Saturday, June 1, 2013
Coping with Change
I do my best to keep up with technological changes in today's world. Ignore the fact that I still own and use an iPhone 3GS (a dinosaur of iPhones). A recent change (today) occurred when I decided to combine my blogs with my Google+ account. A few days ago, I merely glanced at the information page regarding the merge, but, at that time, I just wanted to type a post and add it to my other posts. As I'm typing this post via an iPad app, I'm also looking at my Google+ profile page as the public would see it. That brings to mind another recent change: using my real name on YouTube. Anyway, I'm looking at my G+ profile page, and I notice that there's a link to my YouTube page. I want you to know that I have not posted/uploaded any videos to YouTube. I created the account so that I could watch videos and subscribe to the ones I like and view the most. Update: By the way, I just uploaded my own video; it's the one Blogger should have uploaded in my previous post (written earlier today). I'm adjusting and adapting to change! Yay!!! YouTube has this new feature called One Channel, so, naturally, since I'm on the bandwagon to technologically change with the times today, I switched to One Channel. I seem to be making a lot of changes today, but, actually, all but one of the changes are Google-related: Blogger merged to Google+, switching to One Channel in YouTube, and installing and using the Blogger app on my iPhone and iPad.
Changes, continued
Today, I'm working on PowerPoint presentations for a friend/colleague of mine. I copied and pasted a paragraph from another presentation into the one I'm currently working on. With it came animation (Glide) that no longer exists in the Microsoft 2010 PowerPoint program. After I typed a title on the slide, I wanted the Glide animation, but when I clicked on the title and looked for the animation, no such kind existed. Then, I searched online for how to add an animation from a previous version to the MS 2010 PowerPoint program.
My results were futile, and I was ready to give up. I went back into the presentation and decided to add the title's text ("Addition") to the copied/pasted text so that "Addition" would have the same animation as the other text on the slide. A light bulb, of sorts, turned on in my head: I copied the copied/pasted text with the title now added to it. Then, on a blank area of the slide, I pasted the extra text box (so now I have 2 text boxes that contain the same thing). I clicked on the extra text box, positioned the cursor immediately after the title ("Addition"), and deleted all of the text after it. Then, I resized the text box and put it at the top of the slide. Now, both the title and the text below it (2 separate text boxes) play the same animation (Glide).
I repeated the process for another slide where I had to add a text box via copy/paste from a previous-versioned presentation. This slide is called Time, and it shows a sample paragraph of how the time order is used in a paragraph or selection. The animation that came with the copied/pasted text box from another presentation is called Thread, and it is not included in the MS 2010 PowerPoint program. How annoying that is to those of us who enjoy using certain animations to convey messages to our students but those animations no longer exist in newer versions of Microsoft PowerPoint 2010!
Changes like these really irk me. I'm annoyed because MS took it upon itself to remove certain features I (and others) consider to be important. That kind of change irritates me to no end. I have to live with it or find a way to modify it. Many times, I can modify changes to suit my needs. Sometimes, I cannot.
A couple of days ago, I replaced the battery in my iPhone 3GS because I'm too poor to buy a new iPhone (I like iPhones, and there are other perks my iPhone and data plan have that I can't get from a new iPhone and data plan), and I didn't want to send the only cell phone I have to an Apple Service Center to get the battery replaced.
The old battery in my iPhone 3GS was dying; my phone would shut off during calls or texts or app use when it was at only 75 - 85% power. Online researching told me my iPhone's battery was on its last legs of life. I went to YouTube to watch videos on how to replace the old battery with a new one. I found a reputable website (www.ifixit.com) that not only showed me how to replace the battery (with a video, still photos, and step-by-step directions) but also sold me the battery replacement kit for a hair less than $20! Wow!
[The collage of pics above shows the innards of my iPhone 3GS, as well as the new and old batteries. The video that I hope will uphold after I press the Publish button shows the iPhone booting up and explains the tools I got from the Replacement kit. Then, I can be heard exclaiming joyously that the replacement process was successful.]
The next change I will have to make will be to replace the graphics card in my desktop computer. This is a change I know how to do because I replaced the old graphics card with a new one about 13 months ago. This is a change that also somewhat irritates me because I don't think I should have to replace the graphics card if it is only a little over a year old. The old graphics card lasted from 2009 to 2012. I'm wondering if the replacement card was not so new, or maybe the graphics card I bought (same version and model as old one) was just as old as the one I replaced, but it hadn't been used on any other computers. That reasoning would explain why I now have to install a new card, a newer card, actually. This time, I ordered a card from a different manufacturer. The graphics card that is now in my computer is an NVidia card (NVIDIA GeForce GTS 240). The new one I recently received in the mail (from Dell) is an AMD Radeon graphics card by VisionTek (AMD Radeon HD 7850). Once I install the new card, I hope that this change is one I will be happy with now and in the future.
