of  pictures of her with soccer balls.

Isis died in 2011. I have written a memoir about Isis’s life, and am starting the process of getting that published.

Now my blog focuses on the antics of my delightful muses Leo and Mia.

4. How often do you post?

A goal I feel I can meet is to post at least once a week. I would like to post more often.

5. Do you blog on a schedule or as the spirit moves you?

As the spirit moves me. I find it hard to stick to “dog blog” topics only, so I also write about pop culture a lot, books and authors, food and fitness.

6. How much time do you spend writing your blog per week? How much time visiting other blogs? Share your  tips for staying on top of it all.

I find myself thinking of topics and mentally writing blog entries throughout the week, and spend less than an hour actually typing up each post. But then, I write pretty fast. I could never charge by the hour for my services!

I visit other blogs all the time, as part of my regular social media diet. Every time I scroll through Facebook and Twitter, I find lots that I want to read. When I’m on a desktop computer, I’ll click all of them and read at my leisure, but it can be tough on a mobile device. Especially when the wifi is temperamental.

7. How do you measure the success of a post and of your blog in general (comments, shares, traffic)?

All of the above. Mostly I look at my stats in WordPress. I’m learning to use hashtags in Twitter to stimulate sharing. Last fall, I got more “likes” on my posts about a trip to Russia (which did not include the dogs) than I did on my most heartfelt dog posts. I started to wonder if I should be writing a travel blog instead of a dog blog.

8. If you could ask the pet blogging community for help with one issue you’re having with your blog, what would it be?

I would like to attract more readers. Can I do that by writing about other topics besides my dogs, or will I lose my cred as a dog blogger?

Please subscribe and/or follow me on Twitter: @KariNeumeyer

9. What goals do you have for your blog in 2013?

More readers! Post 2-3 times a week. Lose 25 pounds. Sell my memoir! (OK, those last two are more personal goals than blog goals.)

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Pet Blogger Challenge Jan. 10
The Pet Blogger Challenge was started by Amy at Take Paws- Go Pet Friendly and Edie of Will My Dog Hate Me? as a way for pet bloggers to meet each other, learn about each other’s goals for our blogs and find support for our blogging. This is the 3rd year and the number of bloggers joining in grows each year.

This is a Blog Hop, but WordPress won’t allow the Javascript to include the links. Please visit Take Paws to see the complete list of Pet Blogger Challenge participants.

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The evolution of my travel journal

image

Before email, it was all about the travel journal. Sometimes I went through more than one and had to acquire another abroad. Record every sight, every meal, what I paid for each souvenir, what my traveling companion had done to get on my nerves.

Before blogs, assuming I wasn’t traveling with her, it was all about emails to my mother. “Save these. They’re a record of my trip.”

Before wifi, it was all about hunting down an internet cafe, where I could email my mother, and after blogs, write posts about my adventures, for my six readers to see.

Before my Nook Tablet, I sat down at internet cafes in India, Thailand and Vietnam, and tried to remember that clever thing I thought of in front of that Buddhist shrine, and tried to reconstruct my thoughts for a blog.

What the addition of a tablet and omnipresent wifi have done for my travelogues! Not only can I check Facebook at nearly every cafe, but the WordPress app that works offline allows me to write a blog post as easily as jot something in a travel diary.

Resting on a bench in the Hermitage, have a thought about the Renoir before me? Blog about it now, post it later.

Rob’s iPad adds a whole other dimension. He can take photos, somewhat surreptitiously at times, edit them, and upload them on the same device.

Plus, we’ve got maps and guidebooks on our devices, which we can consult without looking (as much) like the clueless tourists we are.

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Hating the phone

Each of these things happened today, reminding me why I prefer email to the telephone.

  • A female robot answered the phone and asked me to dial the extension of the person I was trying to reach. “If you do not know the extension, dial zero-zero.” I dialed zero-zero. She said, “Please dial the extension you are trying to reach.” I hit zero again. “Please dial the extension you are trying to reach.” I hung up.
  • I tried again later and reached the person. He asked me to call back on his cell because of static on his land line. When I called him back on his cell, he was echo-y and hard to hear.
  • A receptionist at a doctor’s office returned my call. I answered. She said, “Hi, Carrie.” And then my phone went boop boop and the call was disconnected. Mia and I were on our lunchtime walk at the time, so I put my phone back in my pocket and called back a half hour later when I returned to the office. The receptionist said, “I tried calling you earlier, but our phones must have disconnected.” Uh huh. And you just decided not to try calling me again? Great customer service. (My phone identified the incoming number as the doctor’s fax machine, so I couldn’t exactly call her right back, could I?)

Just when I was ready to slip into total misanthropy, I had an in-person experience that surpassed the electronic one. I needed to print out 100 copies of a double-sided color 11×17 document. I thought it would be a pain in the ass to put the file on a flash drive and take it physically into the Office Depot that is two blocks away. Instead, I uploaded it to their website, but the site wasn’t able to process my company’s store credit card.

Whatever! Irritated, I yanked open my desk drawer and pulled out a flash drive. It took me longer to delete the files that were on the flash drive than it did to save the new file and drive the two blocks to Office Depot. I worried that Mia would be too hot in the car as I waited for the strange copy ladies to finish with other people’s online orders.

Strange as they were, they had my documents printed in less than 10 minutes.

Bonus: What I thought would cost $250 wound up costing $76 because of some business discount I might not have gotten if I’d ordered the copies online. So there you have it. Score one for the old-fashioned way.

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Wreck and effect

In the week since my high-speed* MVA, I’ve done some spacey things.

  1. I squeezed conditioner instead of body wash onto my washcloth in the shower.
  2. I flushed the toilet when I meant to turn on the shower.
  3. I tried to fax something upside down. (A blank page arrived at the other end.)

I can’t say for sure that these are the result of being in a car accident. I’ve done the first and the third before. Never the second, though, that was a new one.

* I referred to it as a high-speed collision the other day and Rob said, “You weren’t in a high-speed collision. You were barely moving!” Fair enough.

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Unflappable

I had about four hours between appointments 20 miles from the office. Plenty of time to return in between, but where’s the fun in that? I brought along my laptop and planned to eat lunch/kill time at Starbucks.

On the way to Starbucks from appointment #1, my car started making a funny noise. It sounded like I had an old-fashioned cassette tape player on the passenger side floor and it was rewinding itself. I had plenty of electronics in the car: laptop, SLR camera, flip camera, MP3 recorder, iPod, mobile phone. None of those make that noise.

I pulled off into a rest area and the noise stopped as I slowed the car. I popped the hood and looked inside. Looked like an engine to me. I turned on the engine and looked again. There was a spinny part, but it wasn’t making the same noise the car made when it was in motion.

I consulted my owner’s manual. Did you know there’s no diagram of the engine in there? How to turn the volume up on the stereo, that’s in there. But if you want to know the name of that spinny thing on the left-hand side, good luck to ya.

I used my GPS device (oh yeah, forgot to list that one above) to look up the closest Honda dealer. There’s one 20 miles to the north and 20 miles to the south. I looked up “car repair” and found a list of transmission places and body shops. I congratulated myself for knowing that a body shop was not what I wanted. The transmission place wasn’t necessarily correct either, but it was in the right arena. During the 2 mile drive, the sound was awful, but the car felt like it was driving normally.

I passed a Les Schwab (pat on the back for knowing that wasn’t what I needed either) and found a rinky dink car repair place behind a body shop and next to Enterprise rent-a-car. It was closed.

I decided to try my luck at the car dealership across the street from Les Schwab. It’s an American car dealership, but a service departments is a service department, right? I said, “I have the wrong kind of car, but it’s making a funny noise…” After taking a lap around the parking lot, the mechanic agreed. Yes, in fact, it is making a noise.

Now, instead of whiling away my afternoon at Starbucks (which I considered walking to), I’m at a hotel restaurant. I’m told the dealership has a nice waiting room, but lacks an internet connection. The hotel restaurant has wi-fi, a lovely vegetarian sandwich and beer-battered french fries.

I may even still make my afternoon appointment.

Update – 17 minutes later: Gravel got all up in the wheel part or something. Fixed now. Still time to get to Starbucks. Or, you know, take a nap in my car.

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The flip phone you’ll have to pry from my cold, dead hand

A year and a half ago, when I killed my Motorola flip phone, I replaced it with an identical model purchased from China on eBay. We were happy together for months before it malfunctioned. It stopped responding to any button I pushed.