If you're wondering how old my computer is, it's four years old, and I am not planning on buying a new computer for quite some time (again, because of financial reasons). My computer is very capable of handling all my computer needs despite the recent problem with the graphics card. I bought it in 2009 because it has the ability to hold up to 12 tb (terabytes) of memory. Right now, it has 1.5 tb of memory. Despite all the programs I have installed on this computer, it still is running well.
I, no doubt, will have other changes I will need to write about, but for now, I had to write about the change I was able to modify to suit my needs (ppt animations). Now, I have to finish the PowerPoint presentation, and start working on another one.
My results were futile, and I was ready to give up. I went back into the presentation and decided to add the title's text ("Addition") to the copied/pasted text so that "Addition" would have the same animation as the other text on the slide. A light bulb, of sorts, turned on in my head: I copied the copied/pasted text with the title now added to it. Then, on a blank area of the slide, I pasted the extra text box (so now I have 2 text boxes that contain the same thing). I clicked on the extra text box, positioned the cursor immediately after the title ("Addition"), and deleted all of the text after it. Then, I resized the text box and put it at the top of the slide. Now, both the title and the text below it (2 separate text boxes) play the same animation (Glide).
I repeated the process for another slide where I had to add a text box via copy/paste from a previous-versioned presentation. This slide is called Time, and it shows a sample paragraph of how the time order is used in a paragraph or selection. The animation that came with the copied/pasted text box from another presentation is called Thread, and it is not included in the MS 2010 PowerPoint program. How annoying that is to those of us who enjoy using certain animations to convey messages to our students but those animations no longer exist in newer versions of Microsoft PowerPoint 2010!
Changes like these really irk me. I'm annoyed because MS took it upon itself to remove certain features I (and others) consider to be important. That kind of change irritates me to no end. I have to live with it or find a way to modify it. Many times, I can modify changes to suit my needs. Sometimes, I cannot.
A couple of days ago, I replaced the battery in my iPhone 3GS because I'm too poor to buy a new iPhone (I like iPhones, and there are other perks my iPhone and data plan have that I can't get from a new iPhone and data plan), and I didn't want to send the only cell phone I have to an Apple Service Center to get the battery replaced.
The old battery in my iPhone 3GS was dying; my phone would shut off during calls or texts or app use when it was at only 75 - 85% power. Online researching told me my iPhone's battery was on its last legs of life. I went to YouTube to watch videos on how to replace the old battery with a new one. I found a reputable website (www.ifixit.com) that not only showed me how to replace the battery (with a video, still photos, and step-by-step directions) but also sold me the battery replacement kit for a hair less than $20! Wow!
[The collage of pics above shows the innards of my iPhone 3GS, as well as the new and old batteries. The video that I hope will uphold after I press the Publish button shows the iPhone booting up and explains the tools I got from the Replacement kit. Then, I can be heard exclaiming joyously that the replacement process was successful.]
The next change I will have to make will be to replace the graphics card in my desktop computer. This is a change I know how to do because I replaced the old graphics card with a new one about 13 months ago. This is a change that also somewhat irritates me because I don't think I should have to replace the graphics card if it is only a little over a year old. The old graphics card lasted from 2009 to 2012. I'm wondering if the replacement card was not so new, or maybe the graphics card I bought (same version and model as old one) was just as old as the one I replaced, but it hadn't been used on any other computers. That reasoning would explain why I now have to install a new card, a newer card, actually. This time, I ordered a card from a different manufacturer. The graphics card that is now in my computer is an NVidia card (NVIDIA GeForce GTS 240). The new one I recently received in the mail (from Dell) is an AMD Radeon graphics card by VisionTek (AMD Radeon HD 7850). Once I install the new card, I hope that this change is one I will be happy with now and in the future.
If you're wondering how old my computer is, it's four years old, and I am not planning on buying a new computer for quite some time (again, because of financial reasons). My computer is very capable of handling all my computer needs despite the recent problem with the graphics card. I bought it in 2009 because it has the ability to hold up to 12 tb (terabytes) of memory. Right now, it has 1.5 tb of memory. Despite all the programs I have installed on this computer, it still is running well.
I, no doubt, will have other changes I will need to write about, but for now, I had to write about the change I was able to modify to suit my needs (ppt animations). Now, I have to finish the PowerPoint presentation, and start working on another one.
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