I gritted my teeth and “upgraded” through AT&T, getting a red Sony Ericsson flip phone with no attractive screen on the outside (to display a photo of Isis) and teeny tiny buttons that make texting difficult. Not a huge deal, since I don’t text too much. I’m old, you know.

Then, not long afterward, the new phone stopped working. Doing that same thing where none of the buttons worked. I called tech support and the chickie asked me to open the battery cover and look for a little dot. It should be red or white. When I finally understood what she was talking about, I told her it was red.

She said, “If it’s red, it means it’s been water damaged and the warranty is no longer valid.”

Did you KNOW that? They installed a device so they can tell if your phone has been wet? Busted. The funny thing is, I don’t remember getting that phone wet. And the most ridiculous part is that the first Motorola, which I dropped one too many times so the screen no longer illuminated — its dot was still white!! The Chinese Motorola had a red dot of course, and had gotten wet a few times, but always before, it dried out eventually and worked again.

Which got me thinking. I put my SIM card back in the Chinese Motorola, and OMG, it worked!!

I stashed the Sony in my purse for emergencies and went back to using my precious Motorola. Until it stopped working again. One of the quirks I’ve discovered, when water has intruded, is that it vibrates and seems to think I’m pressing the buttons on the outside of the phone when I’m not.

By then, the Sony worked, so I went back to it for a while, testing the Motorola here and there to see if it responded to the buttons. A couple of weeks ago, finally it did. Hooray! I was so happy.

That same day, the phone was on the kitchen table while I worked at home. I walked across the house to do some cleaning, and when I returned, a water glass had been knocked over (Ahem! Leo!) and my phone, my iPod and my laptop were in a puddle of water. Just when the Motorola had dried out enough to work!!

The phone was the only thing affected, so I went back to the Sony. It was in the pocket of my hooded windbreaker on the day canoes landed at Swinomish last week. So it got soaked along with everything else as I took pictures in the pouring rain. (Oh yeah, my recently repaired Nikon D50 also is experiencing some electrical difficulties, such as not recognizing my external flash.)

Back to the Motorola I went.

Yesterday, there was a delivery of raw dog food that I was supposed to transport from Mount Vernon to Bellingham for a co-op I belong to. They make a really big deal about having your cell phone charged and on you during the process. There are a lot of people to keep track of. The thought crossed my mind that I should bring the Sony as a back-up, but I didn’t.

Then, at about the exact time the delivery was scheduled to leave Monroe for Mount Vernon, when I was expecting a call from the person bringing it to me, I spilled my Diet Coke on my phone. I immediately took off the cover to minimize the damage, turning over the phone so the battery area had plenty of air. The phone vibrated a few times and switched to camera mode by itself. It didn’t respond to the buttons, BUT I was able to receive calls on it.

By the time I had to call the people I was delivering to, the buttons worked again. Close call.

The price to replace this Motorola on eBay has gone up to about $150, otherwise I would stock up on the thing. I just know when the thing finally dies for good, the only phones on the market will be those newfangled smart phones.

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Down with DVDs

Yesterday I sang the praises of streaming Netflix. Then I went home and watched the DVD that I’ve had for a few weeks since I got it for Rob’s dad the weekend he stayed with the dogs.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1.

Man, what a lot of bullshit you’ve got to get through before you get to the movie. All these trailers and video game commercials and you have to fast-forward, because you can’t skip them or go straight to the menu.

And that’s when the DVD player is working. We’ve had some problems with multi-disc players that don’t recognize a disc is in there, or just says, “Loading, loading,” for 10 minutes, or skips and stutters and pauses. We really like having a DVD player that will play 5 or 6 discs, but get this…with instant streaming…you can play unLIMITED numbers of discs.

So yeah, Netflix, I started to have some hesitation about canceling the DVD portion of your service once you hike your rates. (Which I think is really unfair to longtime customers. Couldn’t you just apply the new rates to new customers?) Because there are still movies in my queue that I haven’t watched. They’ve been there for 8 years. And you don’t stream all of them. But guess what? I can rent them individually from Amazon and not have to wait for the disc to arrive in the mail, and maybe be scratched, and maybe not play, and maybe sit around for an entire month (or more) so I wind up paying $7.99 (or more) for that one rental.

So there.

The only problem with this plan is that when our internet goes down, we’ll really have nothing to do but read books.